Much has been made of the Red Sox fall from their 2018 dominance, their ownership’s stated goal to get the team under the $208MM luxury tax guideline, and the hiring of former Tampa Bay whiz-kid Chaim Bloom to get them there. Bloom’s track record of fielding a winning team on a budget is nearly unprecedented. As such, many people are quick to jump to the conclusion that Bloom’s directive is to maintain the Red Sox status as a perennial contender while slashing the payroll – utilizing the strategy of eliminating the expense of high-profile superstars and replacing them with savvy, cost-effective players selected for their ability to deliver similar results at a discount. 

I don’t think this is necessarily the case. In Tampa Bay, Bloom’s directive was to win, period. Working within the constraints of his budget, he did exactly that. He utilized creative roster-building, innovative on-field strategy, and showing near-psychic ability in the trade market. I fully expect him to do the same in Boston, however, he is not restricted by the budget in Boston. There is room in the budget for plenty of highly paid superstars. Tampa didn’t shun players like Mookie Betts and Chris Sale because they are bad, it’s because they are expensive.   

I think there is a strong argument to be made that Bloom is better suited than any other baseball executive to find a way to field a winner when the vast majority of the payroll is taken up by a relatively small portion of the roster. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if we learned that John Henry & Co hired Bloom with the directive of figuring out how to keep the current core of players together while getting under the luxury tax either in 2020 or 2021.

Everyone is acting like the Red Sox are so far blowing past the luxury guideline that it’s either pay a huge tax or trade Mookie. This simply isn’t the case. The Red Sox have $133MM on the books guaranteed for 2020, and let’s bump that up to $160MM to include Mookie’s projected arbitration loot. That sum even includes Dustin Pedroia’s money, a situation that Bloom might be able to find a creative solution for. For the time being let’s assume he can’t, but we’ll also assume reasonable health for the crop of players who will earn the rest of that $160MM – even without Pedroia setting foot on the field they take up 7 roster spots.

Bloom is left to fill out the rest of the 40 man roster with $48MM. That is nearly the entire payroll he was working with last season in Tampa Bay! He has a number of terrific options for low-cost players who are pre-arb and arbitration eligible, most notably Devers, but there are also a number of terrific bullpen pieces ready to go. Leaving a million bucks for the minor leaguers on the 40-man, we end up with $2.47MM available for each remaining 26-man roster spot. I trust Bloom to take it from here and be just fine regardless. But since we’re just waiting around for Spring to get here, let’s play it out and see what we could do with the rest of the budget. 

Eduardo Rodriguez is projected to eat up $9.5MM out of Bloom’s $48MM. I think myself and most other folks agree that keeping him around would be in the best interest of the team. However, I could make an argument that parting with E-Rod via trade would be less painful than giving up on Mookie while bringing back a similar return in terms of prospects. It certainly would go a long way toward easing the tax burden as well. For the time being, let’s assume we want to hang on to E-Rod, and we’re going to tally him up along with the other absolute locks Devers, Benintendi, Chavis, Workman, Barnes, Darwinzon Hernandez, Walden, and Taylor. That leaves us with $23MM to spend, and 10 spots to go. We’ve filled a lot of roles with talented players while keeping our remaining spend per slot similar at $2.3MM. 

If we allocate 5 of those spots to Marco Hernandez, Travis, Osich, Kelly, and either Johnson or Velasquez, we leave ourselves with $19.5MM for the final 5 spots – almost $4MM per spot! Now we can get a little more creative. We have 12 pitchers currently and I’m expecting the Sox to carry 13 so we’ll need one more, ideally a 5th starter type, maybe one who can piggy-back off of an opener. I’d love to see Jhoulys Chacin come back on a one-year “prove-it” deal, say he could be had for $3MM. I thought he showed great promise toward the end of the year, and his career track record is pretty solid as well. 

