Nick

Per OverTheMonster by Ben Buchanan On Thursday night, Edwin Encarnacion’s free agency saga finally came to an end with a 3-year, $60 million contract with the Guardians. The contract is a bit of a coup for the Guardians, especially when you consider that it comes with an option year for 2020. Of course, the local response has been a bit heated. The Red Sox are seen as having missed out here and, yes, it’s hard to argue that they did not. Even with the price of a draft pick, Encarnacion is easily a $20 million player right now, and having that fourth year be a team option goes a long way in reducing the risk for the Guardians. If a deal is a coup, yeah, you’d hope it’s your team making it. The question is: why didn’t the Red Sox get in on this? The answer is likely that there just wasn’t room in the budget, and here’s where it gets hard to really criticize the Red Sox—at least the Red Sox of the present—for missing out. The reality that we must face around this time every season is that baseball is a business, and that sometimes the decisions of general managers come down to more than “is this good value or not?” The Red Sox entered this offseason with, frankly, little room to spare in terms of money. Their Opening Day payroll in 2016 was about $198 million, and by season’s end that was up to $204 million. They dropped a few big contracts in David Ortiz, Clay Buchholz, and Koji Uehara, yes, but the reality is that $204 million was far-and-away the high-water mark in team history, nearly $20 million over the 2015 figure which was itself nearly $10 million over the previous high. It’s true that we should generally expect payroll to go up given that’s how things have worked in baseball for decades now, but that’s really only in terms of a general trend-line. On a year-to-year basis, we should expect the number to fluctuate, and it seems entirely possible that these last two offseasons saw ownership increase the budget beyond where they were generally comfortable in an attempt to return the team to a competitive level in the aftermath of 2014 and 2015. Now, that tactic didn’t really work. The last couple offseasons have seen the Red Sox spend quite a lot of money on players like Pablo Sandoval, Hanley Ramirez, and David Price. And while the latter two did contribute in 2016, the real reason the team played October baseball once more is mostly because of the farm system, with Rick Porcello the best example of money producing wins (and if he’s anything like he was this year in 2017 and beyond, his contract kind of puts Encarnacion’s to shame, though that’s neither here nor there). Still, whether the increased spending worked or not doesn’t change the fact that it’s on the books now, and not coming off for a while yet. And for all that we can bemoan some of the deals the Red Sox made in that time, well, they’ve already cost Ben Cherington his job. You’d be beating a horse that’s been dead for over a year now. If you want proof that this really did come down to budget, look no further than the man the last two major moves the Red Sox have made. They signed Mitch Moreland for $5.5 million and dumped Clay Buchholz’ salary overboard for effectively nothing in return. This doesn’t happen if there’s $20 million left in the budget.And make no mistake, it’s not about paying a small amount of luxury tax on the overage. It’s about the actual $20 million that comes first. Essentially, then, the complaint against not signing Encarnacion boils down to a complaint that the Red Sox have a budget that is not as high as some would like. That starts sounding awfully silly, though, when you look at other teams which passed on Edwin Encarnacion with payrolls that are tens of millions of dollars lower than Boston’s. The argument that a win-now Sox team shouldn’t be worrying about salary also falls a bit flat considering that they were trying to be a win-now team in 2015 and 2016 as well. Red Sox fans are never really going to be happy with the team saying they’re in win-later mode, so the argument of “spend now, save later” doesn’t really hold up. You can rage against the concept of baseball as a business all you want. It’s just not terribly useful to do so, and us Red Sox fans aren’t exactly in a position to complain.

As Moon have often pointed out, Swihart's ceiling is higher as a catcher. He needs to become competent backstop. You never want to say never but we should be done trading. We have all the pieces We are butted up against our cap. Little wiggle room we have should be saved for trade deadline. We just need everyone to remain healthy. Our team is on the field.

We had 37 starts going to someone other that Price, Porcello, E Rod, Wright and Pom. Assuming Sale can pitch 32-35 of those, how can we not be better? Ultimately pitching wins. You got your wish and I'm glad.

Better hurry up and sign him....he'll need to start his swing by New Years Day in order to catch up to a 90 mph fast ball on Opening Day.

I probably should clarify.....many express their personal opinion, I get that.... I just wanted to point out that some opinion may seem improbable because of what DD has said.....the good news is that DD could be wrong and he'll react accordingly.....send E Rod to AAA. We're all passionate about the Sox......we all want the same thing. I would have been okay with signing EE and moving on. I really thought Kopech had an upside.

