Both players seemed to fit the Red Sox’ checklist: long-time middle-of-the-order hitters who were available on short-term deals and, because they hadn’t received a qualifying offer from their former teams, would not require the sacrifice of a draft pick. Yet despite the appearance of a fit with the Red Sox, according to a major league source, the Sox weren’t heavily involved in bidding for either player.

Two names that seemed to make a ton of sense for the Red Sox came off the board over the weekend. Carlos Beltran agreed to a one-year, $16 million deal with the Astros on Saturday. Matt Holliday followed by agreeing with the Yankees to a one-year, $13 million deal on Sunday.


Why not? The answer is revealing about where the Red Sox stand this offseason.

According to multiple major league sources, the Red Sox’ first priority this offseason is to add an eighth-inning bullpen arm. The team needs to decide how it’s going to address that need – free agency or trade, and at what cost in dollars and prospects – before it decides whether it will add a bat, and at what price.

As such, while the Sox had interest in Beltran and Holliday, they weren’t in a position to take part in a bidding war for either player – even a relatively modest one of the one-year variety – with their pursuit of a reliever still unresolved. There’s a good chance that other names could come off the board before the Red Sox decide what, if anything, to do in the market for bats.

The fact that the Red Sox are making choices also points to a significant constraint: The Red Sox are making moves with considerable caution as they try to see whether they can sneak under the luxury tax threshold – nudged up from $189 million in 2016 to $195 million in 2017 under the new Collective Bargaining Agreement. Assuming the team maintains a nugget of approximately $9 million for in-season moves (call-ups and trades), that would leave the club with about $8 million to add in payroll.


That opens the door for a few potential directions:

1.) Sign a free-agent eighth-inning reliever and do little else.

2.) Look for a relatively inexpensive eighth-inning option – perhaps something like re-signing Koji Uehara, who has put out signals that he would like to return to the Red Sox – and then wait for the crowded market for bats (Mike Napoli, Jose Bautista, Michael Saunders, Pedro Alvarez, Mitch Moreland, Brandon Moss, Steven Pearce) to sort itself out, moving opportunistically to add a player who loses a game of musical chairs. In such a scenario, the team would hope that between the added pitcher, Joe Kelly, and Carson Smith, they’d have the options to pair with closer Craig Kimbrel to achieve a sense of bullpen solidity.

3.) Trade for a young, low-cost pitcher with eighth-inning credentials – a move that would come at a meaningful prospect cost (think, at a minimum, Sam Travis and/or Luis Alexander Basabe) – to free a bit more money for a bat.

4.) Try to repeat the sort of trade the Sox made at last year’s winter meetings when the team traded Wade Miley for Smith and Roenis Elias by dealing Clay Buchholz ($13.5 million salary) for a young setup man, then using the liberated resources to acquire a bat.


5.) Pounce on opportunities, even if it means blowing past the luxury tax threshold. With both Houston and New York having addressed their needs for bats, and the Blue Jays (according to the winter meetings force of nature that is Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports) having pulled their four-year, $80 million offer to Edwin Encarnacion, some major league sources wonder whether his market might plummet. In that seemingly unlikely scenario for the best available bat, some wonder whether the Red Sox could be convinced to get involved, even if it meant exceeding the luxury tax threshold.

6.) Deliver a haymaker of a trade: If the Red Sox believe that they’re going to have to dip into some of the more valuable pieces of their prospect inventory for a middle reliever, perhaps they’d decide to leverage those assets not to address complementary needs but instead to pursue the most impactful players available on the trade market. In theory, the Sox could examine a blockbuster to address all their needs (and then some) with the White Sox, who can dangle slugger Jose Abreu and low-cost standout eighth-inning reliever Nate Jones … not to mention Chris Sale.

From a financial standpoint, the Red Sox could fit Sale (in the middle of a five-year, $32.5 million deal), Abreu (projected to receive $12 million through salary arbitration by MLBTradeRumors.com), and Jones (entering year two of a three-year, $8 million deal) and stay under the luxury tax threshold by trading away the salary of Buchholz.


Buster Olney of ESPN.com reports that the White Sox seem motivated to move Sale this offseason – perhaps out of concern about seeing his value evaporate if his unusual mechanics leave him vulnerable to a breakdown.

The Red Sox’ appetite to deal key building blocks of their future in a deal like the one outlined in the “haymaker” scenario seems limited. President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski has downplayed the likelihood that he’d use chips like the ones he spent last winter (Manuel Margot, Javier Guerra, Logan Allen, and Carlos Asuaje) for a setup man, and he’s likewise expressed satisfaction with his rotation.

That said, given his offseason track record in recent years, it’s hard to dismiss shoot-the-moon scenarios completely, even if they cannot be anticipated.

What can be anticipated? First, that the Red Sox view their setup man as the first (and possibly only) domino of the winter, and secondly, that in contrast to last winter, when the team reached without much restraint for the top shelf to address each of its offseason needs, there are constraints this winter that require more calculated choices.

Follow Alex Speier on Twitter at @alexspeier.