Certainly some contracts would cripple the team in the future (and definitely so if JDM signs). But if a rebuilding team wants to get out from under one- or maybe two-year deal, there are possibilities.I can see how this strategy makes sense for a team that isn't near the luxury tax threshold right now and/or isn't trying to win right now. Bloat your payroll with some dead or moribund weight for a few years, with the payoff coming later when the prospects the bad contract was attached to hit their prime. But that's nothing like the Red Sox' current situation. They're trying to win now, so any large contract liabilities they take on now should be highly productive in the short term (with an accepted, inevitable risk that the production nosedives down the line). Shouldn't they?
Guys that come to mind are Jason Hammel, V-Mart, Jose Iglesias, Kazmir, Brandon Moss, Mesoraco, Pence, McCarthy, Grandal, Forsythe, Ryu, Volquez, Arruebarrena, etc. We don’t have use for a lot of those guys, but if assuming them gets us even a modest prospect, I’d rather DD do that than hover at a $225M salary.
The Royals and Tigers in particular are both race-to-the-bottom teams with a good amount of debt, and the Dodgers might wanna get creative in dumping salary to sign Darvish. The prizes there—and sorry to keep banging this drum—are Castellanos and Duffy. Castellanos is a terrific alternative to JDM, far better than any FA. If there’s a scenario where we absorb V-Mart to get him, we should explore that.