Once among the sport’s financial heavyweights, the Red Sox in recent years have fallen to the middle of the pack when it comes to payroll. The apparent pivot has become a subject of fascination within the baseball world and a source of immense frustration for fans.

Why won’t the Red Sox spend like they used to?

This offseason the club has acted much more aggressively, and there’s no doubt the Red Sox are a better team now than they were at the end of last season. Yet the club also hasn’t made much of a splash in free agency, mostly loading up on short-term deals while the top players on the market have so far proven elusive.

That could still change and the Red Sox could wind up signing a premier player like Alex Bregman or Tanner Scott, but history suggests they could just as easily round out the roster with complementary pieces and call it an offseason.

Either way, I think what’s happening with the Red Sox this winter is clear.

The Red Sox are still in table-setting mode, and while they’re clearly working to improve the roster and get back into playoff contention, they also aren’t ready to go all in. As currently constituted the Red Sox are still at least one more year from becoming a true championship contender, and after falling short in their pursuit of Juan Soto there isn’t any one player the Red Sox could get capable of pushing them over the hump in 2025.

Knowing that, the Red Sox appear to be trying to help make this year’s team as competitive as possible without hamstringing the club next winter and beyond.

Three of Boston’s free agent signings so far have been on one-year deals, including Walker Buehler ($21.05 million), Aroldis Chapman ($10.75 million) and Justin Wilson ($2.25 million). Boston also has three other players set to hit free agency this offseason: Lucas Giolito ($19.25 million), Liam Hendriks ($5 million) and Rob Refsnyder ($1.95 million).

Add it all up, the Red Sox could have more than $60 million coming off the books next winter. They’re also positioned in a way where they may not have many holes to fill.

Assuming nobody gets hurt, the Red Sox could have a starting rotation of Garrett Crochet, Tanner Houck, Patrick Sandoval, Brayan Bello and Kutter Crawford in 2026 even if Buehler and Giolito both move on. They’ll also have Richard Fitts, Quinn Priester and Hunter Dobbins waiting in the wings, and there’s a good bet one of them will get an extended opportunity to prove themselves in the majors at some point this summer.

Offensively, Roman Anthony, Kristian Campbell and Marcelo Mayer will have all debuted by season’s end and the Red Sox will have a much better idea of what they can expect from their top prospects. The club’s core of young big leaguers will have also further established itself, and it’s conceivable the Red Sox could have a quality starter entrenched at every position, especially if one or more of the Big Three breaks out.

With that in mind, let’s say the Red Sox take a modest step forward in 2025, making the playoffs as a Wild Card team before bowing out in the ALDS. What then? At that point they could realistically say they’re one player away from a championship, and with $60 million or more freed up and ready, there’d be no excuse not to make a godfather offer to the top free agents available, a group expected to include players like Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Kyle Tucker and Dylan Cease.

That financial flexibility should also give the Red Sox the means to spend at least up to the luxury tax this year as well without having to worry about future draft pick penalties. With the club currently about $26.7 million under the first threshold, according to @RedSoxPayroll, the Red Sox should have the ability to sign either Bregman or a top closer while still staying under.

Could the Red Sox spend over the luxury tax this year? Absolutely. Should they? If that’s what it takes to get Bregman, a closer, and lock up Crochet (and others) to long-term extensions, then yes, without hesitation. Draft picks are volatile anyway, and even though going over the tax in 2022 bumped the Red Sox’s compensatory draft pick for losing Xander Bogaerts back from the second to the fourth round, they still came away with Campbell, now one of the top prospects in baseball.

But if the Red Sox don’t spend over and only make a couple more marginal moves to round out the roster, nobody should act surprised.

Though they’ve never come out and said so explicitly, the Red Sox have been engaged in a long-term rebuild over the past five years. The club hasn’t tanked to the extent that the Houston Astros, Chicago Cubs and Baltimore Orioles all did in recent years, but the Red Sox have taken a similar forward-looking approach and stuck with it in the face of intense criticism.

Now the pieces are finally falling into place, and at a similar point in their respective rebuilds the 2015 Cubs finished 97-65 before breaking their century-plus championship drought the following year, and the 2016 Astros finished 84-78 before enjoying their own World Series breakthrough in 2017. Craig Breslow has spoken of how Red Sox fans have waited long enough and that “it’s time to deliver.” If past history is any indication the club should be ready to take a step forward.

But Breslow also recently expressed a need for the club to stay disciplined, which he defined as “finding the right balance between what a player could add to the team and what potentially the opportunity cost or what that shuts us out from, both in terms of playing time, roster fit, etc.” Knowing the Big Three are on the way, would it really shock anyone if the Red Sox decided to let things play out and see what they have before pushing their chips to the center of the table in 2026?

The Red Sox have stuck to their guns this far, so we probably shouldn’t expect them to change course now, even if it means enduring another exhausting year of payroll discourse and Tampa Bay Rays comparisons.