This just isn't true. The Sox' poor run is not because of the Sale contract, it's because the farm system went like 5 years with little to no production. Teams win all the time with dead money on the books. The Yankees always have at least one bad deal on the books -- Giambi, Teixeira, Ellsbury, Stanton. The Astros this year spent 48 million on Jose Abreu, Lance McCullers, and Michael Brantley, who combined for exactly 0.1 WAR. The Rangers paid Jacob DeGrom 37 mil this year.
Dead money is the cost of doing business for teams who swim in the deep end of the FA pool. If they all go bad at the same time, that's a tough hole to dig out from. But one bad deal? A good team can weather that storm.
The poor run the past decade hasn't been "just" because of Sale's contract or "just" because of the farm system not bearing fruit. Those have certainly both been large factors. But largely sitting out free agency, having some very poor trade results and depending on incredibly undependable starting pitching have also been factors. I'm sure there are others I'm missing. To say it's "one" thing or the other misses the point that there are a lot of slices of blame pie to go around - some slices are of course bigger than others.
I'm not riding the Ohtani train and here's why. The Sox greatest needs ATM is top line pitch and defense. While the Sox have the cash to be players in this year's FA market I'm questioning the wisdom of potentially paying $40 M plus for a guy who might never again be the pitcher that he once was and might not be dependable as an outfielder.
I'm in complete and total agreement with this take
@YTF.
Ohtani is - at least in my opinion - the greatest baseball player that has ever played in the majors. (His injury history might stop him for achieving that title for some, but if he continues on anything like the path he's been on, I don't see how anyone else would take that mantle from him.)
However, the Red Sox have several players on their roster that could (and possibly should) slide into a DH role and - certainly not while matching Ohtani with the bat - could provide a very high level DH. Devers is 1st in that list, Yoshida is probably 2nd. Casas could certainly do that, but he made enough strides at 1b this year - and is young enough - that I'd certainly slide one of those two into the DH role first. This isn't to say "but where would we play him" - that's dumb - it's a different argument. It's saying we have very good options of players that are limited defensively but quite good offensively that could slide into that role.
They don't have that kind of expected production in house for starting pitchers or RHH top/middle of the order bats. This is where they need to focus their efforts.
Ohtani is awesome. But since he won't be able to pitch in 2024, he doesn't fit the needs of the roster at the MLB (or prospect limitations from the minor league level) that the Red Sox need to address first.
(That said, if Breslow wants to trade Duran, Mayer, Yorke, Bleis, Houck, Verdugo and Cespedes for "Dylan Cease and Logan Gilbert" and then give Ohtani 1/2 a billion dollars to roll with Rafaela - CF, Yoshida - LF, Ohtani - DH, Devers - 3b; Story - SS; Casas - 1b; Abreu - RF; Wong - C; Rosario - 2b with Bello, Gilbert, Cease, Crawford and some combination of Sale/Murphy/Pivetta/Chawson injury flier X" at the 5, and the thought that Ohtani joins the 2025 rotation, be my guest.)