The Red Sox also released Alan Craig a couple weeks ago. The funny situation for them now is Rusney Castillo. He's having a heck of a year in AAA, was the AAA All Star game MVP. His cost is around $38MM/ yr for the next 3 years, plus about $4MM remaining this year. That's a bit high for a guy who is unproven in the majors, but he has 6 years of control. However, that's not the real problem financially. normally, a guy like that, the Sox could eat half his contract and he'd be valuable in trade. The reason Red Sox can't bring him onto the 40 man roster or even eat half his contract is because it will trip them over the luxury tax threshold. In the minors, he is not a counted towards the luxury tax. If they eat salary and trade him, or just bring him up, that puts them over the luxury tax threshold. They either have to bust the threshold in another deal, making his contract just more water over the dam, or sit tight with him until next year, when they will undoubtedly be over the cap.