At some point, there has to be a serious discussion about convincing Papi to return for at least one more year. It's much cheaper option for Sox to pay say one year at $25M than to pursue some overpriced 1B/DH type that requires multiple years. That will also give us time to let Sam Travis show us if he can return and be a big league player.
Theoretically we will have Koji's $9M come off the books. Payroll for our younger talent is still manageable with early arbitration years coming up. Don't forget Clay B's $13M. I would target Hill as our #5 and give him $7M plus innings pitched laced bonuses. Say $1M for every 25 innings pitched over 100 innings. Someone here probably has better grasp on performance bonus.
We sure have plenty of dead money on our roster.......$40M tied up on two guys, one is out for the year and other is a singles hitter making $20M and he's projected to be our DH.