Compared to the problems the Yankees face this offseason, the Red Sox’ issues aren’t so bad, Brian MacPherson of the Providence Journal writes. With a huge number of ugly contracts on the books (including those of C.C. Sabathia, Mark Teixeira, Brian McCann, Alex Rodriguez and Carlos Beltran), they’ll be limited in their ability to upgrade. They will, however, get a modest boost in that Derek Jeter’s $12MM salary will come off the books. The Red Sox don’t have as many onerous commitments as the Yankees, and they also have more interesting young players, so if they were to trade a veteran, they would be able to replace him with a young player like Mookie Betts. Here’s more from the East divisions.
- Being traded from the Red Sox to the Athletics helped reduce the amount of speculation surrounding Jon Lester as he approached free agency, Rob Bradford of WEEI.com reports. “Everybody knows it’s two months and then probably not sign a contract with the Oakland A’s. We’re going to go our separate ways and go into free agency,” Lester says. In Boston, Lester faced months of questions about his impending free agency and whether he would re-sign with the Red Sox, but there are no such questions with Oakland. Now he’s about to enter free agency as one of the market’s top pitchers — MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes recently rated Lester the second overall free agent, behind Max Scherzer.
- Jonathan Papelbon’s age and contract give the Phillies reasons to try to trade him this offseason, but Papelbon says he would not mind staying in Philadelphia, writes MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki. “I’ve said the perfect ending to this equation would be me on this team righting this ship and possibly closing out a World Series or getting in the playoffs and making a nice run and seeing what happens from there,” says Papelbon. “I think that would be a fairy tale ending if there is one.” Papelbon had previously said he wanted to play for a contender and was willing to waive his limited no-trade clause to do so.