But this isn’t a simple case of passing the buck. The 2018-19 off-season promises perhaps the biggest free agent class ever. It’s such a promising offseason that I can remember hearing about it three or four years ago, which, when you think about it, is ridiculous. Still, there’s a reason for the extreme foresight. In case you’re unaware of the specifics of this class, here is a list of players who will hit the open market after this upcoming season.

• Josh Donaldson
• Charlie Blackmon
• Drew Pomeranz
• Elvis Andrus
• Brian Dozier
• Andrew Miller
• Craig Kimbrel
• A.J. Pollock
• Daniel Murphy
• Marwin Gonzalez
• Gio Gonzalez
• Andrew McCutchen
• Nelson Cruz
• Zach Britton
• Cody Allen
• Adam Jones

Pretty nuts, right? And here’s the part about it that is crazy, bizarro, extreme, Vince-McMahon-rebooting-the-XFL-level nuts: that’s not really the list. Sure, all those guys are going to be free agents after the 2018 season, but I didn’t include three guys of particular note. I’m talking about Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, and Clayton Kershaw. Those three guys are the reason people have been talking about this free agent class for half a decade.

Those are some huge names, some huge players. The thing is, in the case of the first two, both will be 26 years old in 2019 — the first year of their new contracts. Not since Alex Rodriguez signed with the Texas Rangers as a 25-year-old-to be in 2001 have we seen a player with this level of talent enter the market at such a young age. This free agent class has two of those guys. Oh, and also the best pitcher since Pedro Martinez in Kershaw. It’s truly a stacked class, and teams have been planning for it since fans became aware of it, or maybe even before that.

We’re 400 words into this thing and I haven’t yet brought up the Boston Red Sox which is odd since this is a Boston Red Sox website. Like every other team, the Red Sox are aware of this class of players. Like every other team, the Red Sox would love to have many of those players. The luxury tax is preventing that from happening. The total salary expenditure that teams must be below is $197 million. After that, penalties aplenty are levied, which increase each season teams that are over. The Red Sox kept below the luxury tax threshold last season, meaning if they go over this season the penalties aren’t too steep.

Like every other team, the Red Sox would love to have many of those players. The luxury tax is preventing that from happening.

With arbitration raises though last season’s payroll has gone up even though the roster is basically the same, putting the Red Sox over the threshold in 2018. Signing Bryce Harper or Clayton Kershaw would certainly put the Sox over again in 2019 and, considering they’d likely have to put a huge AAV towards doing so, it would contribute to putting them over again in 2020 as well. Should the Red Sox go far over they could lose their first round draft pick in addition to paying a ton of extra money as a tax for spending so much (seriously, players union, WTF?).

The effect of this on the Red Sox is to incentivize them to spend below the tax threshold. The Red Sox already have $92 million locked up in player salaries for the 2019 season, and that’s for just four guys in David Price, Dustin Pedroia, Rick Porcello, and Mitch Moreland. (They’re paying $18.45 million to a fifth in Pablo Sandoval but he’s no longer on the team.) Things get tighter if the Red Sox do shell out another $100+ million deal for J.D. Martinez or another free agent this offseason. That would likely put the Sox over the tax threshold for a second consecutive season, even without signing Harper or another big name from next off-season’s free agent class.

Now, the Red Sox could say, “Screw it, we’re going to put the best team on the field regardless of the luxury tax limit.” But that seems unlikely. The team has spent liberally over the years since John Henry bought them back in 2002, and there’s little reason to expect that not to continue, but asking the team to pay millions for the privilege of paying millions years into the future seems unlikely.

The problem as it stands now is that the team doesn’t have minor league talent that can step in for veterans on expiring contracts, meaning if everything else stays as is, free agents will have to replace free agents. For example, Rick Porcello’s deal is up after the 2019 season which sounds great. Hooray! The Red Sox will have $21 million to use. Except what do you think the going rate for a decent starting pitcher will be in two seasons? I’m guessing it’s going to be a lot, maybe something around $21 million a year. And the Red Sox will also have to replace (or re-sign) Chris Sale and they’ll have already replaced (or re-signed) Drew Pomeranz the season before, likely requiring more money. Boston’s dollars aren’t endless is the point, and guys on cheap deals can’t all be replaced at the top of the market.