We could give DD some credit for playing the hand he was dealt when it comes to Pablo. Sox can't simply ignore the fact he's under contract for another 3 years. DD is showing some restraint financially by cajoling and appealing to Pablo's sense of professionalism/pride, hoping for some on the field production at 3B. We can't simply piss away the money as we've often done in the past.

Per Boston Herald by Mastrodonato; No, the Red Sox are not a better team without Clay Buchholz. But just because they’re all-in on a three-year window doesn’t mean they should stop making smart business decisions. Dealing Buchholz and his $13.5 million to the Phillies for minor league infielder Josh Tobias was a smart business decision by president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski. And for a small loss this year, the Sox are set up to be that much better of a team in 2018 and 2019. That’s why staying under the luxury tax threshold in 2017 is so important. It’s not just so billionaire principal owner John Henry can save himself a few more bucks. On the field the Sox aren’t losing that much in Buchholz, save for depth at the back of their starting rotation. And with his injury history, it’s not even a slam dunk that he would be healthy by the time the Red Sox were in need. So they didn’t lose a security blanket. They lost the possibility of a security blanket, a security blanket that is not guaranteed to provide any security at all. Saving the money gives them a little wiggle room to make midseason acquisitions. That’s a nice bonus. Staying under the tax is what will set them up to have a productive offseason next winter, when more of Henry’s money is likely to be put to use. The Red Sox have become used to freeing up sizable chunks of salary at the end of each season with expiring contracts. That won’t be the case next winter. They’ll finally stop paying Allen Craig troubling sums of money and can buy him out with $1 million after paying him $11 million in 2017. Henry and Co. can exhale there, but Craig isn’t on the 40-man roster, so his salary isn’t counting against them for luxury tax purposes anyway. After Craig, the Red Sox will only lose Mitch Moreland’s one-year deal at $5.5 million and Chris Young’s two-year deal at $6.5 million each. What’s a team going to do with $12 million in space? The luxury tax threshold will go up, but barely, slithering from $195 million to $197 million. That won’t even create enough wiggle room for the Red Sox to afford the salary jumps from all their arbitration eligible players like Xander Bogaerts and Mookie Betts. And what about new additions to the roster? Someone will underperform in 2017. Someone will get hurt. The Red Sox will have roster needs in 2018. And they will almost certainly have to go over the tax threshold to fill those needs. That’s why they want so badly to stay under in 2017. If they don’t, it would be their third year of crossing the line. And under the new CBA, third-year offenders pay 50 percent tax on anything over, plus additional penalties once a team goes $20 million over, then more when a team goes $40 million over, including the stiff penalty of watching its first-round draft choice slide back 10 picks. But if the Red Sox stay under the threshold in 2017? Everything resets. One year later, they can feel free to go over the luxury tax threshold to make the 2018 team great, knowing first-time offenders pay only 20 percent tax. The Red Sox weren’t being cheap by trading Buchholz for an unexciting prospect. They weren’t abandoning their win-now philosophy. It was just good business for a team with an enticing three-year window to make the most out of that three years at the small cost of an unreliable seventh starte

The same posters that wanted to keep Clay and his $13.5 M now wants E Rod sent to AAA to find a spot for ABad, Do you ever pay attention to what DD is saying? He believes E Rod is #4. He has a chance to have Jon Lester like break out year at same point in their careers. You lose credibility every time you repeat it. Anyone get it that Clay's salary pays for the three recent acquisitions? Brilliant.

+ DD thinks he's better than Wright. You pitch your five best. You are too obsessed with future. You are going to hold back a kid that's on same time line as Jon Lester? Unfreaking believable. What game are you watching?

Our OF will be intact for 4 years along with Pedey, Swihart, Sandy. Xander, Pablo and Hanley for 3 years. We're good to go.

Hell it would have been a great trade without anyone coming back....we just got $13.5M back....enough to pay Sale, Thornburg and Moreland. Are you f***ing kidding me...it's about time someone paid attention to details. Theo and Ben wasted money like drunken sailors. This will set our 50% tax threshhold. More than likely we'll be able to pickup a need at trade deadline.

It will be close to $4.7M.....

Yeah, not like a knuckleballer trying to tackle second base bag........

