To Exceed the CBT, or not . . . that is the question

Is this a general thread about the CBT or about the Red Sox?

The Red Sox aren't close to the CBT. They have 75+ to spend before they get to the line. They will be more than 100+ million next season even Giolito stays. There isn't enough talent on the market where it would make sense to spend over 50 million.

It is why everyone was upset about YY and why Mookie keeps being brought up. Once again Dodger like prices for Marlins like results, BLOOM BALL BABY!

TomRicardo said:

The Red Sox aren't close to the CBT. They have 75+ to spend before they get to the line. They will be more than 100+ million next season even Giolito stays. There isn't enough talent on the market where it would make sense to spend over 50 million.

Click to expand...

They are ~35 from the CBT currently, 75 from CBT +40.

simplicio said:

They are ~35 from the CBT currently, 75 from CBT +40.

Click to expand...

Right. I think some people think of the +40 as the true threshold because until you pass that it's only about money. The cumulative penalties sting for the owner but I'm not sure that any fans should really care, unless the owner is so cash strapped that paying CBT penalties will lead to less spending in future years. It's the +40 that seems to matter for competition. I think criticism for Henry et al. trying to stay below the first tier are somewhat justified because, again, it's not our money. But I also think that once you cross the first threshold, you should get your money's worth. If you go over, might as well go $39 million over.

But, in general, yeah -- if a team wants to spend right up to the +40 limit every year but not cross it, the cost of doing so is an extra $24.8 million each year starting in the third year (a bit less in the first two consecutive years). So when we talk about the team not wanting to cross the low threshold, that's really what we're talking about -- Henry wanting to save $1 to $24.8 million a year. Crossing the +40 is a whole other kettle of fish.

The more directly pertinent question now appears to be whether they will spend close to the 233M.

Redsox payroll on twitter advises that "the Sox are currently at ~$201MM+ in projected CBT payroll for 2024" or 32M short of anything with CBT implications, which is why the reporting that we had to move salary in a trade to sign a free agent is so puzzling/troubling. Plenty of room here for 25M per year for Montgomery for eg without moving Jansen or Yoshida.

Last year I understand we came in at approx 225M, hence there is another 24M to spend on 2024 to just maintain last years payroll.

I guess we will know soon enough.

KillerBs said:

The more directly pertinent question now appears to be whether they will spend close to the 233M.

Redsox payroll on twitter advises that "the Sox are currently at ~$201MM+ in projected CBT payroll for 2024" or 32M short of anything with CBT implications, which is why the reporting that we had to move salary in a trade to sign a free agent is so puzzling/troubling. Plenty of room here for 25M per year for Montgomery for eg without moving Jansen or Yoshida.

Last year I understand we came in at approx 225M, hence there is another 24M to spend on 2024 to just maintain last years payroll.

I guess we will know soon enough.

Click to expand...

Thats at odds with Spotrac and Cots. Do they have a break down?

Yes, it's this:
View: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zPx_cKCQ7TQjab2kPM4zIhEFSDxrTpLLIEZr2xh5E8g/edit?usp=drivesdk

TomRicardo said:

Thats at odds with Spotrac and Cots. Do they have a break down?

Click to expand...

This is RedSoxPayroll's spreadsheet.

It appears to me that his estimates on bonuses are higher than Cots/Spotrac, and he's also counting Justin Turner's buyout for 2024 where the others are counting it toward 2023 (I believe Cot's/Spotrac has that correct).

DennyDoyle'sBoil said:

If you go over, might as well go $39 million over.

Click to expand...

Shrug. If you're competitive yes - the bottom line is that nobody wants to spend big money on junky players.

Their 3 best prospects (Mayer, Anthony, Teel) are now in AA. 3 of their 5 best prospects from a couple years ago (Casas, Bello, Duran) just had successful first full MLB seasons. They have $32M to play with before any CBT implications, and by the time next winter comes around, they'll have up to another ~$50M off the books between Sale, Jansen, Pivetta, Martin, and O'Neill. Oh and Giolito is another ~$20M.

With the new playoff structure, we've had multiple teams with 84 to 89 wins make the postseason. There's still time, but if they come out of this offseason with nothing more than Giolito replacing Sale + Paxton's innings and an Adam Duvall reunion it's a disappointment. There's no real excuse for a top 3 revenue, top 3 cost of attendance team like the Red Sox to be closer in payroll to teams like D-backs than they are to even the non-LAD/NYY luxury tax teams like the Braves and Blue Jays.

