To play this, we each have to make some assumptions. Mine are that there are $3-4 mil to play with this year, if the team stays in contention...that the payroll will increase about $10 mil next season.
If the team remains in legitimate contention for the division, I would try to make a prospects for Haniger trade. Hanigers salary next season replaces Hernandez' or partially replaces Eddie's...and Haniger becomes the RF.
I'd be willing to trade any position prospects, outside of Freeman and Naylor, with a focus on moving Jones and Valera. I also wouldn't shy away from trading a lower level pitching prospect.
I'd promote Freeman to AAA by the break, and quit moving him around. Stick him on second, and groom him for next year in Cleveland. What I do with Hernandez depends upon how Freeman looks in the second half.
Multiple MIF prospects would get extended looks in the OF.
Naylor would be my 1B. Amed my CF. Giminez my SS. This would be done by July.
I'd try to extend Bieber, Franmil, and Civale, and resign Shaw. I'd keep both Berto and Hedges.
Sometime before the Rule Five, I'd explore a major prospects for legit MLB bat with multiple years of control. That players arby cost would replace most of the rest of what we are paying Eddie and Hernandez.
I would cull a bunch of the dead weight here and in Columbus, knowing full well that one of them will some day become an at least semi productive MLB player.
All of that should be able to be done within a $60 mil budget.
I'm not as concerned about the rotation as many are here. IMO the injuries are more of the problem than anything else, and only one injury (Allen's elbow) is an arm problem. The talent is there, the experience will come. I'm also not moving any of them to the pen. Too much upside to move them to a pen which is already loaded, and should be for several years.
Basically, I'd play for contention this year as long as there is a legitimate shot, while setting up for next year.
