BOSTON — The Red Sox are the only organization that has not signed a major league free agent this offseason.
That fact has caused the front office and ownership to be criticized for a lack of activity despite making several trades, including adding starting pitchers Sonny Gray and Johan Oviedo as well as power-hitting first baseman Willson Contreras .
“I think it’s just important to look at the facts,” Red Sox president Sam Kennedy said at Fenway Fest on Saturday. “If you go back a year ago, this date last year, I believe our organization has taken on close to $500 million in contractual commitments to guys like Garrett Crochet , guys like Kristian Campbell , guys like Roman Anthony . So that’s just a fact. We’ve added $40 million in payroll through trades. That’s just a fact. We cannot and do not try to control social media narrative. We understand that talk radio is ablaze with opinions and ideas. That’s what makes this the best place in the world to be, to live and to operate in baseball.”
Since Opening Day 2025, the Red Sox have agreed to extensions with Crochet ( six years, $170 million ), Campbell ( eight years, $60 million ), Anthony ( eight years, $130 million ) and Aroldis Chapman (one year, $13.3 million ).
The Red Sox re-worked Gray’s contract so that their commitment to him is worth about $21 million in 2026.
To obtain Contreras , the Red Sox increased his guarantee — to $42.5 million over two years — by changing the 2027 salary from $18.5 million to $17 million, then adding $2.5 million to both the 2028 option (now $20 million) and buyout (now $7.5 million). In effect, Contreras received an extra $1 million for approving the trade, just as Gray did.
“There’s a reason why we’ve been here for 25 years doing this,” Kennedy added. “We love it. And so it comes with the territory. But I just think we have to focus in on the facts. And look, our fans in the end want exactly what we want and we have an obligation to give it to them. That’s getting to October and winning in October. No one is popping champagne over getting to a Wild Card Series. That’s not the Red Sox goal or standard. The standard is doing everything we can to win another World Series championship. We’ve tasted it many, many times and we want more and more for our fans. That’s what they deserve.”
Kennedy would not say whether the Red Sox will go beyond the second CBT threshold of $264 million.
“We don’t like to talk about our budget planning, but we’ve been here for 24 years and we’ve been over the CBT threshold. We were over the CBT threshold last year. We’ve been over the CBT threshold in years past. We’ve been under. So it’s to be determined, but we’ll see where things shake out.”
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