2009?

Here is a look at players that the Red Sox have under contract for the 2010 seaon, the roles they will play, and the amount they will be earning. Some of the players are arbatration eligable. These players salaries are hard to guess considering baseballs economy is constantly changing. I am going to make some guesses, their will be no science or research behind the guess they are just hunches. Keep in mind i'm going to but them higher than they probably will assuming these players have very strong '07s 'and '08s.

C -George Kottaras >$.5M
C - UNKNOWN
1st - Lars Anderson >$.5M
2nd - Dustin Pedroia >$.5M
SS - Julio Lugo $9M
3rd - UNKNOWN
OF - J.D Drew $14M
OF - Jacoby Ellsbury >$.5M
OF - UNKNOWN
DH - David Ortiz $12.5M

SP - Daisuke Matsuzaka $8M
SP - Josh Beckett $12M (club option)
SP - Jonathan Papelbon $? (arbatration eligable) $4M
SP - Jon Lester $? (arbatration eligable) $4M
SP - Clay Buchholz >$.5M
SP - Michael Bowden >$.5M
SP - Daniel Bard >$.5M


RP - Manny Delcarmen $? (arbatration eligable) $1M
RP - Craig Hansen $? (arbatration eligable) $2M
RP - Edgar Martinez >$.5M
RP - Bryce Cox >$.5M
RP - Justin Masterson >$.5M
RP - UNKNOWN
RP - UNKNOWN

So there you have the Red Sox of 2009. Potentially, there will only be 5 open spots, a catcher, 3rd baseman, Outfielder, and 2 relievers. Using these numbers the Red Sox should have about $70M on the books. Considering inflation, this is a very small number even for a small market team. Since i excluded the bench lets bump the total to $75M, still low.

So knowing all this, where are we going to spend the money. Lets start with the catcher position. This is almost completely irrelevant. Assuming by 2009 Kottaras can handle the starting job, no one is going to be up in arms about who is the backup catcher. We can easily pick up a journeyman catcher to play every 5th day. Lets put him at $5M.

3rd is going to be the true splash. While the Red Sox could easily go out on the free agent market, i feel they will go the path of a trade. For whom? Miguel Cabrera. At this point Cabrera will be one season away from hitting free agency, and more important out of Florida. Because of this i see no reason why the Marlins will not trade. The Sox and Marlins FOs are no strangers., most recently the Beckett trade. After the trade Cabrera will be signed for something in the range of 7-9 years from $20M-$25M. This deal could take him from the age of 26 to 35, a pretty sweet deal for a guy that would never be a free agent. Cabrera could easily become the next Manny, well less power but a lot less annoying. He will be the face of the franchise and hopefully be the leader as well.

The Outfield could potentially be filled by players already on contract. Manny has a club option for $20M for both '09 and '10. While I still think Manny will have value in those years, i do not believe those options will be picked up. It is just too much money for a player his age. The other option is Coco Crisp. He is actually under contract for $5.75M with a club option for '10. I feel like this could happen, but its very unlikely. Watching him this spring and last year i don't see him in Boston very much longer. Sorry Coco, its not that i don't think your a great guy but you just aren't very good. The last options we have in house are the trio of Murphy, Moss, and Place. Hell, maybe 1 of those 3 players will make it, but i would hope on it. Personally, i have no clue whats going to happen, but for argument lets just say the job goes to Coco. He is under contract after all. So there is $5.75M

The 2 relievers will be non-factors much like the backup catcher. With the turnover of bullpens in baseball, there will be plenty of bad relievers for teams to bid on. More likely than not we will end up with 2 poor-average pitchers for too much. With that being said, i don't see these relievers costing any more than $10M combined.

All told, our team has a salary of $115M. That seems about right, although i would suspect is approaches $150M by 2009. Lets up everyone pans out, we could have a hell of a team.