By all accounts the Red Sox are in a good spot.
The club is set to return virtually its entire position player core along with what should remain a top tier pitching staff from a 2026 team that reached the playoffs. The Red Sox expect to get Garrett Crochet and Roman Anthony back after both missed most of last season due to injury, and the club will also add Curtis Mead, who was supposed to be one of Craig Breslow’s signature trade deadline additions before he immediately went down with a fluke injury.
Even if Breslow doesn’t do anything, the Red Sox should remain in the hunt, but after a turbulent season that saw the club finish essentially right back where it started, the goal for 2027 should be to take the next step from playoff contention to championship contention.
That might prove tricky.
With a lockout looming and lingering uncertainty over the sport’s economic landscape, Breslow and the Red Sox are heading into uncharted waters. While MLB’s recent announcement that it won’t seek to implement a salary cap until 2028 at the earliest should help the team’s plan, the Red Sox still have to walk a tightrope between trying to upgrade their roster while accounting for the possibility that they might eventually have to shed significant payroll to get under a potential future cap.
That balance will no doubt be front of mind when Breslow and every other team’s top decision-maker arrives in Las Vegas for this week’s GM Meetings.
Where does payroll stand
This past season, the Red Sox carried the highest payroll in franchise history, which according to various outlets sat somewhere between $260-270 million.
The Twitter/X user Red Sox Payroll, a SoxProspects.com contributor who has meticulously tracked the Red Sox’s payroll since 2011, estimated the amount was $268.42 million.
That amount put the Red Sox over the first Competitive Balance Tax threshold for the second consecutive year, and also over the second threshold as well. Exceeding the CBT multiple seasons in a row comes with higher tax costs, but since the current collective bargaining agreement is about to expire it’s unclear whether or not that would apply to 2027 once a new labor deal is reached.
The first CBT threshold last season was $244 million, so if the status quo remained in effect and the Red Sox carried the same payroll into next season as they finished 2026, they’d be on the hook for a tax bill of approximately $14 million.
The tricky thing for Boston is the club doesn’t have much money coming off the books. The Red Sox only have three free agents, the most notable being veteran right-hander Sonny Gray. Even accounting for the $21 million the Red Sox paid Gray this season, Boston’s 2027 payroll is still projected to come in at around $267 million once arbitration raises are factored in.
For what it’s worth, MLB’s latest salary cap proposal would have the cap initially set at $258.2 million starting in 2028. So taking everything into account the Red Sox certainly could raise payroll, but the club might not want to push the envelope too much without knowing what the potential consequences could be.
Possible areas of savings
Given where the Red Sox find themselves, fans shouldn’t be surprised if the club looks to shed existing payroll while spending elsewhere.
Fortunately for Breslow there are a couple of spots he could trim.
The simplest way the Red Sox could save money is by declining to offer contracts to some of their younger players under team control. Those players would be “non-tendered,” to use the industry parlance, and would immediately become free agents.
According to MLB Trade Rumors, the Red Sox player expected to make the most in salary arbitration next season is Jarren Duran. The outfielder is projected to earn $11.1 million, which would make him the club’s eighth-highest paid player despite a disappointing 2026 season. He also occupies the spot where Boston could most easily upgrade their lineup as a left fielder/designated hitter, so either non-tendering or trading Duran would free up both that lineup spot as well as a good chunk of money for his replacement.
Other arbitration-eligible Red Sox players who could conceivably be non-tendered include right-hander Kutter Crawford ($2.8 million), Connor Wong ($2 million), Romy Gonzalez ($1.8 million), Andruw Monasterio ($1.6 million) and Jahmai Jones ($900,000).
This year’s deadline to tender contracts is Nov. 20.
As far as players under contract are concerned, the Red Sox have two highly-paid veterans entering the final year of their long-term deals who could potentially be moved.
Since signing his five-year, $90 million deal prior to the 2023 season, Masataka Yoshida has frequently battled injuries and never became anything more than a competent but limited contact hitter in the majors. Like Duran, Yoshida would likely occupy the DH spot going forward, so his continued presence on the roster will complicate any effort to bring in the kind of big bat who could elevate the middle of the order.
