Taking care of their own
Bello contract could mean new front office approach
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic — For the Red Sox, the signing of Brayan Bello represented cause for celebration throughout the organization, and a hint of what the team hopes is a more stable future. But what’s next?
The Sox are hopeful that Bello represents a harbinger, the first of a series of long-term deals with homegrown players.
“We strive to create the environment where players want to stay here, players who not only can thrive in Boston but want to spend significant time here in Boston,” said chief baseball officer Craig Breslow. “I think it becomes critically important to the success that we can have.”
The team remains engaged with other players about the possibility of long-term deals — with particular interest in seeing if there’s common ground with first baseman Triston Casas. The team is hopeful that the momentum of a first deal with a homegrown player under Breslow has a chance to snowball — though it’s yet to be determined whether other deals might follow this spring.
“Hopefully this is the beginning of a wave of signings. It’s really important that we lock up the future of this team and [Bello’s deal] was a great step in that right direction,” said Sox CEO/president Sam Kennedy. “There’s a lot of conversations going on. It’s a priority for Bres. There’s lots of conversations.
”I think guys seeing guys sitting at the locker next to them signing, guys riding the bus next to them and expressing the fact that they want to be with the Boston Red Sox for the long term is a great way to go. We hope it’s contagious.”
The desire for extensions is consistent with the team’s modus operandi throughout the offseason — in which many of the team’s transactions have been built around strengthening the future, or at least avoiding any moves that would constrain the team as it works toward what it believes will become a championship-caliber core in future years.
But what about now, at a time when the team’s lone offseason rotation addition — righthander Lu
cas Giolito — will be sidelined for some and potentially all of 2024 because of a partially torn Tommy John ligament?
“Tough blow,” said Kennedy. There are ways of responding. Starting pitcher Jordan Montgomery remains a free agent. The Red Sox, according to multiple sources, have remained in touch with agent Scott Boras about the southpaw.
That said, Bello’s deal offers some connecting dots to understanding that the Sox aren’t counting on an addition of Montgomery.
In several instances, when the Sox have signed players who were already under team control to long-term deals, they’ve had the extension take effect not in the season when it was signed, but instead for the following one. That approach allowed the club to have the flexibility to stay below the luxury tax threshold or minimize the extent to which it went over the line in the year of the extension’s signing.
In 2023, for instance, the Sox signed Rafael Devers to a megacontract. But rather than signing him to a 11-year, $331 million contract, they appended a 10-year, $313.5 million deal to his one-year, $17.5 million deal for 2023 — thus allowing them to avoid the luxury tax.
Bello’s deal, however, takes effect this season. It will thus represent a $9.2 million hit for this year — pushing the team’s payroll (including a $10 million pad for in-season moves) as calculated for luxury tax purposes to roughly $215 million.
The Sox — who’d already suggested their payroll would likely be lower than last year’s $225.7 million — would not only have to go beyond that figure, but also likely edge toward this year’s $237 million luxury tax line to sign Montgomery. Given the team’s ongoing hopes of signing more young players to extensions, such a prospect makes it seem unlikely that the Sox would reel in one of the top remaining free agents.
That said, those dynamics come with a “never say never” disclaimer.
If Montgomery’s market collapses and if he becomes open to a contract that the Sox would see as ideal, then the team might reassess its budget and even reconsider its stance on staying under the threshold.
But more likely, the team will continue to focus on moves that place greater value on future seasons than the coming one — and hoping that other young contributors agree to deals that would extend their time in Boston.
After two straight last-place finishes in the AL East, such an approach offers little immediate gratification to fans.
That said, Red Sox legend Pedro Martinez — currently a special adviser to the team — believes the focus on identifying talented young players who can grow together in Boston is ultimately a prerequisite for escaping the gravitational tug of mediocrity.
“I think the organization needed to do that,” Martinez said of Bello’s extension. “We had some bad experiences signing free agents, not allowing our minor league system to develop in our own city.
“Boston can be demanding and I’m not going to lie about that. We need to continue to grow players that love to be in Boston, that are growing up right along with Boston and that they will understand what they’re exposing themselves to. I just hope that we continue to do that for the young generation of players that are coming from the Boston organization.
“And I think it’s a huge step, the fact that we have Bello, that we have guys like Casas that hopefully will also get right along with Bello and start building the culture that me and David [Ortiz] and Manny [Ramirez] and [Jason Varitek] and [Derek] Lowe and all those guys that won it in ’04, were able to do. So I’m just hoping for us to continue to do those things that they have done with Bello.”