I can at least understand wanting to avoid 7 year deals for guys like Montgomery and Snell for now at least, but penny pinching on 1-3 year deals for middle class FAs like Teoscar, Soler, Imanaga, Stroman, etc. or requiring a salary dump as a prerequisite for such deals seems short-sighted. A 2-year deal for Soler at a $16M AAV should have no real financial impact on their ability to spend next year. Neither should a 4 or 5 year deal at a $18M AAV for someone like Imanaga. If that takes you a couple million over the first threshold, all it means is John Henry has to pay $500k in tax.

They would immediately be back under the 1st threshold by next offseason and could still sign multiple top free agent like Burnes or Fried while remaining under the threshold even after arb increases. If Imanaga ends up as more of a back end of the rotation type guy, well that's not so far off what guys like Taillon and Walker got in FA last year. At least you have another innings eater who doesn't walk anyone. If like some folks believe, the fastball really plays up and he's just 10% above average, $18M per year is a steal. Either way, with only $113M on the books in 2025 and no one who has started more than 25 games in a season on the roster besides Bello (Giolito and Pivetta are FAs), it seems like a no brainer unless the bidding gets completely out of control.

Red(s)HawksFan said:

This is RedSoxPayroll's spreadsheet.

It appears to me that his estimates on bonuses are higher than Cots/Spotrac, and he's also counting Justin Turner's buyout for 2024 where the others are counting it toward 2023 (I believe Cot's/Spotrac has that correct).

Click to expand...

It calculates the minor league payroll incorrectly, that is the difference. The minor league players on the 40 are counted 2.25 million against the CBT not the sum of their bonuses and salaries.

Edit - that is to prevent people from optioning players down to try to sneak under the luxury tax threshold

Yo La Tengo said:

Lots of discussion about Breslow's potential moves and the impact of the Competitive Balance Tax. Full disclosure, I am not a CBT expert but I feel like it might be helpful to have a thread that lays out the basics since I think it is a common misconception, even here on SOSH, that the penalties are much more harsh than the reality.

The primary penalties are a tax assessed on the overage. So, as an example, last year Atlanta had a CBT payroll of about $249 million, the CBT threshold was $233 million, and they were assessed a tax of $3.2 million. That's it. Atlanta has to pay a little over $3 million as an extra tax. If they have a CBT payroll of $249 in 2024, they would be required to pay $3.6 million this year, since the penalty goes up, but so does the penalty threshold. If they had the same CBT payroll in 2025, they would pay $4 million the penalty would actually go down in 2026, to $2.5 million.

So, let's say the Sox go crazy and end up with a CBT payroll of $277 million next year. The penalty would a payment of $12.8 million.

I do think it makes sense to stay below the +$40 million threshold, in order to avoid having the team's first round draft pick bumped 10 spots. But otherwise, I see no reason for the Sox to avoid the CBT threshold over the next few seasons.


View attachment 76311

View attachment 76312

Click to expand...

Thank you for starting this thread. I hear about thresholds and penalties regularly but it’s great to have them broken down here.

I agree with TR. The gap now for penalties is far off. Not going to get there easily with mid free agents. That is why YY choosing LA suck but nothing to Sox could reasonably do. He was a guy to spend those gap $$$ on.

The Mookie trade also sucks but they were on the verge of harsh penalties, the price was high, the high risk of nothing in return was real and most importantly, the team appeared to be headed down. (While the rest of the division was up)

I am glad there is some youth on the team and at/above AA. But unfortunately, the Sox are going to have to gamble and overpay on some B +/- players (Yoshida types).

Yo La Tengo said:

I think they also have lots of room to consider team friendly extensions for young players and taking on a bad contract via trade that includes a good young player. I don't see any reason to not take advantage of their financial advantages, especially with many teams constrained by the uncertainty related to the possible collapse of several regional sports networks.

Click to expand...

The obvious two are Bello and Casas maybe Crawford.

1. What do we think those extensions would look like?
2. Why would Bello and Casas go team friendly?
3. With so much control left… Should the Sox see how this year plays out? It will only add money.

I respect the notion of the thread, but man I’m getting sick of talking/reading about contracts. Way too much discussion about $$$ and not enough about actual baseball.

The_Dali said:

I respect the notion of the thread, but man I’m getting sick of talking/reading about contracts. Way too much discussion about $$$ and not enough about actual baseball.

Click to expand...

Free Agents do tend to want to be paid for their services. But nothing is preventing you from starting another thread and talking about actual baseball

The_Dali said:

I respect the notion of the thread, but man I’m getting sick of talking/reading about contracts. Way too much discussion about $$$ and not enough about actual baseball.

Click to expand...

I am not fixing to get lectured by Sam Kennedy's burner account.


Clearly spending relative to the CBT threshold is pertinent, as the team has publicly stated in the past that it drives decision-making. It's not a topic for everyone of course.

