Fact: The Boston Red Sox have finished last in the American League East in three of the last four seasons.Also fact: The Boston Red Sox are reportedly looking at shedding more payroll this offseason before they go out and make meaningful moves.
Also fact: The Boston Red Sox’ handling of their financials is embarrassing to the fans of the organization that have watched the team fall further and further into mediocrity since winning the organization’s last World Series title in 2018.
Per Chris Cotillo of MassLIVE:
To do so, however, more subtraction may come first. According to a baseball source, the Red Sox have told at least one free agent target that they need to shed more payroll before pursuing him as aggressively as they want to. It’s no coincidence, then that the Sox shaved nearly $4 million in salary by swapping Verdugo (projected to earn $9.2 million in arbitration) for O’Neill (projected $5.5 million) and $8.6 million more (based on CBT calculations) by moving on from Sale. The bigger question is why the team is being so fine when it comes to finances when current projections have them around $200 million in committed money, well under the first competitive balance tax threshold of $237 million.
The Red Sox are nearly $40 million underneath the first CBT threshold and STILL need to cut money? I’m not asking the team to go overpay for every free agent and I’m not asking them to shell out $700 million contracts, but making meaningful upgrades that clearly don’t bankrupt the franchise should be an expectation from the fanbase – not a hope.
The Red Sox have some of the most expensive tickets in all of baseball, they’ve won four World Series titles in the last 20 years and they have one of the most profitable brands in sports. You can’t tell me it’s this bad financially. I’ll refuse to believe that.
The team should be doing everything it can to get better, but apparently, the bottom line is what matters most.
Which is just simply infuriating.
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