Red Sox paying Eric Hosmer minimum salary was….
The Boston Red Sox apparently didn’t have to fight very hard to get the San Diego Padres to take on most of Eric Hosmer’s salary.
On Thursday, Red Sox GM Brian O’Halloran appeared on WEEI’s “Greg Hill Show” to break down the team’s activity at the MLB trade deadline.
O’Halloran said that the deal to acquire Hosmer hinged on what San Diego could add in terms of prospects and money to sweeten the pot for the former All-Star first baseman. By the time Boston came calling on Hosmer, the Padres’ cache of prospects had already been stripped in the Juan Soto trade. So as a result, the Padres offered to let the Red Sox take Hosmer at the league minimum — picking up a $44 million tab.
“By the time, the Padres traded Hosmer to us, they had traded most of their top prospects … The financial part of it, at that point, the deal that was offered to us was him paid down to the minimum. We weren’t going to ask to pay him more,” O’Halloran said on WEEI.
The Red Sox and Padres had to adjust on the fly. Hosmer had originally been included in the Soto deal. However, the first baseman invoked his no-trade clause to avoid going to the Washington Nationals.
As a result, Hosmer was pulled from the Soto deal and flipped to the Red Sox, who had already had long-running talks with San Diego.
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“We’ve had conversations dating back several years with San Diego about a lot of different things including various concepts with Eric coming over to Boston,” O’Halloran said. “Finally, at the deadline here, we were able to get him over here and we were able to bring over some prospects with him.’
Hosmer is set to join the Red Sox this week in Kansas City as the former Royals first baseman gets set to visit Kauffman Stadium as a visiting player for the first time.