One way out for the Red Sox is if David Price opts out of his contract after the 2018 season. If he does, the Red Sox are off the hook for the remaining four years, $127 million. That money could be spent directly on a Kershaw or, probably more likely, Sale.

While the Red Sox could make a run at Kershaw, and damn the luxury tax, the other two generational talents are less likely to sign in Boston. Both Harper and Machado play positions the Red Sox already have covered for the significant future. Machado plays third base where the Red Sox are hoping Rafael Devers will be for the next six seasons. Sure Boston could move him to first or deal him and try to add Machado, but doing that is a significant step towards the luxury tax threshold. Harper seems the more realistic of the two at least in terms of fit, as one of Jackie Bradley or Andrew Benintendi could be moved to make room. And that would be fine. Harper is that good. But the thing is the Red Sox don’t have to do that. They don’t have a hole at third or a hole in the outfield corners, which means they’d be both replacing a good player and doing so by adding one of the biggest contracts in baseball history. Considering their place against the cap (we’re just going to call it what it is, a soft salary cap), doing that seems unlikely.

You never rule it out though. This is the Red Sox. This is Dave Dombrowski. These are great, great players. You never rule it out. But right now, where the Red Sox are, with David Price’s deal on the books until it isn’t, and $18.5 million due to Pablo Sandoval this coming season and the one after it, the arbitration raises coming due, and the lot, it doesn’t seem like the right time for the Red Sox to make a huge addition. All of which means they may just sit out the greatest free agent market of all time.

Or, you know, not.

It’s bad because wow, yuck, that’s bad! But it’s good because it’s an easy fix, at least as far as these things tend to go. Get one guy and you’re done. That’s as easy as fixes get.

First we’ll set the stage by saying this: By just about any standard you choose, the Red Sox have one of the worst third base problems in all of baseball. At the All-Star break, Red Sox third basemen are slashing a cumulative .236/.292/.331 with seven home runs (somehow only the Yankees have fewer). That’s both bad and good. It’s bad because wow, yuck, that’s bad! But it’s good because it’s an easy fix, at least as far as these things tend to go. Get one guy and you’re done. That’s as easy as fixes get.

If we look at that slash line, and recall it comes with overall mediocre-to-bad defense too, and recall who is in charge of the team, it’s not a stretch to say the Red Sox will acquire someone to play third base before the July 31st trade deadline expires.

Before I get into specific trade targets though, I should mention that there is the possibility, slight though it may be, that the Red Sox stand pat with what they have a third base. The platoon of Deven Marrero and Tzu-Wei Lin has been shockingly good, especially Lin’s part of it. If those guys can hold together through, say, August, third base super-prospect Rafael Devers might be ready and then the rosters expand and away we go! That sounds promising and possible and even inexpensive. But if you examine those last few sentences you can start to see the potential problems in that plan. There’s a lot of “maybe” and “could be” and “might” in there, and for a team trying to win right now there’s really very little reason to take chances and not to get a sure thing (or something closer to it) on the trade market. I’m guessing Dave Dombrowski would agree with that.

So, with all that out of the way, here are some third basemen around the league who may be available or whose names have already entered the rumor mill.

Todd Frazier

Frazier, 31, plays for the White Sox, who have been in sell-mode since before the season started. So he’s available. He’s a free agent after this season so the price shouldn’t be prohibitive and while he’s not a great defensive third baseman, he can handle the position. Frazier’s best skill is his power. He has 16 homers and 14 doubles on the season, and while his batting average is way down (.213), his walk rate has taken a big jump this season and brought his on-base percentage with it (.335). He’s a perfectly cromulent player and likely to be worth a win or so over the next half season.

Martin Prado

Unlike Frazier, Prado, 33, isn’t a free agent after this season. In fact, he’s signed for two more years for $28 million total after 2017. This makes him more difficult because you’re taking on significant salary and effectively blocking Devers. Prado is having a tough season, with little power and a bad on-base percentage. If you got Prado you’d be betting on his career averages which are fine.

Mike Moustakas

Moustakas is probably the big get of the players whose names have been prominently mentioned in rumors. He’s a free agent after this year, and has picked this year to blossom into the power that was always expected of him. He’s at 25 homers so far which is already three above his career best, and we’ve got 80 games still to go. Moose isn’t a great defensive third baseman, but he’s been around average during his career so it seems that’s what’s fair to expect. Mostly though he’s the rich man’s Frazier and he’s likely to cost a pretty penny. That all said, the Royals have moved themselves into contention (or some reasonable facsimile there of) and as of this moment have stated they aren’t looking to trade anyone.