Probably not as pertinent now since we're shopping at TJ Maxx, but a topic nonetheless.

If they don't spend up to the threshold on FAs, and similar to looking for extensions for their players...are there any injured FAs out there that they can sign to Paxton type contracts (2+ year deal, looking towards 2025+). I think Brandon Woodruff was discussed around here at the start of FA, but haven't heard anything recently.
Downside is that it takes a 40 man spot until they can put the player on 60 day IL once the season starts, correct?

From McCaffrey in the Athletic-- it might not the luxury tax that is causing the Red Sox to not want to spend more than around $225 million this year.

https://theathletic.com/5193244/2024/01/11/red-sox-ownership-questions-mailbag/

One thing I think what’s received less attention is the $1.6 billion project approved last summer by the Boston Planning and Development Agency to overhaul the Fenway area. New shops, apartments, labs, offices and restaurants will permeate the Jersey Street and Brookline Ave area surrounding the ballpark in the coming years. Part of the project has already been approved, but there is a second part still pending before construction can begin. That’s a significant amount of money and I do have to wonder if some of that is what’s at play here with the reduced Red Sox payroll. I don’t think they’d sell in the middle of this long-term project and in 2022, Henry told us, “Every few years I read that the team is for sale, but our actual internal conversations always center on the future.”

Click to expand...

FSG is going to need to spend a LOT of money on this project soon.

Sam Kennedy and Co. are apprehensive about sharing too much about their financials, but it makes sense that that amount of capital, directly tied to the Fenway area, would be affecting the team’s payroll in some way. Kennedy has long said FSG’s separate entities — whether it be the Red Sox, Liverpool football club, Roush Racing, the Pittsburgh Penguins, etc. — all operate on their own budgets and don’t affect moves within other franchises, but this Fenway development is so closely tied to the Red Sox it might be different. The main factor here though is that if ownership isn’t fielding a team that can compete in the American League East, the immense amount of money poured into sprucing up the area, won’t matter if attendance keeps slipping and the product on the field suffers. With all that said, investing in development of the area is a good way to entice a buyer down the line — an iconic team and a bustling, economically fruitful area around the park.

Click to expand...

It's all speculation, but it seems to make sense.

The problem is that frustration is so high right now, building up around the park won’t matter if no one is coming to games anymore. I think Henry firmly believes spending around $225 million for payroll should be enough to field a competitive team. It sounds more and more like he didn’t think Bloom made the right moves with the money he was allotted to spend. Whether that’s fair or not is another discussion. Breslow seems to be entering a similar paradox of finding the best talent for a set payroll. There are successful teams with lower payrolls, but the best players require top money and the best players help win games more often than not. I’m sure Henry looks at the likes of the Mets and Padres of last year as spending exorbitantly and not winning, so that likely further validates his view trying to win within a set payroll window.

Click to expand...

Seems like they should be able to make this investment without affecting player payroll, so maybe this speculation is off. But I'm just posting it here because it might be one factor that could possibly be impacting the team's payroll that doesn't have anything to do with the luxury tax.

How much of this is that ownership has been around long enough to believe it has learned that tippy top payrolls don't prove anymore successful year-in-year-out than top 10 payrolls? How much of this is that ownership feels it has earned goodwill due to 2004, 2007, 2013, and 2018 that they are now going to run the team how they want without much concern for fan backlash regarding payroll? In other words: "We've sacrificed profits for high payrolls, in years past and we got you your damn rings. Now back off while we get costs under control so we can make some money here."

I posted this in the "rumors" thread, but thought it'd be relevant here.

McCaffrey had a mailbag today. She is someone that (like Speier) I find incredibly well sourced, reliable, and balanced. Others can of course disagree, but I've always liked her stuff.

I've long assumed the budget for every year is $Luxury Tax Threshold and that baseball ops gets to spend how they see fit. This seems to further corroborate that FSG sets a budget and then basically stays out of it, but it seems we should maybe expect that budget to be right around 97% of $LTT (or in this case, $225m).

"I think Henry firmly believes spending around $225 million for payroll should be enough to field a competitive team. It sounds more and more like he didn’t think Bloom made the right moves with the money he was allotted to spend. Whether that’s fair or not is another discussion. Breslow seems to be entering a similar paradox of finding the best talent for a set payroll."

(The Mets and Padres last year) "validates his view trying to win within a set payroll window."

"I think it’s completely fair for fans to be angry about sky high ticket prices and billionaire owners not spending to their full means. But I’m also not sure they’ll change anytime soon."

https://theathletic.com/5193244/2024/01/11/red-sox-ownership-questions-mailbag/

Big Papi's Mango Salsa said:

I posted this in the "rumors" thread, but thought it'd be relevant here.

