Red sox and Toronto Blue Jays agree to 1-year, $22 million contract which have caused….
TORONTO — Infielder Justin Turner and the Toronto Blue Jays agreed to a one-year, $13 million contract, a person familiar with the deal told The Associated Press.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the agreement for the 39-year-old was subject to a successful physical.
Turner hit .276 with 23 homers, 96 RBIs and an .800 OPS last season for the Boston Red Sox. The two-time All-Star spent the previous nine seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Toronto has been eager to add offense to a team that struggled to score last season. He was a designated hitter 98 times last year while appearing 41 times in the infield. Free agent Matt Chapman played third base for Toronto last season.
Turner was co-winner of the 2017 NL Championship Series MVP award and won a World Series in 2020. He is a .288 hitter with 187 homers and 759 RBIs in 15 seasons with Baltimore (2009-10), the New York Mets (2010-13), the Dodgers (2014-22) and the Red Sox.
The Red Sox front office entered 2023 with a mandated budget of $225 million, well below the then-$233 million competitive balance tax base threshold.
The base threshold will increase $4 million to $237 million in 2024 but the Red Sox are expected to spend even less this season.
“It (2024 payroll) probably will be lower than it was in 2023,” team president Sam Kennedy admitted at Winter Weekend on Jan. 19. “I don’t know that for sure. We don’t talk about specific payroll numbers. But I want to be clear, the build we’re engaged in and have been engaged in will dictate the spend.”
Feb. 14 marks the first official spring training workout for pitchers and catchers. The Red Sox still plan to add to their roster after identifying starting pitching as their top area of need at the beginning of the offseason. Boston has done little to address its pitching issues. As it stands right now, the Sox have a worse starting rotation on paper than they did in 2023.
Boston has plenty of payroll flexibility. MassLive calculated the CBT payroll (see below) at approximately $190.95 million before adding in another $10 million for in-season moves.
The Red Sox, therefore, have approximately another $36-37 million to spend before even reaching the base threshold, which would require them to pay a 20% tax penalty on their overage. But if the Red Sox plan to be below last year’s CBT payroll of $225 million, then the front office has $25 million or less to spend.
