Nick

Winning the Division won't be easy but having Eovaldi certainly made our chances better. We don't have to take back seat to anyone. Not saying we'll win but we will be very formidable. Health is the key. Dustin back 100%. E Rod staying healthy all year. Sale returning to form all year. Eovaldi piching the way he did in October. Full year of Pearce. Steady improvement from Devers. Sox have the horses. It's now up to the players.

Per WEEI Make no mistake out it, signing Eovaldi to this sort of deal is a risk. It always is. But considering what the Red Sox know about the 28-year-old, how Patrick Corbin's recent six-year contract reminded us all of the expense that comes with trying to garner premier starting pitching talent, and the uncertainty that will be two-thirds of the Sox' starting rotation after 2019 thanks to the contracts of Sale and Rick Porcello, this one makes sense. Agian, hedging against Sale/Porcello not returning for myriads of reasons.

I'm going to repeat myself but what if we reset in 2020? We let both Sale and Porcello go along with Pearce, Moreland, Holt, Wright, and hope JD opts out. Stay with me here. We re-sign Xander to long term contract. We trade away Betts and his $20M anticipated salary for 2019 for younger pieces. Trade him to a team that's an outfielder away from winning it all. We do this with the thought of overpaying Betts for 2021. Hell give him $350M deal. I estimate our CB Payroll going into 2021 to be around $170 with just one signing, Xander. Our budget is $250M for 2021. We'll have approximately $80M to sign Betts, JBJ (incremental pay raise) and a top line starting pitcher. We start over and have a three year window. Rinse and wash. For 2021 SP Price, E Rod, Eovaldi, $25M Man, ????? LineUp Betts, Beni, Xander, Devers, Chavis, Pedroia (DH), Lin, Vaz, JBJ

We're at $240M in CB Payroll. Second penalty phase ends at $246M. We'll have $81M coming off the books between Pablo, Xander, Sale, Porcello, Moreland, Pearce and Nunez. Say no one comes back. Our CB payroll is $165M with following line-up. Arbitration raises will be due to Betts, JBJ, E Rod and others. Say $20M. Our CB Payroll is now around $185M. SP Price, Eovaldi, E Rod, Wright, Johnson, Hector. Bullpen...pretty much same as it is today. C Vaz 1B Chavis 2B Dustin SS Lin 3B Devers LF Beni CF JBJ RF Betts DH JD Assuming reset, we'll have $23M between Sale, Porcello and Xander. I'd say we sign Xander and let everyone else go. If JD opts out, it's possible to re sign Porcello and stay under the cap. Here's a radical idea. Knowing essentially that 2020 is a 'rebuilding' year, would you consider trading Betts for young talent and then turn around and sign him? That would free up another $20M or so.

Be Happy Moon. This has been a great off season. I want to feel this way next Christmas.

Vazquez caught more during the playoffs, no? Cora will not DIE with Leon regardless of what the pitchers think. You don't let the players run the team. If Vazquez is so horrible, what does it say about baseball operations people that extended his contract?

I think Moon has the copy right on THAT.

Moon, we're now at $240M in CB Payroll. Our mystical budget is $246M. Can we get a decent closer for $12M? That lst $6M will cost us $10.5M total, (surtax of 75%). I don't think that's way out of line. Kudos to Henry for going after another title. Good to be a Sox fan.

Nathan Freakin' Eovaldi!

Now the focus should be on winning the Division. We have the horses to compete in the playoffs. Can Brasier/Barnes fill the closer role? At least until July trade deadline? This is fun.

DD is decisive if nothing else. I like that about him. He reads the market well. JD market was not there last year. He waited. This year, he knew he had to jump on Eovaldi.

You probably knew that I meant Sale. Corrected.