McCaffrey had a mailbag today. She is someone that (like Speier) I find incredibly well sourced, reliable, and balanced. Others can of course disagree, but I've always liked her stuff.

I've long assumed the budget for every year is $Luxury Tax Threshold and that baseball ops gets to spend how they see fit. This seems to further corroborate that FSG sets a budget and then basically stays out of it, but it seems we should maybe expect that budget to be right around 97% of $LTT (or in this case, $225m).

"I think Henry firmly believes spending around $225 million for payroll should be enough to field a competitive team. It sounds more and more like he didn’t think Bloom made the right moves with the money he was allotted to spend. Whether that’s fair or not is another discussion. Breslow seems to be entering a similar paradox of finding the best talent for a set payroll."

(The Mets and Padres last year) "validates his view trying to win within a set payroll window."

"I think it’s completely fair for fans to be angry about sky high ticket prices and billionaire owners not spending to their full means. But I’m also not sure they’ll change anytime soon."

https://theathletic.com/5193244/2024/01/11/red-sox-ownership-questions-mailbag/

Click to expand...

It’s maddening that the increase in franchise value of billions isn’t factoring into the budget, but financing a project that will produce even more revenue for FSG (edit) might. But there you go.

Just to dash some of my remaining hopes that the space is being left for extensions…

Does any increase impact the current FY budget, or does it matter how it’s written (extension vs net new contract or some more complicated version)? Having hard time parsing this

@sezwho - to be fair (and I have no idea if this is what will happen / is what's happening - but it's logical).

FSG is fed up with the way Bloom ran the budget of $225m and basically took $225m and lit it on fire (I know I was). Compounded with the fact that when he had a chance to sell off and expedite the rebuild in 2022 and 2023 he chose not to, and he chose...poorly.

So they fire Bloom. Breslow comes in and is told he's going to have the budget of $97% of LTT (I'm just going with that number for short-hand because I trust that FSG realizes that the LTT is going up in subsequent seasons), so Breslow has $227m to use this year, or call it $26m left to spend.

He WANTS to make some extensions AND wants to add some pieces, but has to do it within the $227m budget he's allotted. So he needs to get rid of some of the deals that Bloom signed or mistakes he made (ie not trading Sale), so now at least one of those is done.

If he wants to add Montgomery (or Snell, or Stroman) and give an extension to Pivetta (which I for one think would be great) then you do need to get rid of someone first, to make sure you don't go over the budget. I bet he'd love to get rid of Story, but that's probably not feasible, so you look to players that might have some value (and aren't Pivetta) and Jansen and Martin would be the literal top of that list.

If you sign Montgomery (7/$175m/$25m) extend Pivetta to something a bit more than Lugo (3/$50/$16.75m) AND move those two, you can actually still improve the rotation and not suffer in the 'pen.

$201m right now. Say you eat 1/2 the money on Jansen and Martin to get better prospects.

Budget is now at $231m. You've gone over the $227m BUT you're safely under the $LTT of $237m, so I could certainly see FSG's consent to that.


Rotation becomes Montgomery, Bello, Giolito, Pivetta, Crawford. Bullpen becomes Whitlock and Houck in some capacity in the 8th and 9th, with whoever else is left on the roster.

Big Papi's Mango Salsa said:

If you sign Montgomery (7/$175m/$25m) extend Pivetta to something a bit more than Lugo (3/$50/$16.75m) AND move those two, you can actually still improve the rotation and not suffer in the 'pen.

$201m right now. Say you eat 1/2 the money on Jansen and Martin to get better prospects.

Budget is now at $231m. You've gone over the $227m BUT you're safely under the $LTT of $237m, so I could certainly see FSG's consent to that.

Click to expand...

I think you might even have more wiggle room. If we’re at $201M now and subtract $12M for half of Jansen/Martin’s salaries you’re at $189M. Add Monty and you’re at $214M.

For Pivetta I assume you’re tacking 3/$50 onto his current $7.5M contract for 2024. You can handle this two ways…either combine the contracts for a new AAV around $14.5M OR have his new deal start in 2025 and keep his 2024 salary at $7.5M. Since $7.5M of his salary is already included in the original $201M, it’s only an incremental $7M in the first scenario (and zero in the 2nd). So you’d be at either $221M or $214M…just enough money for Soler ;-)

The Gray Eagle said:

From McCaffrey in the Athletic-- it might not the luxury tax that is causing the Red Sox to not want to spend more than around $225 million this year.

https://theathletic.com/5193244/2024/01/11/red-sox-ownership-questions-mailbag/



FSG is going to need to spend a LOT of money on this project soon.


