Currently, cots has us at an estimated $181M, including the player benefits and Price's $16M.
If they lower the first tax line to $180M, we're already over, unless we sign nobody and let an arb player go.
If we project getting to where last year's tax line was, we'd have about $30M to spend. If we plan on going over the first line but not the second (under the current rules), we'd have just under $50M to spend.
Not knowing what the spending budget will be, makes it hard to try and guess who we might sign, and Bloom might be waiting to know the new system before signing any big names.
Going by MLBTR's estimates on AAV contract costs, who would you suggest the Sox sign at these specific budgets?
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2021/11/top-50-mlb-free-agent-rankings.html
$20M
$40M
$60M
Without looking real hard at it, here's what I come up with off the top of my head:
$20M
9 x 3 S Matz
8 x 2 A Cobb
3 x 3 Iggy
$40M
14 x 4 Jon Gray
14 x 3 DeSclafini
9 x 3 Graveman
3 x 2 Iggy
$60M
40 x 3 Scherzer
9 x 3 Graveman
7 x 2 Villar
or
20 x 5 Baez
15 x 1 Greinke
14 x 4 J Gray
9 x 3 Graveman
I know I could do better with time, but I just wanted to get some others to give their suggestions at each level.