Simple plan
Sign JD Martinez
Sign Carlos Santana
Move Benintendi to CF
Trade Bradley to Cleveland for Danny Salazar
Trade Kimbrel to Houston for Kyle Tucker and Hector Perez
Sign Bryan Shaw
Simple plan
Sign JD Martinez
Sign Carlos Santana
Move Benintendi to CF
Trade Bradley to Cleveland for Danny Salazar
Trade Kimbrel to Houston for Kyle Tucker and Hector Perez
Sign Bryan Shaw
Even the part about trading Kimbrel for a fairly light package?
And the part I left out was the last step where the Sox use heir reamining international money to sign as many Braves' farm system refgees as possible. Maitan is not very likely. But maybe a few others from Severino, Gutierrez and Contreras.
Otherise if the Sox need anything in July, they have nothing to trade for it...
I know a lot of posters scoff at the cliff idea due to the Sox weak farm. While the cliff absolutely exists, like any disaster 3 years pending, there is plenty of time to take action and multiple options available.
The real cliff is July 31, 2018. If the Sox are in contention as they should be, they will have zero ability to make any deadline improvements with this farm...
...but Perez is just a single A crap shoot and Tucker just reached AA. Their value is purely speculative!
(For the record, I'd do this. I've wanted Salazar for a long time and even suggested JBJ for him before.)
I'm not sure we can do all this for less than $39M, but it could be close. We could DFA Holt and trade a player or two to get under the second penalty level,
but we might also want to keep some salary space for a mid season trade.
I just don't see DD making a trade like the one you suggested with Kimbrel, unless we are out of the playoff hunt in July (highly unlikely).
That's the part I think makes rebuilding the farm much harder than when ben was here and we were getting high draft picks, had more money to spend on international free agents and were out of it a few times which allowed Ben to trade players for prospects or team-controlled players like ERod, Kelly and Hembree.
If we keep winning, rebuilding the farm gets harder and harder, especially under the new rules.