With Chacin rounding out the staff, we can turn our attention to the bench. Sandy Leon is projected to make $2.8MM in arbitration. It starts to feel like we can afford him even at that price, but he’s great, the pitchers love him, and he’s only 31. He’s a plus for the team even as an automatic out, and it is not entirely out of the question that he could again show some of the flashes of power he has displayed in the past. Why not offer him a 2-year extension worth $4MM? Or even 3 years at $5.5MM? Getting the AAV down a little, filling the back-up catcher role, and making Chris Sale happy at the same time seems like a win all around. Let’s say he takes the $4MM for 2 years, we’ve got $14.5MM left for our last 3 players.

Time to address the Jackie Bradley situation. To me if someone has to go, he is the clear choice. I’m as big a fan of his as anyone, but the reality is that his salary is going to be hefty, he may want to test free agency, and his offensive production can be spotty. This is the type of situation than Bloom has avoided like the plague in Tampa Bay, so I expect him to be thinking along similar lines. However, I think there is also an opportunity to keep him around. For starters, while it wouldn’t leave much left over for the last 2 spots, there is technically enough room to just pay him $11MM in arbitration and still be under the luxury tax mark. I don’t think that is the best plan, but depending on how confident Jackie is in the free agent market there could be a different opportunity. What do we think he would command on the free agent market next year? Or more applicably, this year if the Red Sox decided to non-tender him? Given the current free agent climate and Bradley’s weak 2019 showing, his market could be as soft as a 3-5 year deal worth around $5-7MM in AAV. Bloom could offer him a 4-year, $24MM extension. I think ultimately that offer wouldn’t quite get the job done and Bloom will likely be best served by finding a savvy trade, so let’s assume that Jackie leaves and we only receive minor league talent in return. 

We have 3 spots left. While we could roll with a starting outfield of Benintendi, Betts, and Martinez, it feels like we need someone a little better than a bench player to round out the outfield. We also could be comfortable with some type of Chavis and Travis combination at first, but this feels like the weakest spot on the roster overall, especially if we want Chavis at 2nd full time. I think we hit the free agent market for a defensive-minded outfielder and a left-handed, offensive-minded first baseman. Justin Smoak and Jerrod Dyson jump off the page for me, but they will likely be a little too pricey, especially Dyson. If Adam Jones would agree to come to Boston he could be a great fit. Derek Deitrich could play both first base as well as the outfield and could have some upside at a bargain salary. There is also an opportunity for Bobby Dalbec to emerge in either a first base or outfield role and provide us with some great production and serious savings. I’ll leave the specifics to Bloom, but I’m going to allocate $3MM per spot. Maybe he likes Dalbec and spends the rest on Dyson, or decides to wait a year on Dalbec and splits it right down the middle for 2 established free agents. That leaves us with $8.5MM for the final spot and our in-season acquisitions. Realistically we’d like to have more left over, but say we decide we can get away with only leaving $2.5MM for the acquisitions. 

That leaves us with $6MM left and one spot to fill. What do we need? Well, we all of our boxes checked off, but there are a number of areas where we wouldn’t mind some depth and/or improvement. More outfield depth would be great with Jackie Bradley picking it elsewhere. Someone in addition to Marco Hernandez to back up Devers and/or Bogaerts would be ideal. Someone who could fill in everyday at second base in the event Chavis needs to play first full time or suffers a sophomore slump would provide some reassurance. Who could provide all of those things and is a free agent projected to earn around $6MM? The one and only Brock Holt. I can’t think of a better way to top off the roster. 

While I’m clearly putting this all together based on projections, hopes, and back-of-the-napkin math, I think this situation is not nearly as daunting as it seems. If something could be done to lessen Pedroia’s cap hit, it seems like there would be almost no issues at all. No matter what your feelings are on billionaires who own the largest teams in pro sports yet are stingy with the payroll over some pocket-change financial penalties, if getting the payroll down under $208MM is really something the Red Sox want from Chaim Bloom, he is more than smart enough to get the job done without trading the best home-grown star since Yaz.