It's all speculation, but it seems to make sense.


Seems like they should be able to make this investment without affecting player payroll, so maybe this speculation is off. But I'm just posting it here because it might be one factor that could possibly be impacting the team's payroll that doesn't have anything to do with the luxury tax.

Click to expand...

The main lesson to draw about the Fenway development is the team is not being sold anytime soon.
I doubt that development has any impact on the baseball team's payroll.

Big Papi's Mango Salsa said:

@sezwho - to be fair (and I have no idea if this is what will happen / is what's happening - but it's logical).

FSG is fed up with the way Bloom ran the budget of $225m and basically took $225m and lit it on fire (I know I was). Compounded with the fact that when he had a chance to sell off and expedite the rebuild in 2022 and 2023 he chose not to, and he chose...poorly.

So they fire Bloom. Breslow comes in and is told he's going to have the budget of $97% of LTT (I'm just going with that number for short-hand because I trust that FSG realizes that the LTT is going up in subsequent seasons), so Breslow has $227m to use this year, or call it $26m left to spend.

He WANTS to make some extensions AND wants to add some pieces, but has to do it within the $227m budget he's allotted. So he needs to get rid of some of the deals that Bloom signed or mistakes he made (ie not trading Sale), so now at least one of those is done.

If he wants to add Montgomery (or Snell, or Stroman) and give an extension to Pivetta (which I for one think would be great) then you do need to get rid of someone first, to make sure you don't go over the budget. I bet he'd love to get rid of Story, but that's probably not feasible, so you look to players that might have some value (and aren't Pivetta) and Jansen and Martin would be the literal top of that list.

If you sign Montgomery (7/$175m/$25m) extend Pivetta to something a bit more than Lugo (3/$50/$16.75m) AND move those two, you can actually still improve the rotation and not suffer in the 'pen.

$201m right now. Say you eat 1/2 the money on Jansen and Martin to get better prospects.

Budget is now at $231m. You've gone over the $227m BUT you're safely under the $LTT of $237m, so I could certainly see FSG's consent to that.


Rotation becomes Montgomery, Bello, Giolito, Pivetta, Crawford. Bullpen becomes Whitlock and Houck in some capacity in the 8th and 9th, with whoever else is left on the roster.

Click to expand...

Interesting, its so hard to understand their (Breslow's) real constraints but I could see the cards playing out that way.

sezwho said:

Interesting, its so hard to understand their (Breslow's) real constraints but I could see the cards playing out that way.

Click to expand...

Honestly, I don't think it's THAT odd based on how we've seen the team operate since the cluster f88k that was 2011. Of course, I'm probably a little bit biased because I'm projecting my own idea of what I'd do (you know, if I were a multi billionaire owner or the GM of a big market team but one that does have some semblance of a budget - or put another way, someone that could afford to be rich in Boston but probably not in London, New York, Paris or Dubai).

Start every year with a "budget" of $LTT(.97). Have a mix of long term deals, mid term deals, young players and then short term deals as nothing but those to round out the roster, bridge a ONE YEAR gap where you have prospects that are big league ready or close to it.

Spend April, May and early June seeing what you have. If the team is in playoff position (legitimately, not just +/- 3 games of WC3 because it takes a special kind of suck to have a $225m payroll and NOT be within a few games of 6th place out of 15 teams) try to add to that (like they did in 2013 or 2021). If they're not, sell everything that is short term with an eye toward next season (what they should have done in 2022 and 2023).

So, in other words, I'd instruct my GM to be bold enough to make a call. If you think the team is good, add. If you don't, sell. But it's a business, so make a call and be judged on your results. Not exactly unreasonable.

Alex Speier makes it sound like Bloom was ready to spend. FSG fired him. And now Breslow is gun shy to make big moves.

View: https://twitter.com/redsoxstats/status/1745826888734462195

JBJ_HOF said:

Alex Speier makes it sound like Bloom was ready to spend. FSG fired him. And now Breslow is gun shy to make big moves.

View: https://twitter.com/redsoxstats/status/1745826888734462195

Click to expand...

This mirrors my thoughts, both in terms of what Bloom what have done and what will happen the remainder of the offseason. I do wish Breslow would worry about the now a little more -- being stuck with Stroman on a one or two year deal once he figures things out in a year wouldn't be the worst cross to bear, and would likely help this year a lot more than whoever takes the Corey Kluber deal. Feels like all they did was reset the timeline to hire basically the same guy as Bloom, all in the name of a temporary PR hit that will be long gone by opening day, if it's not already.

