2006 Red Sox - Part I

I know the first pitch of the 2005 playoffs hasn't even been thrown but it's never too soon to get a jump on the hot stove action. Here's some of the contracts I see coming off the books at the end of the season for the Red Sox:

- Mark Bellhorn $2.12 mil
- Alan Embree $3 mil
- Charles Johnson $9.68 mil*
- Matt Mantei $750,000
- David McCarty $550,000
- Kevin Millar $3.5 mil
- Wade Miller $2.4 mil
- Jay Payton $1.75 mil

* About half of Johnson's contract was covered by Colorado as part of the Kim deal.

I don't see any of the players mentioned above having a spot of the 2006 team. So there's about $20.75 million coming off the books but we'll call it $15 million taking into account the money Colorado chipped in for Johnson and the money the Padres and later the A's chipped in for Jay Payton. Let's remember that Manny's contract drops from $23.38 mil to $19 mil in 2006, Edgar Renteria's contract drops from $11 mil to $8 mil, and Jason Varitek's contract drops from $13 mil to $9 mil - so lets call the number $26.5 mil just to make things easy.

This doesn't even take into account Johnny Damon being a free agent. He has $8.5 million that would come off the books if he was to move on. If Johnny moves on the amount available to spend jumps up to $35 mil.

Now a bunch of players will also get pay increases. Those whose contracts will be going up in 2006 include; Matt Clement ($3.25 mil increase), David Ortiz ($1.25 mil increase) and Curt Schilling ($500k). There are a bunch of arbitration eligible players who will be getting increases like Bronson Arroyo. Let's say for the sake of argument that the pay increases (including arbitration) amount to $10 million. That leaves the Red Sox with about $25 million to sign free agents and upgrade the team (management has said that they don't want to raise payroll next year but chances are they will - I'm just going on the assumption that the payroll will remain the same).

The Red Sox have 13 players under contract (I'm including Craig Hansen who has a major league contract even though he's a rookie) and I can see about four more arbitration eligible players making the opening day 25-man roster (Arroyo, Kevin Youkilis, Jonathan Papelbon and another young arm like Declarmen or DiNardo). That's 17 players - leaving 8 more spots.

$25 million for 8 spots. That's the bottom line for this off-season for the Red Sox.

Of course the first order of business will be to sign the free agents on the team that the front office want to see back. And the name of their first order of business is Johnny Damon.

Right behind Damon will be Mike Timlin, Bill Mueller, Chad Bradford, Tony Graffinino, Mike Myers and John Olerud. The holes that need to be filled are center (hopefully Damon will be back), first base and second base (plus maybe one more top starter).

I'll look at how the Sox might spend that $25 million and fill those 8 spots in part II.