But the Dodgers have already made it clear they’re not in the Robinson Cano sweepstakes because at some point, you can’t just spend-spend-spend because you’ll also spend millions in luxury taxes. The Red Sox needed to stay under the $178 million threshold to trigger the tax, just like the Yankees want to stay under $189 million for 2014 (and are thus desperate for Alex Rodriguez’s suspension to stand).
With the big-money, low-character guys gone to Los Angeles, what did Cherington do? He spent the winter adding the likes of Shane Victorino, Mike Napoli, Stephen Drew, Koji Uehara, Jonny Gomes, David Ross and Ryan Dempster. All except Dempster were Fall Classic heroes. Pretty amazing.
Let’s not forget that Cherington got roasted, and perhaps deservedly so, for Victorino’s three-year, $39 million deal. But Cherington clearly wanted winning players. Victorino was on back-to-back World Series teams in Philadelphia. Gomes had been on three division champions, four playoff teams and a World Series team (the ‘08 Rays) in the last five years. Napoli had played in the postseason with Anaheim and Texas and would have been the ’11 Series MVP if not for the Rangers’ collapse in St. Louis. That matters.