The Red Sox have been "trying to preserve" financial flexibility for '20 to give the team the option to lower payroll below the $208M luxury tax threshold, which would "reset the surcharge the team must pay on all expenditures above that luxury-tax line," according to sources cited by Alex Speier of the BOSTON GLOBE. Red Sox RF Mookie Betts is not "eligible for free agency" until after the '20 season, but he is still "at least close enough to the open market that the status of his future is a constant conversation not only outside the Red Sox but also inside the front office." The Red Sox so far this season have about $133M in "guaranteed commitments to seven players" after recently extending P Chris Sale and SS Xander Bogaerts. If the Red Sox "stay above the luxury-tax line" in '20 for the third straight year they will "owe a base tax" of 50% on every dollar spent above $208M, with additional penalties for higher spending tiers. At a certain point, those "penalties become sufficiently onerous that the team may try to lower them." Even so, with Bogaerts and Sale under contract, it "may be impossible to get below the luxury-tax threshold" in '20 unless DH J.D. Martinez "opts out or some of the team's arbitration-eligible players are traded" (BOSTON GLOBE, 4/3).