Jed Lowrie

Our old friend Jed. Lowrie isn’t actually a third baseman having played mostly second base this year. In fact, his last year playing any third was 2015 when he was with Houston. Still, he’s done it before and is likely better than anything the Red Sox have (short of Devers) and he’s on the A’s so he can be had, if, you know, that’s anything you’d actually want to do.

Josh Harrison

Harrison would be an interesting get. He’s coming off two down seasons and his contract which runs through next season was looking like a lost cause, but he’s rebounded this season with a .361 on-base percentage and a .436 slugging. That’s above average production if he can keep it up, and if he can do anything like what he did three years ago with Pittsburgh (.837 OPS) then that’s something to be excited about. Thing is though, he’s done that once in seven seasons and the more I think about it, the less the Red Sox need anyone signed beyond this year.

Josh Donaldson

This is the great white whale. The Blue Jays might sell but they probably won’t. And yet they might. And they probably won’t trade Donaldson. But they might. Even if they did though, it probably wouldn’t be in division, and if they did the cost would be astronomical, even though Donaldson has had injury issues this year and isn’t performing up to his peak and has entered his 30s. Still though, it’s Josh F’n Donaldson. And Dave Dombrowski is the Red Sox GM. So. You know.

Adrian Beltre

Ah, what might have been… *sigh*. Beltre’s one shining season in Boston leaves me with a happy glow that is perhaps best left alone. He is 38 and signed for a season beyond this one, after all. But I’ll be damned if the old flame isn’t putting up a .900 OPS this year and with his typically spectacular defense and insanely spectacular personality to boot. Are the Rangers even sellers though? They’re under .500 and 16.5 games behind Houston, but only three back of the second Wild Card spot. This is probably a pipe dream, but oh what a beautiful pipe dream it is.

Nick Castellanos

Nobody has mentioned Castellanos in rumors, not that I’ve heard of anyway. But the Tigers are out of it, they need to sell JD Martinez, and they’re probably not far from flinging whatever isn’t nailed down out the door. Castellanos is sort of nailed down, but maybe. He’s a former first round draft pick, selected by none other than Dave Dombrowski, and he’s the toolsy sort of guy you’d expect based on the first part of this sentence. He’s not a great fielder, but he’s under team control through the 2020 season and, here’s the kicker, he’s crushing the ball. According to FanGraphs, Castellanos is making hard contact 49.6 percent of the time! That’s insane and way above what he’s done in the past. Yet, his BABIP hasn’t shown it yet. Part of the problem is his 41 percent ground ball rate, but if he starts hitting the ball in the air with that kind of contact, this is a guy you would want in the lineup. So maybe the Sox take a shot with a guy like this hoping the improvement shows up sometime upon reaching Fenway.

Next week, if Dombrowski doesn’t beat me to it, we’ll take a look at some relievers who the Red Sox might reasonably be expected to look at.

Photo by Jasen Vinlove – USA TODAY Sports

This is an article about David Ortiz and the MVP. So, to confuse you, we’ll start with Josh Donaldson. On Wednesday he put on a power show to help the Blue Jays defeat the Diamondbacks, 10-4. This performance prompted Andrew Stoeten to tweet “MVP.” Which makes sense. We are talking about the reigning AL MVP going 2-for-4 with a double, homer, and walk. This prompted me to look up Donaldson’s numbers this season and, no surprise, he’s doing quite well, as you’d expect from Josh Donaldson, as you’d expect when someone knowledgeable is tweeting “MVP”. Specifically, he’s hitting .308/.421/.599 with 24 homers. That’s an MVP slash line.

Last night David Ortiz went 3-for-5 with a homer to bring his line to .330/.423/.673. With 24 homers. That is also an MVP slash line. In fact, for what it’s worth, Ortiz and Donaldson are the only players in baseball with OPSs over 1.000. It’s coming to the end of July and David Ortiz is hitting like the best hitter in baseball. He is a contender for the AL MVP.

Ortiz and Donaldson are the only players in baseball with OPSs over 1.000.

