Red Sox Rumors: Swapping bad contacts key to trading David Price
If the Boston Red Sox are intent on trading David Price they should consider swapping him for another bad contract instead of eating part of his salary.
The Boston Red Sox remain focused on finding a new home for left-handed pitcher David Price and his lucrative contract that is currently clogging their payroll.
Rumors have swirled for weeks tying numerous teams to trade talks involving Price but the list of potential suitors dwindles with every free-agent signing. The Chicago White Sox were an option until they signed Dallas Keuchel. A reunion with the Toronto Blue Jays went out the window when they signed Hyun-Jin Ryu. Arizona was probably never seriously in the mix but we have to wonder if the Diamondbacks could have emerged as a surprise suitor if they failed to land Madison Bumgarner.
Boston is motivated to unload the three years and $96 million remaining on Price’s deal in order to achieve their goal of dipping under the luxury tax. Finding a team willing to absorb the entire contract is a tall task unless the Red Sox sweeten the deal with one of their best prospects – that’s not happening.
The expectation is that the Red Sox are willing to pay down a portion of Price’s salary in order to make him more attractive to trade partners. He’s clearly overpaid but the massive contracts that have been handed to pitchers in free agency this winter make Price’s remaining contract seem more palatable. Teams aren’t lining up to pay Price $32 million per year but $20 million – with Boston covering the rest of his annual salary – is reasonable considering current market conditions.
The problem with that option is that it leaves dead weight on Boston’s payroll. Yes, shedding $20 million for next season gets the Red Sox within range of the tax threshold but they still have holes to fill which will eat into those savings. It also leaves them on the hook for a large chunk of change owed in each of the following two seasons to a pitcher who will be wearing another team’s uniform.
There must be a better way for the Red Sox to trade Price without being left with the sinking feeling that they’ve been swindled. MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand suggests a feasible path that involves taking back another bad contract in order to dump Price’s larger salary.
San Diego Padres
Making a splash in free agency last year with the signing of Manny Machado showed the Padres intend to compete in the near future and they have a young crop of position players to build around. They will need to upgrade their pitching staff if they have any hope of challenging the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West though. Price could pair with Chris Paddack to give the Padres a formidable duo at the top of their rotation.
Instead of asking the Red Sox to pay a portion of Price’s contract while offering a middling package of prospects, San Diego could offer Wil Myers.
Myers has fallen out of favor after a brutal season in which he hit .239 with a .739 OPS. The Padres are motivated enough to move him that they are open to attaching prospects to entice a team to take him off their hands.
Last season was a steep decline for the former prized prospect but Myers is only a few years removed from an All-Star campaign and he bashed a career-high 30 home runs in 2017.
His meager production at the plate has to be viewed in the context of the pitcher-friendly park he played in with the Padres. His 95 OPS+ last season suggests he’s a below-average hitter but he’s not horrible. His 88.9 exit velocity was only a tick below his career rate and he set a career-high with an 11.2 Barrel Percentage, per StatCast. Myers is still capable of mashing the ball and relocating away from Petco Park should lead to a spike in productivity.
Myers is owed $22.5 million in each of the next three years plus a $1 million buyout for his 2023 club option. The appealing aspect of this trade though is that he only counts for $13.8 million against the tax based on the average annual value of the 6-year, $83 million deal he signed in 2017.
San Diego is in no danger of paying the tax so they would view this as adding less than $10 million per year to their payroll for the next three years while acquiring the better player. Meanwhile, the Red Sox save about $17 million for tax purposes and receive a power threat who can fill their void at first base.
St. Louis Cardinals
The Cardinals are already contenders after winning 91 games and the NL Central title last season but they could use another postseason-tested arm in their rotation to be considered a serious World Series threat.
Matt Carpenter‘s production fell off a cliff in his age 33 season when he hit .226 with a below-average 91 OPS+ in 129 games. The previous year saw him set career-highs with 36 home runs and a 143 OPS+ though. Is he suffering from drastic age-related decline or was this simply an exaggerated hiccup on the downward slope of his career?
Betting on some positive regression wouldn’t be a terrible idea for the Red Sox if it helps them save salary. The versatile infielder could be Boston’s solution at either first or second base, depending on which position they prefer to stick Michael Chavis. Carpenter can also fill in occasionally a third base if Rafael Devers needs a breather.
Carpenter is owed $18.5 million in each of the next two years plus a $2 million buyout on his 2022 vesting option. Boston would save $12.5 million in each of the next two seasons for tax purposes and they potentially clear the contract from their books a year earlier than Price’s deal expires.
Los Angeles Dodgers
The Dodgers have their eye on a blockbuster trade for Mookie Betts but aiming for Price is far more realistic.
While they are one of the few teams with the payroll flexibility to absorb Price’s contract, Los Angeles probably won’t pay all of his salary unless they are giving the Red Sox practically nothing in return. An alternative would be swapping Price for A.J. Pollock, who disappointed in an injury-plagued first season in Los Angeles.
Pollock hit .266 with a .795 OPS in 86 games last season. The former All-Star and Gold Glove award winner has severely declined from his peak in 2015. We could say the same about Jackie Bradley Jr. though, right? Pollack owned a 108 OPS+ last season and has been at least league-average in each of the last three years. JBJ had a 90 OPS+ last year and hasn’t been above-average since his breakout 2016 season.
The Dodgers owe Pollack $15 million in 2020 and $51 million over the next three years, including his 2023 buyout. The average annual value of his contract is only $13.75 million, allowing the Red Sox to save $17.25 million toward the tax next season. Acquiring Pollack to patrol center field enables Boston to trade Bradley in a separate deal, shedding the $11 million he’s projected to make before hitting free agency next winter.
Other potential suitors
The Los Angeles Angels, Milwaukee Brewers and Minnesota Twins are all mentioned in Feinsand’s report as teams that could be interested in Price. Unfortunately, none of them have a bad contract that would be an obvious fit for a trade.
It’s too bad that the Angels rushed to unload the final year of Zack Cozart‘s contract. It cost them their 2019 first-round draft pick to shed the $12.6 million remaining on his deal. Cozart was awful last year, producing a horrific -0.8 WAR. He had no trade value but if the Red Sox were content to salary dump Price for nothing, they could have traded him for Cozart to save nearly $20 million next year without any financial commitment beyond 2020.
The Angels could still jump into trade discussions for Price. They need a top of the rotation arm and are clearly all in after splurging on Anthony Rendon.
Milwaukee is at an interesting crossroads. They’ve been a playoff team in recent years built around an MVP-caliber star. Instead of adding to that core, they lost Yasmani Grandal and Mike Moustakas to free agency. Now they are rumored to be shopping lights-out closer Josh Hader. The Brewers appear to be trending in the wrong direction to consider them a candidate to trade for Price.
Minnesota has a clear path to repeating as division champions with the Cleveland Indians in decline but they could use a rotation upgrade to fend off the rising White Sox. The Twins aren’t big spenders though, so if they don’t have a bad contract to dump then they would push the Red Sox to eat a significant chunk of Price’s salary to accommodate a trade.
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More suitors could emerge depending on how the rest of free agency pans out. There are enough teams showing interest to suggest trading Price is a realistic option to allow the Red Sox to shed payroll. If they can do so while acquiring a useful player rather than carrying dead salary on their payroll, that would be the ideal path.