I dont particularly love or hate the youngster promotions, but what some overlook is how little the lux tax matters and therefore how throw-outable the aav is
We are not paying Roman whatever his aav is this yr. Ditto all of em. But like when you extend a young player, you try to structure the actual expenditure in-line with where it would be.
If you sign a guy with 3 pre-arb years, you will pay him like 2.5m yr 1, 3.5 yr2, 4.5 yr 3....but if you take the aav, it misleadingly makes it look like that contract (in the short term) is taking away more opportunity cost than it really is. Going by the tax hit is, frankly, stupid.
Sure , there will be another shoe to drop. If the AAV is significantly higher than the actual cash outlay in the early years, that means that the opposite must be true in the back years (thats how averages work). But theres a justification for that or a rationale, even if it goes bad.
The rationale being like: Im okay paying Bello 20m in the final 2 yrs because those would be free agent years. Or ARB3 yrs , which are high. So sure, Bello may be in AAA by then or bought out (at the rate hes going)....But thats a projection going bad, not a counter-point to teams try to structure the actual cash outlay in line with the normal format (pre-arb,pre-arb,pre-arb, arb1,arb2....)...... Nobods is going to make 20m in what would otherwise be a pre-arb year, its just this weirdo thing that people want to go by AAV. Also, you are absolutely correct to expect and factor in future inflation.
I dont think the red sox are particularly cheap. I dont think the red sox are where they are because of these pre-breslow extensions. I think the blame is 100% breslow. I dont think scaling a team this heavily towards pitching and d is a good idea.