It would be silly to say he will or he won’t win it, because even if he’s been he best so far, there are two plus months of the season left to go. So instead of trying to predict the future, let’s look at what has happened this season. I’m writing this on Thursday evening so many of the sites, including BP, haven’t updated their numbers yet, so this won’t take into account Ortiz’s 3-for-5 game last night, but even so by TAv, David Ortiz is the fourth-best hitter in the American League so far this season. He’s behind Mike Trout, Donaldson, Steve Pearce, and Jose Altuve. So that’s one interpretation.

We at BP think our stats are the best because they are. But there are other stats out there and they can tell a different story. FanGraphs has wRC+ which is similar to our TAv. By wRC+, David Ortiz has a 177, eight points ahead of Donaldson, nine ahead of Trout, and 15 ahead of Altuve. The stat is scaled to 100 with each point being a percent above or below average, thus Ortiz has been 77 percent above average as a hitter this season, and he’s been eight percent better than Donaldson. That’s substantial. It’s only one number, but it’s substantial.

Of course, most MVP voters probably don’t check wRC+. If they check any advanced stat, it’s probably WARP or WAR. The problem for Ortiz here is that both of those stats attempt to quantify both offense and defense and Ortiz, as you may have heard, by virtue of his position, doesn’t play defense. WARP and WAR account for this by docking DHs for the value they aren’t adding by playing the field. Since the DH position doesn’t play a defensive position, it contains a negative adjustment of almost two wins (-17.5 runs specifically). That’s harsh, but you can understand that, for example, center fielder has a tougher job to do than a DH does. However, studies have showed that hitting as a DH is more difficult than hitting while playing a traditional defensive position in the field. WARP doesn’t take this into account.

And it won’t. Any change to WARP or WAR won’t come in time to save Ortiz’s MVP case, so again, if he’s going to win, he’ll have to do it by blowing the competition out of the water. It’s worth noting at this point that Ortiz isn’t blowing anyone out of the water in WARP or WAR. Part of the reason is that both are counting stats (i.e. the more you play the more you get), not rate stats that measure averages, like batting average or slugging percentage and Ortiz, as you might expect of a 40 year old (about the only part of being 40 that he has given in to this season) isn’t playing every day.

Keep in mind, for a DH to win the MVP, he’ll have to clearly out-hit the competition. Ortiz will retire after this season and his stature in the game may lend itself to getting some increased attention for an award such as this, but if at the end of the season he’s as good a hitter as Mike Trout, he’ll lose the award. There’s no way you vote for a slow DH over a fast and flashy center fielder (or a good third baseman, or a good second baseman, or or or…) when everything offensively is equal.

It’s maybe worth expanding on something in that last paragraph. Ortiz has something going for him that other players don’t. He’s an icon, a beloved figure who is retiring with numerous signature moments in his baseball career and he’s 40 years old. It’s entirely possible that Ortiz gets some votes that he might not have had he been a 30 year old guy named Orvid Dartiz.

There’s also historical significance should Ortiz win the MVP because No full-time DH has ever won the MVP award.

There’s also historical significance should Ortiz win the MVP because No full-time DH has ever won the MVP award. Don Baylor won the award in 1974 (the second award given after the implementation of the DH) having played 65 games at DH and 97 in the outfield. That is, for all intents and purposes, he was an outfielder. As it turned out, was the high water mark for DHs as MVPs. In 2000 Jason Giambi won the award while playing 24 of 154 games at DH. After that the pickings are scarce.

Also of historical significance is Ortiz’s age. As you have probably heard by now, Ortiz is 40 years old. In 2004 Barry Bonds won his fourth consecutive MVP award (and seventh overall) at the age of… 39! Well, Bonds’s birthday is July 24, so while it was his age-39 year, he won the award at age 40. But it was his age-39 season, so while he became the oldest winner of an MVP award in baseball history, he didn’t win the award as a 40-year-old. David Ortiz was born on November 18 so he turned 40 after last season and has played the entirety of the 2016 season as a 40-year-old. If he won the MVP this season he’d become both the oldest ever winner of the MVP and the first to win at age-40.

I’m not sure either of those history-making possibilities would impact Ortiz’s chances much. What would would be if he keeps hitting like a maniac. If he does, he may give Donaldson and Trout a real run.

Photo by Tommy Gilligan/USA Today Sports Images