So who do we pick with our #26 pick? Let the future rebuild begin. Picking Trey Ball was good decision. Sometimes going out on the limb gets you exactly what you deserve. Limb breaks off and then gravity kicks your ass. I am optimistic about last year's picks. I think there are some high ceiling kids that no one is talking about.

People here simply want to sweep under the rug Bogey's struggle over the last two months of 2016. He is not deserving of #2 spot. I'd prefer keeping Pedey leading off and Beni batting 2nd. But most including Sox mgmt probably think that #2 is good spot for Xander. I have my concerns. I also think Moreland should move up, #8 looks too low to me.

There's no urgency for my retirement account to maxmize every year at 12/31. Annual cutoff is ARBITRARY. THE REAL CUTOFF FOR RETIREMENT IS WHEN YOU RETIRE. Baseball is different. There's a champion crowned EVERY SINGLE YEAR. There's an award for finishing first with best rate of return. If you are going for that title, you may have a year when the return is negative. YOU MAY HAVE THE BEST RECORD OVER TEN YEAR PERIOD (best retirement fund) BUT IF YOU CAN'T EVEN WIN ONE CHAMPIONSHIP, THEN I SAY YOU FAILED IN BASEBALL. AND MOST FANS WOULD AGREE. IT'S A TERRIBLE ANALOGY.

I think you need to do a further analysis of how each player would have fit into the Sox roster in the future. Let's start with Moncada. He was ultimately let go because I believe DD values Devers higher at 3B. Suppose that is true. Where would you move Moncada? He's already been lifted from 2B due to Pedy (assuming he could have played that position). Move him to left field? Where we already have Beni. Move Beni to CF and trade Bradley Jr? Trade him for Sale? Suppose Moncada was our future 3B. Move Devers to 1B? What to do with Travis? What kind of trade value does HE have? Certainly not good enough to become a major piece for Sale. Sale trade had essence of time attached to it. His desirability aside from his ace quality was initial low AAV and two years of cost effective team options. This is why it took at the least Moncada and Kopech. The whole point is that from where I sit, one of two (Moncada/Devers) was expendable. This is why you draft best available player. You trade away the surplus when it's time. It's time. Kopech was tough one for me. I had hopes of him coming in as a reliever in late September call up. You stretch him in 2018 and get him into our rotation. I had high hopes for him. Maybe he'd be another Chris Sale. Utlitmately you pay a price to get Sale. I just don't believe you can simply throw out a list without the background information. Yes there is such a thing as a player being blocked. You get what you can get for that player to improve the major league team. Basic math is this. For Sox, you can only pay about $180M in aggregate for 20 players on the major league roster in order to say under the cap. Last five will be making the league minimum. Thus it works out to $9M per player. Let's make the math easy and say $10M per player for 20 players. Between Price, Porcello, Pable and Hanley, we need another 5 players to make the league minimum to make it work. Ultimately, you can only have so many players making $10-$30M. I think we have as much of a team that money can buy without going over the limit right now for next three years. I'm shooting to be in the world series at least twice.

Noted!

You can't separate Farm System from its major league team. You are ultimately judged by how well your mlb team performs. Only reason to have a good minor league system is to advance its players upward. That's exactly what the Sox has done. (use minor league players to supplant parent team, via promotion or by trading them for a major leaguer) It's all about replacing outgoing players via minor league player promotion, trade or FA signings. These are AFTER the season situation. After 2017 season Clay B, Chris Young, Mitch Moreland and Abad....savings in payroll $27,500 Will need to replace 1B and of depth. Sam Travis could really help out the situation if he comes through during 2017 and be major league ready for 2018 season. Will give the Sox team control until 2023. Sox really needs to be careful with how the savings are spent. Sox may want to think about using the money to extend some of the exisisting contracts. Getting into a long term contract with a new player will have dire consequences later. Can we extend Xander for average value of $25M, say 4 yrs at $100M? That's buying out two arb years and two FA years. He can then still go for a bigger payout before reaching 30. After 2018 Pom, Kimbrel, Kelly, Ross. (Price can opt out but unlikely at this point)....savings in payroll $21,100 (assuming no change to Pom arb #'s). Kimbrel can be resigned, has club option. Our bullpen depth again will be tested if we let Kelly and Ross walk. I think DD likes Pom. Porcello/Sale FA is looming. After 2019 Porcello, Sale, Thornsburg, Workman, Ramirez, Sandoval and Xander....savings in payroll of $82,625. If Kimbrel's option is picked up after 2018, then he's also in this group...savings go to $94M. Do we have enough $$$ to sign Porcello, Sale and Xander? Will need DH, 3B and a closer. Will Devers be ready or is he already on the roster? Will someone already on the team assume the closer role? Maybe Groome or someone else is ready to replace one of Porcello/Sale. After 2020 Bradley Jr, Betts, Steven Wright, Sandy Leon.....where does the money come from if we spend all $94M from previous year? Something has to give..... Maybe Kimmi has been right all along....

