rodstero4 wrote:

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That's nice and all, but the thing that got this entire discussion going was the luxury tax and the sox "budget." While you've done a nice job going through and shooting down all the points pedroiayouk1520 made, you haven't addressed the fact that the red sox are probably going to be $15 million or so below the luxury tax line before a single signing gets made. And if Ortiz doesn't accept arbitration then he's a fool, or the GM paying him is a fool. So yeah, it's not your money (or mine) so I'd love to just sign everyone on the market and be the yankees, but that doesn't seem likely. The man makes a good point that I hadn't seen before on this board, so those of us advocating Carlos Beltran (this guy) are dreaming. The chances we sign a top pitcher on the market is also low. He's just saying that the Red Sox brass knows where the weaknesses of the team are, and they have to address them in some other way, ie. trade, aceves/bard converting to starter.

In the face of the new CBA, why exactly are you assuming that the Red Sox budget (or "budget") is going to follow past trends?

Frankly, the fact that the Red Sox kept their payroll near the CBT threshold has always felt like a choice they made about an efficient (and profitable) allocation of resources, rather than something that they had to do because of hard limits on their budget as a factor of income vs expenditures.  In other words JWH really hated to fork over money to revenue sharing when that money could be better spent elsewhere while still improving the team (i.e. on bringing talent into the Sox minor league system). Given the likely (and largely unreported & unverifiable) revenues that NESN generates by showing the games of a winning Red Sox team, I think the overall business model of H/W/L aims at competitiveness while maintaining profitability, aiming for such a result over the long term. Such long term results require that the Sox continue to infuse young talent into the farm, while spending is only a function of what is available to buy at an efficient price.

The new CBA dramatically reduces other avenues for winning teams to spend money. The draconian penalties for spending over the prescribed limits, as well as the reduction in spending that will likely be imposed on the Sox really leave them with nowhere else to spend their money as a way to improve the team in the short term, and the cost of spending ml talent at this point looks like it will be more expensive to the long term future of the club since that talent will be much harder for the team to replenish.

The only avenues for spending left for the Sox are either on the FA market (with the attendant CBT penalties) or routed as profit into the accounts of ownership. The only problem with the later is that it doesn't improve the team, and such a lack of improvement will probably hamper long term winning (and therefore revenues and profitability). So unless the team has (already) found a loophole that will allow them to keep bringing in minor league talent in the face of these spending limits, or if the players you are targeting in trade happen to be available for little more than flotsam/ jetsam, I don't think the Sox can afford to be sending potential ML players off the farm when comparable players are available for simply cash, even if there's going to be a tax attached to that spending.

Off course only time will tell...