Yo La Tengo said:

Breslow and crew should be pursuing some combination of signing a big free agent(s), taking on a bad contract in the context of a trade for a valuable player, and/or extending young players this offseason without limitation based on the luxury tax.

Click to expand...

This is absolutely correct. Payroll flexibility is an asset and Breslow should use it as such.

Part of the consideration here is how close one sees BOS from contending. I'm on the pessimistic side - I don't think BOS is anywhere near contending and I don't think they have a "core" that will allow them to contend for at least a few years. As such, if I were GM, I'd be using my payroll flexibility as you describe - taking on bad contracts so long as I get good assets in return (I'd particularly look for International Free Agent pool money); signing vets to short-term deals in hopes of dealing them for assets during the season; and trying to sign my young players to front-loaded contracts that allow for some flexibility on the back-end.

I'd also do nothing to impair any draft picks or international pool money.

But course Breslow has to make sure ownership is on board with this and it's possible that they aren't - in which case, we'll have a few more years of BOS trying to thread the contending/rebuilding needle.

JBJ_HOF said:

Alex Speier makes it sound like Bloom was ready to spend. FSG fired him. And now Breslow is gun shy to make big moves.

View: https://twitter.com/redsoxstats/status/1745826888734462195

Click to expand...

Nice, I don’t subscribe but will for sure listen to this one

Preamble – apologies for the incredibly long post, but I think going through the fine details is the only way to do this. Maybe this should be its own thread, but it seemed to fit some of the discussion being had here.


There has been a lot of discussion lately around the remaining budget with various numbers for the current payroll being thrown around, so I thought this might be a good time to do a deep dive into tracking the payroll. This is something I have done personally for a while, typically using Cot’s as my main resource, but I have seen a lot of references to the Red Sox Payroll twitter account which I was unfamiliar with. I went through the payroll spreadsheets for four sources (Fangraphs, Spotrac, Cot’s, and RSP twitter) to look at where they were different and try to come up with the most accurate accounting.

TLDR version – The Red Sox Payroll twitter account is the best resource with both results and methodology considered. It may be slightly conservative on the incentives/bonuses, but only by a few million dollars at most and I would need to spend some time looking at specific incentive clauses in contracts to determine how likely they are to vest.

The four sites group the money into 7 categories, with Cot’s and RSP each having a unique extra category. The categories are: Guaranteed contracts, Arb players, Pre-arb players, Players no longer on team, Benefits/medical expenses, 40 man roster minor league players, Pre-arb bonus pool. Cot’s has a separate line item for IL time since an additional ML minimum player will be added even though the injured player is getting paid as well. RSP has a unique line item for incentives and bonuses that players may hit during the year.

Guaranteed Contracts

• Devers – 10 year $313.5M with deferred money. Without knowing the exact details in the contract I don’t think this an AAV we can calculate on our own, but all 4 sites have it as an AAV between $29.0M and $29.15M. I will put this down at $29.1M
• Story – 6 year $140M. There is some club option and player opt out language but nothing that really affects the AAV. All four sites agree at an AAV of $23.33M
• Giolito – 2 year $38.5M with a player opt out after the first year. All four sites agree at an AAV of $19.25M
• Yoshida – 5 year $90M. All four sites agree at an AAV of $18M
• Jansen – 2 year $32M. All four sites agree at an AAV of $16M
• Martin – 2 year $17.5M. This one is confusing since two of the sites have an AAV of $8.75M and 2 sites have it at $7.5M. The only unique thing I can find about his contract is a $4M signing bonus which I don’t think affects the AAV, so I am going with the straight math - $8.75M
• Whitlock – 4 year $18.75M. All four sites agree at an AAV of $4.688M
• Refsnyder – 1 year $1.85M with a club option and 150k buyout. The sites are split on whether this is an AAV of $1.85M or $2M, but I believe the buyout is counted as guaranteed money so I am going with $2M
• Criswell – 1 year $1M. This was a major league contract but he has options remaining. Even if he spends the entire year in the minors I believe he still counts against the major league payroll. Spotrac, Cot’s and I think Fangraphs all count him while RSP lists Criswell and his contract but does not have a number included for him in the spreadsheet. This seems to just be a mistaken omission from RSP - $1M

Total AAV on guaranteed contracts – $122.1M
Fangraphs Total - $120.87M
Spotrac Total - $120.92M
Cot’s Total - $120.87M
RSP - $120.86M

Arb players
The team settled with all four arb eligible players yesterday.