But you just said we gutted our future for Sale.....and we'll pay for it 8 years from now.....my head is spinning Moon....

I think everyone liked Ben. It's the march towards second consecutive last place finish that ended his career. Of course having his one hand tied behind his back when it came to signing 30+ something, tons of mileage free agent starting pitchers, did him no favors.

Lets get serious. You buy the Red Sox. How would you build a team? Think outside of box a bit. Presumably you paid about $3B for the team in 2017. Now unless you're shiek with constant oil revenue flowing in, let's assume you have to show a profit. You can't simply transfer oil money to baseball and spend $300M on 40 man roster. 1) strictly through the farm system. You live with it. You also trade out one or two years out of of team control players for fresh meat. You do several 1 for 2 or 1 for 3 type of deals to replenish the farm system. Absolutely no FA signings over $2-3M per year. Now you become the Rays. You are still making good profit but eventually TV/gate revenue will go down unless somehow you're winning on the field because your baseball people are simply better than 29 other teams in drafting and developing. It's doable but unrealistic. 2) DOES ANYONE HERE KNOW WHAT THE COST OF TOTAL MINOR LEAGUE OPERATION IS FOR A CLUB SUCH AS RED SOX. WHAT ABOUT INTERNATIONAL OPERATION? what if we go to the other extreme? Nothing but free agents on the 25 man roster. Maybe the major league rule prohibits it. But what if we trim Sox non major league operation to bear minimum? Will there be an annual savings of say $25M? Or is it more? I'm talking about players, scouts, operations staff and non baseball staff members dealing with non major league matters. What I'm getting at is can you build a team with strictly free agents? I'm not talking about everyone making $5M+ salaries. Many would make close to league minimum. How can we not field a competitive team with annual spending of luxury tax limit plus $25M or whatever the savings amount to? Will this team be competitive enough to keep up the top line? (ie gate, TV and other revenues). Obviously you go somewhere in between. I like the approach of building a team internally. Then you add pieces through trades and free agents. I THINK THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT DD IS DOING, ALBEIT HE CAME IN LATE IN THE PROCESS AND HE'S THE ONE THAT'S ADDING PIECES THROUGH TRADES AND SIGNING FREE AGENTS FOR THE FINAL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP PUSH. BEN AND THEO STARTED. (I will give that to Kimmi, unbegrudgingly.) Sox Nation had the sweet taste of winning it all, three times and now we all crave for the 4th. I believe that's what Henry and the whole gang is aiming for. They can feel it. They're close. If we can win one over the next three years, then its been worth it from their perspective. They obviously are bit more optimistic about restocking the farm, knowing they have a bit longer to do it because of several team controlled talent currently on Sox major league roster.

I'm having whatever he's having....well said. Some of our posters should go cheer for someone else's farm teams. I'd suggest Iowa, Tennessee, Myrtle Beach and South Bend teams.

I'm just glad you're not managing the Sox. You really don't have a clue how E Rod is valued by DD, do you? Send him back to minors? For what? Why not send back Beni so we can keep him under team control little longer. DD told John to play the best 3B and not worry about the contracts. E Rod belongs in Sox rotation.

1 Kimbrel, Craig rhp-c 6.066 $10,500,000 $12.00 2 Thornburg, Tyler rhp 3.057 $2,200,000 a2 a3 3 Kelly, Joe rhp 4.029 $2,600,000 a3 4 Ross, Robbie lhp 4.1 $1,800,000 a3 5 Abad, Fernando lhp 5.073 $2,000,000 6 Smith, Carson rhp 2.028 $600,000 a2 a3 7 Barnes, Matt rhp 1.11 $600.000 a2 a3 8 Hembree, Heath rhp 1.106 $600,000 a1 a2 a3 9 Workman, Brandonrhp 3.018 $600,000 a2 a3 Total Projected Payroll $21,000,000 $12 $0 $0 $0 Really not my problem if we're f***ing stupid enough to keep a $13.5M in non closer role. I stand by my post.