FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Even as they let it be known that they had recently begun contract extension talks with starter Chris Sale, Red Sox principal owner John Henry and team chairman Tom Werner cautioned that it would be difficult -- if not outright impossible -- for the club to retain every homegrown star nearing free agency.
Sale, Xander Bogaerts and Rick Porcello are all eligible after the 2019 season, while J.D. Martinez has an opt-out clause in his deal as well. After the 2020 season, Mookie Betts and Jackie Bradley Jr. will be eligible for free agency.
"We'd love to be able to have long-term contracts with all of them,'' said Werner as ownership addressed the media. "These are great players and in a perfect world, we'd love them to be with us for the rest of their careers.''
"It's really hard to keep 25 players every year,'' said Henry. "We'll do everything we can to keep this team together and continue to rebuild and replenish. But free agency is what it is...We have a lot of young players mature into free agency at the same time. We won't be able to keep all of them. It's that simple. We have the largest payroll in baseball, but even then, you can't keep all your players from free agency.''
That would be extraordinarily expensive, however, costing hundreds of millions of dollars.
Beyond the pure dollars necessary, there are other obstacles in the way. First, the players involved have to want to return. Ownerships needs to overcome their trepidation in signing pitchers over the age of 30. And the Red Sox have to be more artful in their negotiations than they have been in the past.
Henry, who was vocal about his fears of committing big dollars, long-term, to pitchers 30 and over, said the prospect of extending Sale didn't worry him despite the fact that mild shoulder inflammation limited the lefty to just 17 innings after July 27 last season.
"No, he's healthy,'' maintained Henry. "He had minor issues. He ended up taking time. He needed to rest a while, but he hasn't had any significant shoulder issues. He's a special player. We'd love to be able to sign him; I think he would like to as well. But there are the realities of the marketplace and budgets. And this is his opportunity to be a free agent, potentially -- which he would like to avoid and I think he would as well. So something could happen."
The Sox were famously reluctant to fully commit to Jon Lester in the spring of 2014 as he entered his walk year. The team low-balled him with an offer in February, antagonizing Lester (and some teammates in the clubhouse). The team then traded him to Oakland at the non-waiver deadline before making a futile attempt to sign him in free agency.
"I think we blew the Jon Lester (negotiations),'' said Henry. "We blew the signing in spring training. For reasons that are apparent now, which we won't go into...''
(The latter was apparently a veiled reference to former president/CEO Larry Lucchino, who was known for taking hardball stances with players in negotiations).
On other topics:
- The two all but dismissed any chance that the Sox could re-sign Craig Kimbrel, who remains available in free agency. Werner termed it "extremely unlikely.''
- The promise of a 20-second pitch clock for 2019 is "a step in the right direction,'' according to Henry. "We need to shorten the time of these games. We feel strongly that pace of play is extremely important. We're not in the 1950s. People have a lot of other things to watch and other forms of entertainment. We need to have the game moving.''
- Neither Henry nor Werner expressed an opinion about whether the National League should adopt the DH. "It's something that's the subject of a negotiation,'' Henry said, "so I don't really want to talk about it. It's possible it could change. There are some reasons to change it. But it's the subject of negotiation (with the Players Association).''
- On a contract extension for president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski: "In this day and age, it probably doesn't make sense for a general manager to go into his final year (2020) without a contract, so that would mean something should happen this year.''
- Henry scoffed at St. Louis Cardinals' pitcher Adam Wainwright's prediction for a player strike during the 2019 season. "That's crazy,'' Henry said. Henry added that if the players are unhappy with how the free agent market is behaving under the CBA negotiated in 2016, "they should engage. Our commissioner was a labor lawyer for a couple of decades and it's important for the union to engage, firsthand, on what they would like to change.''