Sox Payroll

What am I missing??? What is the holdup re: Teix & 4th starter??? 

Teix $22M replaces Manny’s $20M +$2m. 

Penny’s $8M replaces Schill’s $8m. 

Shoppach’s $-1M replaces Cash’s $-1M 

RRammi’s $-1M replaces Hansen’s $-1M 

Bay’s $8M replaces Coco’s $5M + Cora’s $4M – $1m 

Bailey’s $-1M replaces Casey’s $-1M 

That gives the Sox Teixeira, a potential 4th Ace (with no loss of draft picks), a big bat starting catcher from our own farm system, a dominant young 8th inning setup guy, a .290/35/100/900ops left fielder replacing Manny, and big bat high OPS Bailey replacing high OBP Casey. Most of the offseason holes are filled by this. Just add a 4th OF (Baldelli, Kapler, VanEvery?) and an IF/OF (Hairstson, Bloomquist, Thurston?) for perhaps $1-4M, and this team is done and absolutely dominant. 

And this doesn’t even account for the $10M from Timlin, Tavares, Casey, Colon, Smith, and as much as $32M in contracts that could still come off the books with Lowell, Lugo, Varitek. 

With $6M to the good, (not counting Tek, Julio, Mike) is this enough, in 2009, to extend Youk, Lester, Papelbon, perhaps MDC and J.Lopez, without increasing 2008 payroll, using the same formula as for Dustin, which is an accelerating contract. This would add $1 – 2M in 2009 to each of these contracts, so it seems it could be done: extending the core, signing top talent, filling all the holes. What am I missing??? Thanks.