Given that Yoshida is due to make $18 million next season, any trade Breslow can work out would be a pure salary dump. A good comparison is last winter’s Jordan Hicks trade, which saw the Red Sox ship off the expensive and underperforming reliever to the White Sox alongside pitching prospect David Sandlin, who was Boston’s No. 8 ranked prospect at the time according to MLB Pipeline. The Red Sox got about $4 million in salary relief plus minor league prospect Gage Ziehl, who had a nice first season in Boston but isn’t as highly regarded a prospect as Sandlin was.
The other possible trade piece is Trevor Story.
Like Yoshida, Story has frequently battled injuries since coming to Boston and hasn’t produced at the level the Red Sox hoped since signing a six-year, $140 million deal immediately after the last lockout ended in 2022. When healthy, Story has generally been pretty good, particularly in the second half of 2025 and the last month of 2026, so there is still a better chance than not that he starts the season as Boston’s starting shortstop.
That being said, Story is due to make $23.33 million in 2027, which is a lot of money for anyone, much less someone entering their age-36 season coming off a year in which they were limited to 64 games. With top prospect Franklin Arias waiting in the wings and presumably other stopgap shortstops available somewhere for much less, a Story trade can’t be ruled out.
Trades or free agency?
Regardless of how Breslow navigates the larger environment, he’ll still eventually have to figure out a way to address the club’s needs. As always, the two ways he can do that are through free agency and the trade market.
This winter’s free agent class isn’t considered to be strong, particularly for clubs looking for a power bat like the Red Sox.
If Breslow chose the free agent route, the top available options include outfielders Randy Arozarena and Seiya Suzuki, second baseman Brandon Lowe and Japanese infielder Teruaki Sato, the reigning Nippon Professional Baseball Central League MVP who was officially posted for MLB clubs to sign this past weekend.
All four would fit neatly into the club’s existing position player group.
Arozarena just wrapped up his sixth consecutive season with 20 home runs and 20 stolen bases, the last two and a half coming with the Mariners, whose ballpark is perennially one of the worst for hitters. Arozarena also tallied a career-high .865 OPS last season and has a long track record of performance in the playoffs. Suzuki, meanwhile, has been one of the most reliable offensive performers in the sport ever since signing with the Cubs out of Japan in 2022. He also took a major leap forward defensively in right field this past season, boosting his total Wins Above Replacement to a career-best 5.1.
Both Arozarena and Suzuki would likely slot into the same left field/designated hitter role Duran and occasionally Yoshida occupied last season, as would Sato, who is primarily a third baseman but has outfield experience.
Though Sato obviously has no MLB experience, he is coming off back-to-back seasons with 39 or more home runs and is widely regarded as a big-league-ready power performer.
The interesting possibility for Boston is Lowe, who hit 35 home runs with an .824 OPS this past season with the Pirates. Though the Red Sox do not have an established starter at second base, they did acquire Mead at last summer’s trade deadline, who also plays second base and was in the midst of a breakout year before suffering a broken wrist on a hit by pitch. The Red Sox have signaled they view Mead as an everyday player going forward, but signing Lowe wouldn’t necessarily preclude that, as one could shift to the DH spot.
All four sluggers are projected to land deals worth at least $20 million annually, according to ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel. Arozarena, Suzuki and Lowe also received qualifying offers, which means any club that signs them besides their current ones would have to forfeit a draft pick.
Historically, Breslow has preferred the trade market to free agency. He’s already made three small trades this offseason and last winter he swung 13. The upside to addressing needs through trades is you can bring aboard quality players earlier in their career at a much lower salary, but the catch is you instead pay that price via prospects.
After several years of aggressively working the trade market, the Red Sox farm system isn’t as bountiful as it used to be. The club currently has only one prospect ranked inside Baseball America’s Top 100 — Arias, who is ranked No. 2 overall — and the Red Sox finished No. 21 on the outlet’s farm system rankings.
Besides the power bat the club has other needs to address too, including starting pitching depth and possibly another bullpen arm or two, but all things considered this isn’t the kind of offseason where wholesale changes are needed.
Abrupt and disappointing as their playoff exit was, the pieces are in place for the Red Sox to contend, and if Breslow can navigate the uncharted waters that await the club could come out of the lockout as well positioned as anyone.
