CARLSBAD, Calif. -- Even as the Red Sox grapple with how to maintain most of the roster which just won a World Series, they also have to keep an eye on future seasons.
After next year, Chris Sale, Rick Porcello and Xander Bogaerts are heading toward free agency. After 2020, the Sox could lose Jackie Bradley Jr. and Mookie Betts.
All of those remain on the mind of Dave Dombrowski.
"We've got a lot of decisions to make,'' acknowledged Dombrowski at the GM Meetings here. "We've got some big guys (coming up). We have great ownership, wherewithal, but still, everybody has limitations, too. So we have to make some tough decisions, but we'll be prepared to keep a lot of our players. But I'm not sure which ones it'll end up being as time goes on.''
Two of the players -- Bogaerts and Bradley -- are represented by Scott Boras, who typically advises against his clients signing extensions before they reach free agency.
Asked how problematic that was, Dombrowski smiled and said: "I don't know yet. We'll find out. But I have had Scott do some (of those) deals. Not regularly, but he does do it once in a while. We'll find out as time goes on. He's got a lot of big guys (free agents, including Bryce Harper) out there now, so he has a tendency to focus on that. But Bogey's only one year away, so that's important for us.''
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