Boston Red Sox - Steering it from the “bridge” - The Boston Globe

With each passing day, I suspect the Sox are getting more and more used to the idea they will have to make due in leftfield next year. If Bay gets offered a fifth year for big dollars I can’t see the Sox signing him. If Boras is really looking for Teixeira money for Holliday, I can’t see the Sox in on him either. So what do they do in that case? Pick up more bullpen depth, sign Harden, and try to put together some low risk alternatives to David Ortiz in case he doesn’t have a big rebound year.

“We talked about this a lot at the end of the year, that we’re kind of in a bridge period,’’ he said. “We still think that if we push some of the right buttons, we can be competitive at the very highest levels for the next two years. But we don’t want to compromise too much of the future for that competitiveness during the bridge period, but we all don’t want to sacrifice our competitiveness during the bridge just for the future. So we’re just trying to balance both those issues.’’

That necessary talent might not come until next offseason, when the market is far better and the Sox will be shedding some major contracts (David Ortiz, Mike Lowell). They recognize that there are no major impact free agents on the market right now, no players like Mark Teixeira worthy of those big-money deals. There are such players on the trade market. But, it seems, the Sox would rather hoard their prospects.