sarasoxer wrote:

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jmei wrote:

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Three additional important nuggets from that Speier article:

First, the Sox found a team willing to take all of Scutaro’s salary. The Rockies, according to one major league source, were the first team to make such an offer this offseason.

The trade of Scutaro to Colorado freed up virtually all of the necessary CBT payroll flexibility for a hypothetical one-year, $8 million deal with, say, Roy Oswalt.

It is notable that Mortensen does have an option remaining. The Sox have a shortage of pitchers who would permit them the flexibility to shuffle them between Pawtucket and the majors this year, at a time when 40-man roster members such as Andrew Miller, Michael Bowden, Felix Doubront, Scott Atchison and Franklin Morales are out of options.

Mortensen represents a pitcher whom the Sox can summon for a spot start or a week in the bullpen and then send him back down to the minors. He and Junichi Tazawa are the only two major league-ready pitchers on the 40-man roster who permit the Sox that kind of latitude.

Also, Speier's post demonstrated the incredible difficulty in trying to calculate your own AAV numbers. There just seems to be so much you have to take into account in terms of offsetting salary and the like.

Excellent article!!...examining every imaginable nuance. And while I understand SSS is a factor, in 58+ innings last year Mortensen gave up only 55 hits for the Rockies and, as Speier notes, had a 3.86 ERA. Money savings aside, he does represent some potential value. If staying under the cap is ownership's thou shalt not eleventh commandment, (whether one personally believes its violation is not a mortal sin), the financial ability to make other moves, what those are and how they turn out will be the final arbiter.