While there are no shortage of opinions as to why the Boston Red Sox divorce from Rafael Devers got as messy as it did, whats done is done. The Red Sox's brass will come out and try to explain themselves and Devers will talk about how happy he is to be in San Francisco. We may never truly know all of the details of why things happened the way that they did, but we do know most of the numbers as to how the trade will impact the Red Sox payroll going forward.
In trading Devers to the Giants, they shed the entirety of the money they owed to him on the massive 10 year, $313.5 million extension they gave Devers before the 2023 season. That is quite the sum that Boston is no longer on the hook for, but the details of the effects on the Red Sox payroll are a bit more complicated than that.
Breaking down the Rafael Devers trade's impact on the Red Sox payroll
So, the easy part is that from this year through 2033, Devers deal would have counted a little over $29 million against the luxury tax threshold. The Red Sox now will only have just shy of $13 million count against the CBT as they are only responsible for the prorated part of the deal while San Francisco is on the hook for the rest. Conveniently, this puts Boston very close to the luxury tax threshold this season after the trade, but we are sure that had nothing to do with their decision-making.
At first glance, this looks like the Red Sox just saved themselves $29 million a year. However, they did take on Jordan Hicks in the trade which will eat into the savings a bit. Hicks' deal with the Giants was a four year, $44 million deal that carries through 2027. Taking prorated amounts into account, that means $6.2 of Hicks' salary will be added to Boston's CBT ledger for this season and then back to $11 million a year for 2026 and 2027 in terms of luxury tax hit.
Things get a little weird when accounting for Kyle Harrison, James Tibbs, and Jose Bello as we don't know how much time, if any, they will be playing in the big leagues and how much they will be getting paid going forward. However, you can comfortably say that Boston is saving at least $16 million a year for the next two seasons against the CBT and probably around $25 million a year after that through 2033. The numbers are going to change, but those are pretty safe guesses for the moment.
As for what the Red Sox are going to do with those savings, that is the real question. One easy way to try and get back in fans' good graces would be to extend Alex Bregman, but we'll believe that the Red Sox will actually invest the savings from trading a star player when we see it.