• Pivetta - $7.5M
• O’Neill - $5.85M
• McGuire - $1.5M
• Schreiber - $1.175M

Total AAV on arb contracts - $16.0M

Pre-arb players
We can quibble over exactly who makes the team, but 12 guaranteed contracts (including arb eligible players, excluding Criswell) leaves 14 spots to be filled by pre-arb players. Major league minimum this year is $740k but there is typically some small bumps for players with more service time so I did a flat $0.75M per spot.

Total AAV for pre-arb players - $10.5M

There is a large variation in this number across the four sites, so I dug into each of their methodologies.

Fangraphs Total - $15.06M. Fangraphs has a footnote spelling out where this number comes from - “factoring in IL time, each time will need to pay for at least 33 player seasons over the course of the regular season. This number is calculated by subtracting the number of guaranteed and arbitration year contracts from 33 … and then multiplying the number that remains … by the league minimum salary.” See the discussion below on IL time for research into the 33 number.

Spotrac Total - $10.01M. Spotrac does not seem to account for IL time in their total.

Cot’s Total – $14.9M. Cot’s looks to be accounting for 13 pre-arb players as well as a unique line item for an additional 7 pre-arb players to cover IL time, each at $0.745M.

RSP - $7.94M. RSP only lists a number for 10 pre-arb players (which does not even fill the 26 man roster), but they have a much higher number ($12M) for the 40 man roster minor league salaries. The other 3 sites have the 40 man mL salaries as follows:
Fangraphs - $2.5M
Spotrac - $2.25M
Cot’s - $2.25M

In order to compare apples to apples, I combined the pre-arb salaries, 40 man minor league salaries, and IL time salaries into one number for all of the sites. This reduced the variance between sites significantly, with the totals below:
Fangraphs - $17.56M
Spotrac - $12.26M
Cot’s - $17.15M
RSP – $19.94M

Spotrac is the obviously deficient one here by both result and methodology. The other 3 all end up fairly close, with exactly how much IL time to account for being the difference. I attempted a little research into the 33 player seasons quoted by Fangraphs, but I was only able to find one source for total IL time by team. Ironically enough Spotrac has an IL tracker that you can sort to cumulative team stats and over the 2021-2023 period the average team had a combined 1528 days of IL time per season, or the equivalent of 9.43 player seasons. On top of the 26 man roster, that equates to a total of 35.43 player seasons required to finish the regular season, and that is just the average. I have no idea how MLB teams account for this variance, but at the very least I think we should cover the average.

(35.43 player seasons – 26 roster spots)*($0.74M) = $6.98M AAV for IL time

Added to the $10.5M for the pre-arb 26 man roster spots and $2.25M for minor league salaries results in:

Total AAV for Pre-arb, IL and mL salaries = $19.73M

Benefits
Fangraphs, Spotrac and Cot’s are all at $17M for this, RSP has it at $16.5M. I will use the higher number - $17M AAV

Pre-arb Bonus Pool
I believe this is mandated by the CBA and all four sites agree at an AAV of $1.67M

Players no longer on the team

• Chris Sale – Spotrac, Cot’s, and RSP all agree that the AAV hit from the Sale trade is $17.0M. Fangraphs divides the money owed to Sale, Hosmer and Turner into odd groupings, but ultimately agrees that Sale counts as a $17.0M AAV for 2024. However, they also include $1.5M that they claim is from re-calculating the AAV after the trade. I do not believe this makes any sense since Atlanta now owns Sale’s contract, so any AAV recalculation would go on their books. In any case, that contract has since been torn up and replaced with a new contract so I do not believe it would still apply anyway. I am going to ignore the $1.5M, and go with an AAV of $17M
• Eric Hosmer – The same three sites all agree that Hosmer counts as a $0.74M hit (major league minimum), while Fangraphs has Hosmer at an AAV of $15.375M with San Diego paying $12.885M of that ($2.49M left over on the Sox budget). I honestly cannot figure out how they get to the 15.375 number. The original deal was $144M over 8 years, for an AAV of 18. However it was frontloaded with the first five years at $21M and the last 3 years at $13M. Since Hosmer was traded during the current CBA, his AAV has to be recalculated based his remaining contract at the time of the trade. What I don’t know is whether the salary for the year in which his traded is included in that, only partially, or not at all. If you include the whole 2022 salary, then you get a 4 year contract for $60M ($15M AAV). If you include only the remaining full years, it is a 3 year contract for $39M ($13M AAV). If the 2022 remaining contract is prorated based on how many games were left in the season, it would fall somewhere in between those two numbers. But none of those matches the $15.375M AAV listed by Fangraphs. In any case, I have spent way to much time researching and discussing Eric Fucking Hosmer so I am going to say that Fangraphs is wrong here and the other three are right - $0.74M AAV
• Justin Turner – Perhaps the most convoluted of the contracts to figure out, but I was saved by Speier. Fangraphs and RSP include an 2024 AAV hit of $4.15M for Turner do to the weirdness of his player option, but Spotrac and Cot’s do not include anything for him. Luckily I was able to dig up an old Globe article by Speier where he explicitly laid out that Turner would count as a $4.15M hit against the 2024 budget if he opted out. I trust Speier more than anyone to investigate stuff like this - $4.15M AAV

