This may be a different topic but the more I see comments from folks, the more I wonder what the pathway would be that would garner "faith" that isn't spending 300 million dollars to buy your way out of the situation. This is not meant in anyway to be a "YOU DO IT BETTER" thing but I am struggling to find a good plan to rectify the situation.
You inherit the Red Sox after the 2019 season. You have an 84-78 team that probably got a bit unlucky Pyth Wise but maybe a bit lucky in it being the last year before a lot of wheels fall off. There is a promising and very strong offensive core in X, Devers, JDM, and Mookie with some potentially interesting secondary pieces for different reasons and some decent journeyman types but no real bench depth. The rotation on the other hand is pretty iffy - Sale and Price are beginning to show issues following their extensions/contracts, Porcello bottomed out, E-Rod is alright, Eovaldi didn't do anything in 2019 but obviously has stuff. Workman is your relief ace and everything behind him is not great. Your farm is pretty barren. The top prospect is Casas and he will still be a prospect three years from now. Your second prospect won't be 40 man worthy three years from now. Of the Top 10 the only one you will get any value out of in the next three years is Tanner Houck at the rate of about 60 innings a year. So you're taking an 84 win team with a ton of cash tied up in pitchers who won't pitch and a farm system whose top talent will bring you nothing and an offense with no depth beyond the current starting nine. What is the plan within what we assume are the restrictions of this ownership group - namely they will exceed the tax for reason but they're not gonna spend like the Mets.
This is a really, really tough puzzle to solve without blowing it up, spending a ton of extra cash, and/or a lot of patience and frankly none of those three things seem to be present in Boston. Would Betts even take 12/360 if Boston offered it pre-pandemic? Should Boston be engaging Devers in extension negotiations earlier before a down season as a cost controlled asset? What if they chose to work with Benny instead? Someone proposed not spending money on a ton of flotsam and jetsam and instead trying for three mid level FAs and a bunch of minor leaguers, which is one approach, but it's really not that easy to come up with.
Edit: Someone else mentioned it but the 2019 Sox, to me, felt a lot like the end of the Brady / beginning of Mac era Patriots we're seeing now. They expended a lot of resoruces to get those end of the era teams as good as they could get them and combined on whiffing on some drafts and signings to where a lot of the core couldn't hold up any more. They're suffering similar growing pains.
I think this is a really interesting topic and a fair question. I'm not sure if you meant $300m as in "one contract" or $300m as in "total payroll" so I'm going to assume the latter.
They needed to trade Betts. He didn't seem to want to be here UNLESS we offered him the absolute most money. So moving him and getting under the tax to re-sign guys like Devers and Bogaerts as your core made a ton of sense, especially because we were "adding" a decent cost-controlled option for a corner OF slot and could ostensibly see a situation looking like Benintendi, Bogaerts, Devers and Verdugo occupying some manner of 1-6 slots in the line up for the next decade.
Instead Bloom decided to trade Benintendi based on having 14 awful games in a pandemic for nothing of value, which I will never get. Beni wasn't a "star" but his worst season was an exactly average hitter (99 OPS+) where his defense STILL made him a 1.8 bWAR player. But when you can get Franchy Cordero for that guy, I guess you have to do it. He elected not to make Bogaerts a serious offer last spring and then misread the market this year. He also probably p*ssed off Devers in the process. Granted, I don't know this for sure, but I tend to trust Speier as a reporter and if Bloom had simply offered Bogaerts 6/$140 last year, he's likely still here on a steal of a contact.
I'm not sure if you meant me, but as I mentioned, I would have paid Bogaerts a little less than SD did, and I also would have paid Correa what SF did to fix losing Bogaerts.
Short of that, I still WOULD have signed a lot of mid tier FAs the past couple of years (choose any of Stroman, Schwarber, Tallion, Senga, Bassitt, Abreu, Jansen - I liked this, Yoshida - liked this too, Rizzo, Josh Bell, Jon Gray) but to be fair, I also would have applauded signing guys last year whom haven't worked out (Castellanos, re-signing Rodriguez, Steven Matz, Eddie Rosario, and I loved the Story deal).
That's all water under the bridge. What I'd like to see us do now (I'm not going to speculate on trades to acquire impact talent because I'm not a GM and I have no idea how the trade market works - as in would Milwaukee trade Corbin Burnes and Adames for Mayer, Houck, Nick Yorke and Mata I have no idea, so I won't guess).
First thing - I'd blow it up. Trade Pivetta, Verdugo, Devers (if he won't sign an extension), Arroyo, Schrieber, offer to trade Herandez if he wants. The major league roster isn't good, and I don't think whatever is left in free agency makes it more than a "maybe we're the last wild card if everything breaks exactly right" kind of roster. Literally anything besides Whitlock, Bello, Casas and Houck since they don't have the choice to leave for 5/6 years or whatever the number is, and there is at least still potential for them to be part of the core.
They won't do that (I would), so:,
Sign Andrew Benintendi (I'll call it 4 at $15m for $60m). Sign Jurickson Profar (call it 4yrs at $12m for $48m). Sign Michael Conforto (no idea, but lets go with 1yr / $12m, team option to add on 2yrs / $20m / $40m). Sign Michael Wacha (2yrs at $10m for $20m). Eovalidi (2yrs at $13m for $26m). I'd also give Devers literally whatever he wants to extend him. Literally, anything.
Line up of McGuire, Casas (L), Story (R), Devers (L), Profar (S), Benintendi (L), Hernandez (R), Conforto (L), Yoshida (L). Rotation of Eovalid, Wacha, Whitlock, Bello, Houck.
I also move Verdugo, Pivetta (we'd get pretty good prospects) Arroyo, Brasier, Hosmer (we'd get literally nothing, but hope someone pays it) to get us under the Luxury Tax.
To be fair, I don't think this is great and I don't think it's a playoff team, but I think we've already massively failed the last two off-seasons (before 2022 and 2023) as well as the 2022 trade deadline, and now it's trying to mitigate the suck with some upside. Hopefully Wacha, Eovaldi, Jansen and Martin pitch well enough to move them for prospects this trade deadline - and unless we're at least in the wild card slot at the time - not chasing it, TRADE THEM.