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The Red Sox seem pretty happy to have neither Devers nor Bregman. Speaking at Fenway Fest over the weekend, team president Sam Kennedy defended the team’s offseason. “If you go back a year ago [to] this date last year, I believe our organization has taken on close to $500 million in contractual commitments. ... We’ve added $40 million in payroll through trades.”
I hate when executives talk about spending on players this way. First, those commitments are spread out over a long period of time, you didn’t just write a $500 million check. Second, locking up Kristian Campbell or Roman Anthony for the bulk of their productive careers at laughably below-market prices isn’t some burden to be carried. Finally, paying good baseball players isn’t a cost, it’s an investment in winning. Given that Kennedy backed the incredibly anti-player idea of a free-agent signing deadline in the same interview, it seems the Red Sox are just the latest baseball team to become more concerned with keeping money and players apart, 1965-style, than with winning a World Series.
