Red Sox face tough challenge with goal of cutting payroll

Boston Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom is tasked with cutting the team’s payroll before the 2020 season begins. It may require some creativity.

The Boston Red Sox have established that their primary goal for this offseason is to get themselves under the $208 million luxury tax threshold. This is way easier said than done, but they hired the right man for the job in Chaim Bloom.

Bloom was balling on a budget as an executive for the Tampa Bay Rays, as they won 96 games in 2019 and made it to the ALDS with the lowest payroll in all of baseball.

Bloom has plenty of options in terms of decreasing payroll for the Red Sox, but they all come with their drawbacks. The ideal method for the Red Sox would be to keep their top bats in the lineup and get cheaper in the rotation, if possible. The problem is, the rotation consists of aging talent such as Chris Sale and David Price, who at their current price tags are not the most enticing trade pieces.

The most popular scenario is trading away Mookie Betts. It’s amazing how this has become such a normalized concept for Red Sox fans and media seeing as Betts is arguably a top-five player in all of baseball. While keeping Betts gives the team their best chance to be competitive, trading him and his projected salary of over $27 million for next season would be a huge step towards getting below the tax threshold.

The issue here is that Betts has made it known he will be testing free agency after 2020. As a result, teams will likely hesitate to give up much value for what could amount to just one year of production. Still, it’s hard to imagine that there would be no interest at all for the 2018 AL MVP. If the Red Sox do end up trading Betts, it will completely change the landscape of the majors next year.

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As previously mentioned, the Red Sox should attempt to move at least one starting pitcher. They have a very expensive rotation right now, with Price’s $32 million annual salary for the next three years leading the way. With that contract, there is no chance a team takes on a 34-year-old Price without some added incentive. It would be a surprise if the Sox did not have to pay a portion of his deal until its expiration in order to move on.

Far more interestingly, ESPN’s Jeff Passan floated around another idea involving Price and a couple more familiar faces. In an article posted a few days ago, Passan suggested a move that would be outlandish to say the very least. In this hypothetical, the team would ship away Price, fellow starter Nathan Eovaldi, and shortstop Xander Bogaerts. Including Bogaerts is a serious sweetener for whichever team would be willing to also receive Price or Eovaldi.

I’ll preface my next comments by saying that this is merely speculation by Passan, as he even says in the article that it is not likely to occur. It hasn’t gained any further traction since the article was originally posted either. However, the mere notion of this being brought to light is enough to cause me to overreact to it.

Trading Bogaerts would be the single most heartbreaking decision that this team could do in this offseason. He has never known another organization in the majors, and just this year he agreed to a team-friendly deal at $20 million per year that runs through 2026. At this point, it would be pretty disappointing if he doesn’t end up as a Red Sox lifer.

Bogaerts is a fan-favorite coming off a career year and is one of the best shortstops in baseball. I would not be surprised if he outproduced his contract for the entirety of its duration. The only way a move like this would even be remotely worth it is if it ensured that Betts would stay long term, and that is no guarantee. Even if it was, is Betts that much better that the team should be willing to shell out between $20-30 million more to keep him over Bogaerts? I am not so sure.

Who will be dealt can be debated, but one thing is for certain; whoever the team ends up cutting ties with will be looked back at with fondness. The Sox are just a year removed from an absolutely magical season that resulted in a championship, and each of these players contributed to that. It really is a bummer that some of this core has to be broken up.

Needless to say, no one should be envying Chaim Bloom right now. Whatever decision he makes is probably going to rattle the fanbase one way or another. Unfortunate though that may be, the front office’s plan dictates that there will be some serious changes coming to this team. If there’s anything we can be completely sure of, it’s that nothing is truly off the table for the Red Sox this winter.