As the calendar flipped from June to July, the Red Sox were sitting on a record of 43-33 and holding onto an American League Wild Card spot. However, this has been a disastrous month for them, in which they went 8-19.
Now their record is 51-52, placing them 3 1/2 games behind the Rays for the final playoff spot, with three teams in between.
Due to that slide, there’s been recent chatter about the club giving consideration to trading impending free agents such as J.D. Martinez, Christian Vazquez and Nathan Eovaldi.
With less than 48 hours remaining until the trade deadline, Alex Speier of the Boston Globe reports that financial considerations will be a factor in discussions between the Red Sox and other teams.
It’s reported that, the front office will think about ducking under the luxury tax but will not be required to do so. It’s even possible that they could take on additional salary commitments if it meant adding more prospect talent to the system.
The Red Sox have paid the luxury tax in the past but have been trying to run lower payrolls in recent years. Most famously, or infamously, Boston traded away Mookie Betts and David Price as a means of shedding salary.
However, they did some aggressive spending this past winter, most notably the six-year, $140M contract given to Trevor Story, putting them back over the CBT line for this year.
Jason Martinez of Roster Resource estimates their current CBT number is just over $238M, placing them $8M beyond the lowest $230M threshold. Since luxury tax status isn’t determined until the offseason, the Sox could still lower their CBT number and avoid all penalties.
