As far as Lackey’s deal, what’s to stop them from just picking up the 2015 option before this season starts?  Nothing really to lose doing that.

It is in the contract that they can only pick up that option IF he does not play all year. Therefor they can not pick it up until after the 2012 season.

what is AAV?

annual average value

thanks.  so which figures count towards the luxury tax limit?

Boy, Dustin should be getting double. What a steal

Alex, just to clarify: are you saying that Lackey’s club option will never be factored into the CBT (unless it is eventually picked up) or that it just isn’t factored in YET?  As in, does he have to actually miss 2012 before that option is included for CBT purposes, or are club options simply not included in the CBT calculations prior to being exercised.  I still haven’t exactly figured out how the luxury tax works in regards to options in general.  For the luxury tax, are player options always included (like Scutaro and Beltre) and club options always excluded?

If it is already a foregone conclusion that they won’t get under the luxury tax this year, there is no real value in picking it up. In fact it’s easy to see why it would be better to wait.  By taking a larger hit now against the cap and (theoretically) picking up the option next year the savings to his AAV next year will be even larger spread out over one less year. If the Sox are serious about getting under either this year or next, the savings would seem to be important.

The Lackey signing may just go down as the worst signing of a pitcher in this decade.
We keep hearing about all the $$$ freed up by dumping our starting shortstop.  From what I can see they spent half of that on a back up outfielder who has trouble hitting .250 . So so far in this offseason, we dumped our starting SS to save $$$ and lost arguably the second best reliever in the American League. Meanwhile, other teams such as the Angels , Tigers, Rangers and Yankees have become a lot better and have spent money. Course we can always watch English Soccer.

Could anyone be a worse judge of pitching talent.Thank god he’s gone,how do you give 82 mill. to a pitcher with a history of elbow problems.Plus AL west to AL east.How would Justin Masterson look in a Red Sox uniform now?25 year old pitcher for a DH,good trade idiot!!!!

If I’m Pedroia and Lester and I’m seeing this I am pretty pissed off…

The Annual Average Value. The yearly salary is what they are paid each year but the AAV (total contract/# years) is what is counted against the payroll for luxury tax purposes. Take Ryan Howard for instance: 5yrs/$125M; he might make 20M one year, 22M another year, 23M another year etc but the AAV is 125M/5=25M so every year he counts for 25M against the Phillies’ payroll.

thanks a lot, bro.  i appreciate it.

Why would you want to pick up the option on a guy who has been one of the worst starting pitcher’s in baseball in 2011? does that make sense? I would think they would try to unload him but who would take him?

Awesome, then why the hell did we dump Scutaro?

I agree` that Masterson would be a nice sight on the Sox roster, but at the time, the Sox really needed Martinez’s bat.  I dont remember hearing Anyone complain when they made that trade!!  At the time, Masterson was a decent bullpen arm..  Cleveland developed him into a starter.  Now the Indians had the luxury of letting him learn on the job.. He wouldnt have had the luxury of a patient fan base, like Cleveland did, and at 1st the kid did have growing pains. In 2009 he went 1 and 7,in 2010 he went 6 and 13, and he broke out early in 2011, but faded later in the year..Overall, that trade wasnt that bad..

Maybe the “long awaited compensation” for Theo will be luxury tax relief . From the mess he left here.  No maybe Wrigley vine for the monster.

mmmm-k. so, we are over the budget, we just dumped our SS and we need another starter. All this makes perfect sense. Theo is a dumb-@$$

Let’s not forget that Pedey signed that deal with three arbitration years left. It was the biggest non-arbitration contract ever for a 2B at the time. He will make $8M this year and $10M the next two years with a possible $2M bonus for MVP or $1M for coming in 2nd or 3rd, which he probably believes he can do. In contrast, Robby Cano made $10M last year and $14M this year. So is Pedey  relatively underpaid? For sure. But maybe he is one of the few players who recognizes that the difference between career earnings of $100M and $130M is nothing compared to being happy where you are and playing for a perennial contender.  Look at it another way, if he manages to salt away just $40M of his salary and endorsements before retirement, he can live off $2M a year for the rest of his life without ever touching the $40M or working another day. How much does a guy need?  

They are not over the budget. They may go over the luxury threshold of $178 million but the budget is a higher amount and they indicated they will go over the threshold for the right player.

 Scutaro was not dumped. He has a bad  rep with Booby V. Back in 2002 when he was a Mets rookie he was sent in to play the outfield made a error, cost the team a game. B.V.thru him under the bus, per say. Was a bench player from then til he hit the Blue Jays’. He will never forget what happened to him. I know I wouldn’t.
 So, it seems to me this was what he wanted, and B.V. Also. to bad it was not Booby V.  that was sent packing.

I AM NOT GETTING M.L.B. THIS  YEAR

Always the soccer argument eh?  The problem here isn’t spending!  The Red Sox have the second highest payroll in baseball.  Their problem isn’t how much, its where.  We are seeing the problems now with the bloated contracts that were given the past few years (Dice-K, Lackey, and to a degree Beckett) without the results to back it up.  If the Sox had that money to spend this offseason (say roughly $45 million) and then didn’t spend it I could see your point.  Fact is the money is spent to a large degree, just not very well.

You are right about 99% of what you have said.  My point is yes, I think that the “other interests” the Sox owners have plays a part in what we are now seeing.  If the team makes mistakes by making poor signing, my argument is that they should spend a few more $$ to correct their mistakes. I see the Yankees bolstering their pitching staff in a huge way with two big deals in the last few weeks…they are way over the “cap”.  I also strongly feel that if the Sox do not go out and get a good starting pitcher, they will be very unlikely to even win a wild card playoff spot.

It does seem a little bass-ackward, doesn’t it …

Could the Sox go to Lackey and offer him a (revised) new 2 year guarranteed deal that, in total would be a million or so more than what he would get from getting full pay this year and the minimum next year and free up enough in salaries to get below the luxury tax?

They don’t technically have the option until he misses the full season.  Still, for CBT purposes, figures aren’t determined until November, so if the Sox could exercise the option in October (after he’s missed the season), it could work out.