This is where you and I disagree. Signing Eovaldi will serve two purposes. One, it will elevate our success chance for 2019 and more importantly in the playoffs. If I recall, aren't you always advocating acquiring top tier talent for SP as opposed to a fifth starter? Secondly, it will mitigate urgency for signing both Sale and Porcello after the 2019 season. My guess is it will take close to $20M 'delta' to sign both Sale and Porcello. Eovladi money can be thought of as coming from anticipated salary increase for Sale in 2020. (say a bump from $15M to $33M). It's possible Eovaldi may come close to Price's talent. As much as I want Price, 4-years for Eovaldi may be less riskier than going say 6 years, $200M for Sale. In essence, Eovaldi is taking money from Pearce/Moreland/Nunez for 2020. Between Sandoval, Sale and Porcello, that's another $45M to pay for arbitration raises. If JD and his $22M opts out, we can reset after 2019 and and will have enough money to sign Betts and JBJ.

I still think signing Eovaldi is the right move. It will allow Sox to 'go for it' one more time. If and that's a big if, he has a stellar year, it will make losing Sale little easier to swallow the following year. The staff still has some upside left in E Rod becoming a pitcher that everyone expects. Question is whether the farm can produce a legit, major league starting pitcher within next couple of years.

I would suggest resetting every 4th year and going got it other three years. So 2019 will be 2nd and 2020 will be 3rd year 'going' for and we then reset. 2017 tax reset Below $195M 2018 budget near $237M ($40M plus tax limit) 2019 budget near $246M 2020 budget near $248M. 2019 we're at $224M. We can sign Eovaldi and pick up a closer if need to in July. Say $18M for Eovaldi, putting Sox at $242M. Starting rotation of Price, Sale, Porcello, E Rod and Eovaldi. All position players are back. 2020 Sandoval contract of $18M plus Nunez contract of $5M should cover most of the arbitration raises. I'm going to assume we'll sign Xander. His delta should be covered by Pearce/Moreland pay. Keep your fingers cross and JD returns for one more year. If JD returns, we sign Sale with Porcello's contract. We lose one starter, but we still have Price, Sale, E Rod and Eovaldi. We replace 1B internally (chavis?). Gotta live with him or Dalbec. If JD leaves, then sign both Porcello and Price with JD's money, $22M. Sale at $33M and Porcello at $25M. (that's $21M raise for both combined). Sign someone cheap to handle DH. 2021 Use JBJ's money to take care of Bett's delta and other arbitration raises. Screw the reset. 2022 We'll need to trade away some veterans to pay our younger players. CBA will be reset for 2022. Hope it goes up to $250M.

Winning the world series requires top line starting pitching in my opinion. This is where I have issues with in deciding who to keep, Sale or Porcello (for 2020). Porcello is a work horse. But I rather have Sale in the playoffs. As I get older, even as a fan, my focus begins to narrow on winning it all. So at my age, 63 and counting, I want the Sox to have top tier talent to go for it. I understand that playoffs can be a crap shoot but my feeling this year was whoever won the AL, would win the World Series. Sorry LA fans. I just didn't think you were good enough to win it all and I DON'T want to feel that way about a Sox team. Either go for it or re-tool and pick another year. I don't want to be the Atlanta Braves of 1990's. We can go for it in 2019 with simpling signing Eovaldi and pick up a closer in July if the pen situation is in disarray or move one of our starters to close. We don't need to do anything else to go for it in 2019. Henry will not squander this opportunity for few measly millions. I hope that he understands no one will give a damn about how much money he had when he died. But millions will remember how many World Series he won as owner of the Sox.

One of best trade we made was to give up Miller for three months and get E Rod in return. We should have turned right around and signed Miller, a win win situation.

It's my hope that Chavis, Dalbec or any other position players are traded for a reliever. Go through the farm and see which ones can be serviceable in the pen. Relievers are fickle. I would never waste the farm on a reliever unless he's a lock down closer under team control. And not too many of those are available.

Are you talking about 2019 or 2020? This is probably the biggest hit year for arbitration with Xander, Betts, JBJ and E Rod. My thought is if Sox wants to keep all four, then we will not sign Sale and extend JD. Something has to give.

