It's plainly evident that when it comes to spending, Major League Baseball is about to enter a nuclear winter.
With the coronavirus pandemic having reduced the 2020 season by almost two-thirds of its usual length, fans not allowed in ballparks and no guarantee that 2021 will, to start at least, be any different, the vast majority of teams are looking to cut costs.
Layoffs -- on both the baseball and business side -- have hit the industry. Already, 2021 contract options that would have been routinely exercised have instead been declined. And the crowded free-agent field, anticipating a stagnant economic market that makes the last two winters look positively robust, will, in the next month, perhaps nearly double with the influx of non-tendered players.
This equation -- less money to spend, many more players competing for contracts -- will serve to create some true bargains for the few teams willing to wade into the uncertain fiscal waters.
The Yankees, though they've preached a certain amount of restraint, stand to be one of those. They've already swallowed hard and said yes to reliever Zack Britton's $13 million option. The expectation is they'll also spend whatever's necessary to bring back free-agent infielder D.J. LeMaheiu.
Know which other big market team might be among the very few with the capability to take advantage of a depressed market?
It's not the Chicago Cubs, who are instructed to cut spending. Or the Los Angeles Dodgers, since they have few holes to plug to begin with and a development system capable of filling most (if not all) of them internally.
Nope.
How about your Boston Red Sox?
One MLB source, noting the team's rumored merger with RedBall Acquisitions, said: "They're about to become part of a $8.3 billion company (the projected value of parent company Fenway Sports Group should the merger take place). You do the math.''
Indeed, Red Ball is about to infuse FSG with more than $1 billion. That's a lot of fresh operating capital.
It's true that FSG represents far more than the Red Sox. Included in that holding group: NESN, Roush Racing, Liverpool Football Club and other marketing interests. But valued at more than $3 billion, the Red Sox represent a big chunk of those assets. It's logical to assume that some of that new buy-in cash will be reinvested into the baseball business.
"I would say,'' said a second baseball source, "that's not an illogical inference to make.''
In some ways, the timing couldn't be better. The Red Sox need an infusion of talent as they attempt to crawl out from the wreckage of 2020, which saw them post their worst record since 1965. And they especially need an injection of pitching into an organization which ranked 28th in that department in 2020.
An aggressive approach to this winter's market could result in a lot of top talent being signed at substantially below market value cost. And while committing big, long-term deals to players who may already be risks because of their age and wear-and-tear is precisely what got the Red Sox into the mess they're currently in, the prospect of being able to scoop up non-tendered players who aren't yet eligible for traditional free agency offers the rare opportunity to land players still very much in their prime.
The same could well apply to trades, where the Sox could position themselves as a landing spot for teams looking to unload big contracts -- without having to sacrifice the usual elite prospects in return.
It's important to keep things in context here: the Red Sox are not about to spend $240 million again, the way they did in 2018 and 2019, since that's not sustainable. But a mere modest increase in payroll over last year will have a greater impact at a time when the vast majority of their competitors are in retreat. And even a standstill in the spending department would, though the current lens, look to be a veritable shopping spree.
Also, it should go without saying that John Henry and Co. aren't welcoming RedBall into their tent with the sole purpose of better positioning themselves on MLB's free-agent landscape. The deal is far more complex than that, and if truth be told, it's a safe assumption that more capital might be ultimately be spent on broadening the group's European soccer holdings than on the baseball franchise which was the foundational piece of the empire.
But surely, there will be some money made available to help offset the losses being experienced on the baseball side. And in a decidedly buyer's market, when nearly everyone else is retreating, the infusion couldn't come at a more opportune time.
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- In 2019, the Washington Nationals won their first World Series with Daniel Hudson recorded the final out in Game 7, and not Sean Doolittle, who had posted 29 saves during the regular season.
- In 2018, the Red Sox opted to have Chris Sale face the Dodgers in the bottom of the ninth of Game 5, and not closer Craig Kimbrel.
- In 2017, Charlie Morton, one of the team's starters, pitched the final four innings in the Astros' Game 7 win over the Dodgers. Houston used five pitchers that night, but not Ken Giles, who finished 55 games and saved 34 of them during the season.
- In 2016, Mike Montgomery closed out the Cubs' first championship in more than a century, and not closer Aroldis Chapman.
