Teams across Major League Baseball are cutting their budgets, whether it be for game day staff, player payroll or taking a chance on underpaying executives.
The owners of the teams have little to no interest in expanding their current payroll. Historically, we have already seen this with teams like the Miami Marlins, Tampa Bay Rays and the Pittsburgh Pirates, where ownership isn’t willing to spend their dollars on premium free agents and talented players within their system.
The Boston Red Sox are the next team on that list of clubs trying to cut costs. However, they’re attacking it in a much different way than not paying their players.
The Red Sox have been on a spending spree in the last season and a half. Extending young talent like Ceddanne Rafaela, Garrett Crochet and Roman Anthony—and with more players in the pipeline ready for a payday. Despite that, last offseason the Red Sox made headlines for not renewing the contracts of a plethora of longtime scouts in their system.
This year, it seems they are trying to remedy that by instead asking scouts in contract years to take considerable pay cuts, and even offering them completely different roles.
Alex Speier of the Boston Globe wrote that the pay cuts “added to questions about the role of traditional scouting in the Sox decision-making.”
It has been reported that many factors caused the pay cuts to these individuals, mentioning that they are “how to spend the operation’s budget best.”
It is hard not to speculate that this money could be going to another big name inside the clubhouse, considering the amount of money the Red Sox have handed out. However, management has reiterated that it is intended to allow the club to allocate its funds in other areas.
This follows in the suit of both the Chicago Cubs and Minnesota Twins, who in the past season have made extreme cuts to their scouting department. This raises a question: are major league teams reconsidering the importance of in-person evaluations, especially in a new era of baseball where all games are televised and recorded to assist teams?
Only time will tell, and on the other hand, some teams have overloaded their scouting departments. The Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees have maintained an old-school mindset for a while, with consistently large scouting rooms, while the Rays and Mariners have expanded their staff in recent seasons. However, it appears that the number of scouts is in a downtrend.
This column is written in partnership with the Business in Sports club
