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So what are the other third year penalties besides the 40% tax?

You left out Ellsbury, who got 9.5 fWAR of his career total of 30.3 in his age 27 season. But then Ellsbury is an example of why not. Had the Sox paid him in accordance with his age 27 season production, it would have been a Contractual Disaster of Crawfordian Proportions...

Since Ted Williams? Williams had a career high 11.8 fWAR in his age 27 season...

Esepcially pre-steroid. But for real, Rice was averaging about 4.8 fWAR through age 26. Then plummeted down to 3 fWAR per year the remainder of his career. And it's not like it was just dragged down by the last couple seasons, which were bad by this metric. He started getting 2 and 3 fWAR seasons fairly regularly, and only topped 4 fWAR twice after age 26. He topped 5 fWAR three times between ages 24 and 26...

At age 27, Jim Rice actually started to decline as a hitter...

Dropping 10 places in the draft is negligible? So you prefer Brady Aiken over Andrew Benintendi?

THen what was Speier referring to?

And maybe the Sox can give Dalbec some reps at 2B. The way teams play infield defense nowadays, with all these shifts that put the 2B in short right field, maybe a strong arm becomes more important than range for the position. And as he is 6'4", he might not be as agile and mobile as some 2B like Peraza or Lin, but he can make some of that up diminished range with his extended reach, especially if he is willing and capable of diving for a few groundballs...

So Derek Carr can be the most expensive backup in the league? Carr isn't a horrible QB. He might even be better if they didn't keep trading and cutting his best receivers and leave him with a corps headlined by Tyrell Williams and Hunter Renfrow...

I would think so. And Ruiz is not the same as he once was. He was #1 on the Dodgers system before 2019, but he has fallen down the ranks. Reportedly his hard hit rate dropped significantly this past year, and his defense is a work in progress, but nothing horrible. Cartaya impressed more, but he is younger and much, much further away. But if I'm the Dodgers, I am less likely to ever need Ruiz. Ruiz is still a good prospect, but maybe not what he once was. And the emergence of Will Smith made him superfluous and therefore should be more available in any trade...

More making a point about the size of the tax portion of the CBA penalties. It's the rest of the stuff I think Henry wants to avoid. You know - IFA money, draft picks, first born children. That kind of stuff...

The luxury tax payments are the smallest part of it. The Sox paid more money to both each Sandoval and Pedroia last year than they paid in tax money, and paid nearly as much in tax money as they paid to Rusney Castillo...

If I'm the Dodgers, I trade Ruiz over Cartaya. Granted, I don't have as much info to go on as they do. But it seems to be everything written about these two players, Cartaya is the superior defender, and Ruiz stock is actually now what it was when he was at the lower levels. Also, with Will Smith on the parent club, Cartaya's timeline makes him more likely to reach the majors when Smith is reaching free agency. (That does operate on the assumption he ever reaches them at all.) Ruiz, on the other hand, is already in the upper minors, and while he is certainly more likely to reach the majors than Cartaya, he finds himself blocked at his primary position.

This is vital if you want to keep Mookie long term. I know a lot of people think it's a given that if the Sox trade Mookie, he isn't coming back. I would call it very possible, but far from a given. Keeping Mookie and going for it all in 2020 is more likely to bring a repeat of 2019 than of 2018. Also, keeping Mookie certainly looks like bringing him back for 2021 is not likely at all, given how spending has been lately. And even if all the stars align, and the Sox keep Mookie for 2020, and then extend him for 2021 and beyond, the team surrounding him is not likely to be all that great. The Sox would have about $140 million or so tied up in Mooke, Price, Sale, Bogaerts and Eovaldi and still have 21 roster spots to fill for an average about $5mill per player, assuming Henry keeps the budget that high. This would be substantially easier if the Sox had a few minimum wage players coming through the pipeline just to fill some roster spots. But even then, what does the final team look like? Having minimum wage contributing players would be idea, but there is a shortage of those in the sox farm right now. However, if the Sox can pull of a Mookie/Price trade (or maybe even just a Mookie trade), they can hedge their bets against those minimum wage contributors by getting other options from the Dodger farm system or Padre farm system, not to mention reset the luxury tax penalties, and possibly even shed an enormous contract in Price and replace his spot in the rotation. If this all works out, trading Mookie actually solves a bunch of problems for the Sox that will happen after 2020...

It all depends on their plans. Clearly the Sox are preparing themselves for a 2020 without Mookie. Or at the very least, considering it. If they can include Price in the deal, they can easily reset. And if they get a SP (Gonsolin? Ferguson?) and a position player or two (Verdugo? Downs?), they can much more easily affford to bring Mookie back in 2021. Mookie is signing somewhere after this year, nd it will be somewhere that can clearly afford the a player who is either the most expensive player in the game or very close to it. If all this happens, the large market Red Sox two biggest contracts left will be Chris Sale ($110 mill over 5 years) and Xander Bogaerts ($100 mill over 5 years). They certainly jump to the top of the list of teams that can afford Mookie. The primary comp might be the Dodgers, aka Mookie's Other Team (at least how it looks so far). But the Dodgers rarely give those huge contracts to players outside their organization and will be facing the first year of arbitration of Cody Bellinger. They might prioritize extending Cody over bringing back Mookie. They certainly could do both, but it's not something this team seems to do very often. As I have pointed out before the current longest contract in the Dodger organization is the 6 year $30mill contract signed by 28yo Cuban RHP Yasiel Sierra. No one else has more than 4 unless AJ Pollock's fifth year option is exercised. When it comes to free agency, Friedman sometimes appears to have a small market mindset...

And when they make a movie of Cora's life, it will undoubtedly be called "Bang The Garbage Can Slowly"

Kraft reportedly offered him $30 million. If true, that says a lot more about his likelihood to play in the NFL next year than any cryptic tweet or Super Bowl ad that was probably filmed last August. It also says a lot about where he will be playing...

Losing draft picks should incentivize the Red Sox to make a Mookie trade. The farm is fairly weak and, even if they reset and re-sign Mookie, they won't have enough decent minimum wage players coming to fill out a competitive roster...

AJ Hinch said that once...

Unless the Sox hire the truck driver to manage the team...

Competiive Balance Draft picks can be traded. Not compensatory draft picks. Compensatory draft picks are for losing free agents who reject qualifying offers. Competitive Balance Draft picks are assigned to teams based on low revenue and small market criteria. There are only 20 such picks per year, and not every team gets one...

But MLB has added the ability to trade recent draft picks in the last couple of years, They might be headed that way soon...

Ditto on much. But bear in mind this “consensus” involves zero members of the front office of the Dodgers and the Red Sox. It’s not much more valuable than any wish list any of us can come to a “consensus” on...

Gammons was talking to 3 NL Execs not from the Dodgers who were trying to predict a package. It did look heavy, with Verdugo, Jeter Downs, LHP Caleb Ferguson and another prospect. If Bradford had actual info, he would have posted it. But it just appears to me that, like me, Bradford thought that package was a tad heavy and some of these Execs are a little looser with other teams’ prospects. Ultimately there was no info to be gleaned either way from either tweet...

If you think the Pedroia deal is a drain, I don’t know what to say. Pedroia was paid less last year than two players who weren’t even on the team...