Let's cut to the chase, again. What does it cost to be under second tier penalty by a penny? Luxury tax limit will be $206M, $208M and $210M over the next 3 years. For the sake of easy computation, let's put it at $210M and we spend $250M less a penny. For 2019, we're at 30% penalty for $40M and additional 12.5% surtax on $20M. That works out to $ 14.5M ($12M + $2.5M). Thus the total cost is $264.5M ($240M in payroll/benefits + $14.5M in penalties). For 2020, we'll be at 50% penalty for $40M and additional 12.5% surtax on $20M. That works out to $22.5M ($20M + $2.5M). Thus the total cost is $272.5M. ($240M in payroll/benefits + $22.5M in penalties). For 2021, it'll be same as 2020. Total cost is $272.5M. I think Henry can live with the budget of $272.5M. If you can't compete spending $246M, $248M and $250m over the next three years, you need a different GM.

Betts will be making close to if not over $25M by the time of his 3rd arbitration raise. That amount is already baked into our budget. What's another $10M if we are rebuilding a team around him in 2021? What's the famous line in movie Rounders? "Pay that man his money." We need for Chavis to be a major league starter by 2020. We need our farm system to fortify our pen. Hell, every pitcher we have is is being converted to the pen. That should be the area we can go cheap. You can't pay everyone $20M.

Trading for Cano is the dumbest thing Sox can do.

Your corrected me for not having arbitration numbers for 2020 but you did not DEDUCT arbitration numbers for FREE AGENTS, a la Xander, Thornburg and Holt, totaling $17.5M. Let's try again with numbers you have presented. Cot's number assuming no other additions for 2019 and using mlbtraderumors estimate of arbitration numbers for 2019 you presented above. Cot's estimate for 2019 as of today $18.572M OVER the limit of $206M addition for increase in 2020 limit +2.0M addition for 2019 arbitration players becoming FA in 2020 +$17.5M (Xander, Thornburg and Holt) addition for FA Porcello $22.0M + Sale $15M + Pearce $6.25 + Moreland $6.50 + Nunez $5.0 M = +$54.75 Pablo's contract expiring +$18.455 JD opting out +$22.0 M Increase in arbitration eligible numbers from 2019 to 2020 presented by Moon above....$24.725 (Includes 1st year arb eligible players Beni and Marco) If you add them all up, Sox will have $71.408 to spend on FA. Let's say we round it down to $65M for increase in player benefits and rounding out 40 man roster. We'll be missing Xander, Sale, Porcello, Pearce, Moreland, Nunez, Holt and Thornburg. How would you allocate $65M to stay under $208M and still be competitive? SP Sale, E Rod, Wright, Hector, Johnson ...definitely need a reliable starter. Would you spend $33M of $65M on Sale? Line Up 1 Betts 2 Beni 3 Devers 4 JBJ 5 Pedey 6 Vazquez 7 DH 8 1B 9 SS It would really help if JD does not opt out for another year. That would cost us $22M, worth it having JD. Bullpe I still think we have internal options. We can't have Sale, Xander and JD without trading away someone like JBJ. (if you want to stay below $208M) For $65M, we can have Xander ($20M), Eovaldi (sign him this winter at $16M) and JD Martinez(if he does not opt out). Our lineup will be strong. Would Price, Eovaldi, E Rod, Wright, Hector, Johsnon good enough? Can anyone come up with championship team for $65M to reset in 2020? Or do we reset year later?

I guess my concern with reset during winter of his FA is to convince him we'll be competitive going forward.

I had the benefits but not the arbitration numbers. I come up with $155M but I'll buy your $160M. It would clear things up if some of our minor leaguers see the big league during 2019. Resetting after 2021 makes sense if Henry is willing to pay 50% tax on overage over $208M and additional 12.5% on overage over $228-247.9999M.