Sums it up. If the 10/320 offer is true that satisfies me for effort. Allocating 15% of your payroll to one player is tough and I respect going another way with it. They will find another route to the next ring, zero doubt. Laundry first.
The bolded is where I diverge from the realpolitik of this discussion. The payroll is not fixed. Ownership can pick a payroll target, and there are suggestions they want to get below the luxury threshold. That is a choice.
Betts could get 10/350 and that would only be 10% of the payroll if John Henry would be satisfied with making less money in 2020. He makes money every year. The choice to go to the luxury threshold will result in more money for the owners and less talent for the Sox.
As far as what next if they ship Betts out and "reset" the tax?
Not much on the macro level. Fenway will still sell out, because is it a small ballpark in a big city. The Red Sox have enviable brand equity that can survive a down year, or even three down years.
On the micro level, a trade of Betts would be devastating. Like Teddywingman, I will withdraw in anger. Instead of following the Sox closely and going to 2-6 games (I live out of state), I will mostly ignore the Sox and do other things this summer.
I will spend time with my children, a development that will alarm them and confuse their mother. That late attempt at half-assed parenting, far too inconsistent to make a difference, will be emotionally damaging, and remind them of the time I tried to be a decent father in the fall of 2008 because I didn't like Matt Cassell's throwing motion.
I will fill the hours with drink and the non-Sox part of SoSH (brace yourselves --I have never posted in TBLTS, but I am brimming with bad advice).
Adrift, I will probably watch the goddam NBA Summer League and start a new thread in the Port Cellar called "Time (Lord) for a Comeback."
Sans Betts, I will speak to my neighbors, which will do no credit to me and give no pleasure to my neighbors.
My excess energy, not longer needed to shout incoherently at Andrew Cashner, will likely curdle in my libido, which will do no credit to me and give no pleasure to my wife.
I know John Henry lurks on SoSH. Message sent, moneybags.