Maybe Sam Kennedy gets a bonus of 10 percent of every dollar saved under the first threshold? Because how does does going $8 million under the cap benefit ownership? I mean, if you’re going cheap in order to stash profits, why spend to 96.5 percent of the cap and pay Devers? Like isn’t $8 million a rounding error of the annual payroll let alone total club revenues? Very strange.
Not for nothing, but as we get more and more data points (or corroboration), I think there is a pretty decent picture coming into focus here - or it could be my own wishcasting, and I don’t discount that possibility, but putting myself in a position of FSG ownership, it makes a ton of sense…
I’ve always been of the belief that FSG gives the FO a budget each year of (ish) $Luxury Tax Threshhold, and then pretty much gets out of the way (in that they don’t micro manage). Obviously FSG must be consulted on enormous deals as any ownership group would, but beyond that taking a stance of “baseball decisions come from the FO, but we hold them accountable.”
So the 2022 deadline comes around, and Bloom decides not to sell (and reset the tax) because he believes the team is good enough as constructed to make the playoffs. So not only does he not make the believed Sale deal, but he also chooses not to sell off any of the pending free agents - thus staying over the tax AND not focusing on the rebuild. He was ultimately very wrong, and that’s a big strike against him.
As such he is given a hard and fast deadline of $225m for 2023 to ensure a reset. He makes a choice in January to sign Kluber. Eovaldi comes back and asks for his deal and is told ”no” because Kluber has been agreed to in principal and the Duvall signing is in the works. Kluber implodes dramatically, and the pitching staff is a shambles closing in on the trade deadline. Again, rather than sell off, Bloom decides to (again) bank on guys returning from injury. That again fails AND no moves for the future are pulled off (I suppose excepting Urias, but deciding to retain Paxton, Turner and Duvall for a run ends up looking like another horrible miscalculation).
At which point the decision is made to fire him.
Breslow comes in and is told (like other candidates) that he’s going to have an (ish) $Luxury Tax Threshold budget each season, and he’s good with that. But he still has a lot of what are now Bloom’s problems on the books (specifically Story, an overpaid Yoshida, and Sale - whom now belongs to Bloom if he could have gotten out of the deal and said no thanks.)
So his “budget“ this year is (call it) $235m, and (like Theo did) he wants to leave some money for in season deals, so that is now $230m. And he starts winding down the Bloom moves he doesn’t like (Urias gone, Verdugo gone, Sale gone).
$230m is still a really good budget (but now is more in line with Houston, Tor, Atl and ChC in the 7-12 range) and not t all like LAD, NYY, NYM and the like, so agents say they’re not spending with the top of the market. Which is true, but does lack some context (Well, they’re not spending like LAD or NY - totally true; but they will spend like Atl, Hou and the like - which doesn’t exactly sound terrible).
I can absolutely understand “handcuffing” Bloom based on his decisions (or lack thereof) going into 2023. I would have.