Total AAV for players no longer on team - $21.89M

Incentives and Bonuses
Red Sox Payroll twitter is the only one to include something for this – they list $5M to cover future bonuses and incentives that players may hit throughout the season. It does make sense to try to account for this, but I do not know how teams would approach this. I think it is overly conservative to consider that all incentives will be met, and without going through the incentives for each contract I have no idea if the $5M figure is the max amount or something less than that. I think I will calculate the total without anything here and this would need to be accounted for when considering how much headroom to leave under the limit.



Total 2024 AAV
The table below shows the totals for each of the four sources along with the total of my conclusions above.



Fangraphs actually comes out almost exactly the same as my numbers above, but their methodology around Hosmer and Sale is suspect. Spotrac leaves out money for Turner and to cover IL time and therefore comes out significantly lower than the others. Cot’s also leaves out Turner. RSP has everything nearly the same as me but does leave out Criswell and includes money for bonuses. I would say that I am pretty confident the Red Sox have somewhere between $35-40M left before they would hit the first threshold. I don’t know what there actual limit is going to be, but I hope they spend some of it, and soon.

Great work JRS. I had been using cots exclusively and so was confused why people were talking about having less than $47m. $38.6 seems pretty decent. Certainly enough to make a decent attempt at a pitcher.

Jack Rabbit Slim said:

TLDR version – The Red Sox Payroll twitter account is the best resource with both results and methodology considered. It may be slightly conservative on the incentives/bonuses, but only by a few million dollars at most and I would need to spend some time looking at specific incentive clauses in contracts to determine how likely they are to vest.

Click to expand...

Outstanding work JRS. I think this post is really helpful in pointing out that even reliable baseball sources don't get to the precise calculation given how much of the details are not publicly available from teams or MLB.

One more for the chorus of appreciation to the original post and JRS' breakdown. My latest hunch (for what it's worth) is that Breslow doesn't want to hurry up and spend that space on players of a certain caliber when someone he likes better might come up later. And my best guess is that it's Cease, whose price may be prohibitive now but will have to come down eventually. In the Sox' 21st century history (+ a few years) they have acquired aces by trading and extending them once they get in the building and see that Boston has its good side (competitiveness, city is lovely in summer, etc.): Pedro, Beckett, Sale being the obvious examples of guys they probably would not have gotten as free agents. Cease is obviously headed for an exit at some point, and there is reason to see him as an ace, given his age and quality, the kind of guy you DO give the bag to. So don't squander your money now when the better play, the REAL fix to their long-term rotation question, may pop up in July, or next winter.

Anyway, maybe that guessing game belongs back in the Rumors dumping ground, but it's for sure a question of budget. The Sox have that $30+ available now, and the number could get bigger next winter, but more likely the guys dropping off (Sale, Kenley etc) will be replaced by other investments, so that one $30m+ bag is their one big bag to spend.

chrisfont9 said:

One more for the chorus of appreciation to the original post and JRS' breakdown. My latest hunch (for what it's worth) is that Breslow doesn't want to hurry up and spend that space on players of a certain caliber when someone he likes better might come up later. And my best guess is that it's Cease, whose price may be prohibitive now but will have to come down eventually. In the Sox' 21st century history (+ a few years) they have acquired aces by trading and extending them once they get in the building and see that Boston has its good side (competitiveness, city is lovely in summer, etc.): Pedro, Beckett, Sale being the obvious examples of guys they probably would not have gotten as free agents. Cease is obviously headed for an exit at some point, and there is reason to see him as an ace, given his age and quality, the kind of guy you DO give the bag to. So don't squander your money now when the better play, the REAL fix to their long-term rotation question, may pop up in July, or next winter.

Anyway, maybe that guessing game belongs back in the Rumors dumping ground, but it's for sure a question of budget. The Sox have that $30+ available now, and the number could get bigger next winter, but more likely the guys dropping off (Sale, Kenley etc) will be replaced by other investments, so that one $30m+ bag is their one big bag to spend.

Click to expand...

Of course, the risk of waiting until July for a Cease trade in the hopes of the price coming down... is that other teams are probably interested in trading for Cease too. If the Orioles want him, they still have that absurdly deep farm system to deal from and could very well make that trade any day now.