Nick

But Kimmi at the helm, Sox would have #1 farm system every year. AAA team would be better than Sox.

It's hard for me to believe that near MVP sesaon produced by our RF was matched by our CF position.

Discussion was on how to make up for Ortiz' loss. Having Beni play entire year in LF was one of ways to make up for Ortiz' loss.

So one premise going into 2017 was that full year of Beni would upgrade our LF production. It's not working so far. I'm curious to see if he can raise his game. Or did he come to mlb fully developed? He's peaked?

Problem with long term deals is you are stuck with the contract and forced to do things you may not do under normal circumstances. Curious case of Pedroia. Truth is he is beginning to break down. He's going to require more and more off days. His body won't hold up. Because of his long term deal, Betts was moved to OF. Sure he's been great in RF. But what if we had his bat as a 2nd baseman? Also because of Pedroia, Moncada was moved to 3B. Now I would do Chris Sale all day long. But asking a young player to move off his primary position while trying to adjust to a new position at the major league level seems tad overwhelming. You can talk all you want about team friendly contract but the truth of the matter is that no one is willing to take his contract, let alone give up a player of any significance. Any other park, he's basically a singles hitter.

Now that we have Nunez, is there a need for Holt? Brentz should learn to play 1B.

I don't even have Holt in my calculation. Big raises for Pomeranz, Xander, JBJ and Betts. Throw in Leon (arb 2), Vazquez (1st year arb), Kelly (3rd year arb)....they are beginning to add up. I don't care that we go WAY OVER Tax plus $20M, I'm just being REALISTIC and playing the what if that's the magical number for Henry game. HELL IF IT WAS UP TO ME, I'D TRADE FOR BOTH VOTTO AND STANTON, RESIGN NUNEZ AND EXTEND BETTS, JBJ AND XANDER. I would love for Henry to say f*** IT, we're the Sox, our budget is $300M. If I had his money, that's what I would do.

Our raises are going to be significant, starting with picking up Sale's option. Look at our arbitration eligible guys. This is right up your alley.

I think we can field a very highly competitive team over the next two years by just going over the luxury tax limit by $19.9M and no more. Once we reach 2020, we'll likely be at the 50% tax bracket with some big financial decisions to be made. With a much more difficult system for rich teams to rebuild their farms, I'm guessing we hit some hard times by 2021. If Henry didn't go nutty after 3 last place finishes, I doubt he will after a nice 4 year stretch (2016-2019). According to my numbers, we don't even have $20M, more like $15M.

Then why didn't we just sign a big bat this year? All the talk about resetting the penalty rate was for naught? You are not serious.

2018 We'll have $130M tied up to 7 players, one of which will be playing for the Giants. Price,Sale and Porcello, Kimbrel, Pedroia, Hanley. Throw in another $16M for benefits and player salary for 15 outside of 25 major leaguers. Cap is $197M and we have approximately $50M left to field following positions. C Leon (arb 1 = $1.3M) arb 2 estimate $2.5M C Vazquez (league min $561K) arb 1 estimate $1.5M 1B Travis (league min) say $1M SS Xander (arb 1 = $4.5M) arb estimate $7M 3B Devers (league minimum) say $1M LF Beni (league min) say $1M CF JBJ (arb 1 = $3.6M) arb 2 estimate $7.5M RF Betts ($950K) arb 1 estimate $7.5M Say you go cheap with 3 non arbitration players coming off the bench $3M That's $32M .. We have $18M left for two starters and 6 bullpen arms. Two remaining starters, Pom and E Rod will be in their last and first arbitration years. (one of four for E Rod) Pom (arb 2 = $4.45M) Arb 3 estimate $8M E Rod (league minimum) Arb 1 estimate $4M Now we have $6M left for following arms Joe Kelly (arb 2 = $2.8M) arb 3 estimate $4M Matt Barnes (league min) estimate $1M Heath Hembree (league min) estimate $1M Brandon Workman ($635K) arb 2 estimate $2M Carson Smith (leauge min) arb 1 estimate $1M Tyler Thornburg (arb 1 = $2.05M) arb 2 est $2M That's total of $11M, we are over the cap by $5M, And this is without adding big bat at 1B. Moon, even going over by $20M as we've talked about, there's not much money left. f***ING PABLO. $19M DEAD MONEY. Tell me again how we're going to extend Betts for $500M over 10 years?

Is Nunez going to cost more than Young did in FA market? Sure love to have him back as a super sub. With Pedroia, Hanley, Beni and Xander, he would almost be a full time player.

Sale, Kimbrel, Nunez and Pom....now they are nice pickups by DD. We'll see what Carson Smith hype is all about. He's under team control for next three years, 2018-2020.

Can we afford to pay Sale $50M, Betts $50M, Price $31M? And that will be Deves 3rd arb year. Who knows what that will cost. No worries, Henry has tons of money, right BsTHcpr?

Is that you, Bernie?

Betts is not having a MVP year.

As i responded to other poster, we are already paying Price $31M per year for additional 5 years. There has to be a limit to how many 'big splash' we can afford. There's a difference between Henry's money and Red Sox money. Henry is willing to spend Sox money (generated from baseball revenue) but Henry is unwilling to spend Henry's money. Sox has a budget. Not sure if they have 'surplus' but one thing Henry won't do is to make additional cash infusion to Sox.

Let's see if ANY team can pay that much and field a competitive team. UNLESS THERE'S A HUGH INFLATION WE ARE CLOSE TO MAXING OUT ON BOTH GATE AND TV REVENUE. LOOK AT NESN VIEWERSHIP AS ONE EXAMPLE.

You have no overall salary structure plan.....give me your 25 man roster and see if you can fit it under $220M....then I can take you seriously about offering one player 25% of the cap. We are already paying one player $31M per year.

Lets see if the Nationals can field a competitive team with paying one player 25% of the cap money.

Yep... My point ultimately is that other teams have good players. It's not as thought we have the market cornered. Take a deep breath. Our record is pretty much the same as last year at this time. Do we miss Papi? yep. But we seem to be doing ok, especially since they gave in and grudgingly promoted Devers.

I dont like long term contracts (4 years look about right).....i can even live with this being Dustin"s final year. Players r commodities. U can always buy another one.

i'm not convinced he's worth $275M over 10 years....

4 runs on 5 hits, 2 2 run homers. Value of Power.

Brock Holt with OPS of .554. He just sucks. Does not belong. And he bats 2nd. John, have you lost your mind?