The Red Sox could use free agency as a way of bolstering areas of strength and making future deals.

BOSTON — How active are the Red Sox prepared to be in free agency?

There has been a standard answer to that question in the past. Boston has generally been a buyer under the ownership of John Henry. Per Cot’s Contracts, the club’s year-end payroll ranked inside Major League Baseball’s top five every year from 2001 to 2019.

Consider the deals signed by the likes of Manny Ramirez, Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and David Price. They all remain among the top 50 in the sport’s history in terms of total value. Chris Sale’s five-year extension also falls in that category – $137.5 million and above.

Last offseason marked a hard pivot toward fiscal responsibility. The Red Sox fired president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski and hired chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom from the Rays. Boston paid more than $2.7 million for each of its 84 victories in 2019 while Tampa Bay – which closed with the league’s lowest payroll – spent a little more than $702,000 for each of its 96 wins.

COVID-19 also changes the financial landscape of the sport and business at large. The Red Sox have admitted they’re about to absorb a loss of $100 million or more for the 2020 season. Such a public disclosure is either preparing their fan base for a lack of marquee activity or a reminder of just how long this rebuild might last.

“I don’t know what the outlook on 2021 is yet with respect to the virus,” Red Sox president and CEO Sam Kennedy said. “As that becomes clear we’ll be able to act in real time and make decisions. I can tell you that John, Tom (Werner), Chaim, (general manager Brian O’Halloran) and I met last week. There is an organization-wide commitment from the top down to this goal and mission of building a team that is consistent, that is competitive and that gets us back to where we belong, which is at the top of the American League East.”

The new Boston buzzwords include flexibility and sustainability. They traded Mookie Betts when it became clear a contract extension could not be agreed to prior to his free agency. It is worth wondering just how much the Red Sox will allow themselves to be stretched in the pursuit of their next championship.

“I think we find that even though we have expectations for what it will be, every offseason there are surprises,” Bloom said. “Last offseason there were some contracts that ended up getting signed that I’m not sure people would have predicted at the beginning of the offseason.

“I think it’s dangerous to say at the beginning of a winter that we know what it’s going to look like. We usually end up being wrong.”

Boston has roughly $141.6 million committed to its payroll next season, which leaves $68.4 million available under the lowest Competitive Balance Tax threshold. The Red Sox have multiple players eligible for arbitration who will cut into that margin – Eduardo Rodriguez, Matt Barnes, Kevin Plawecki and Rafael Devers should all be tendered healthy contract offers. Boston should still retain the ability to sign at least one headliner, if not two.

Per FanGraphs, a pair of right-handed pitchers are among the top starters and relivers. Trevor Bauer and Liam Hendriks rank among the website’s best 10 in WAR over a three-year period beginning in 2018. Bauer posted a 3.18 earned-run average in that period while Hendriks allowed just 14 hits and fanned 37 in 25 1/3 innings this season.

Mike Minor, Jake Odorizzi, Masahiro Tanaka, Rick Porcello, Kevin Gausman and Jose Quintana are also among the top-50 starters available. Bloom was in the Rays front office when the club made a December 2012 trade to acquire Odorizzi from the Brewers. Porcello spent 2015-19 with the Red Sox and struggled mightily with the Mets in 2020, posting a 5.64 ERA in 12 starts.

A pair of rehabbers are among the top-50 relivers available – Kirby Yates and Ken Giles will both be coming off Tommy John surgery. The Red Sox could elect to buy low on each right-hander with a two-year deal if they’re building toward 2022. Blake Treinen, Joakim Soria, Sean Doolittle and Pedro Baez are also among the pieces who could help the Boston bullpen.

Marcus Semien, J.T. Realmuto, George Springer and D.J. LeMahieu are among the top-30 position players available. Semien would seem redundant given the presence of Xander Bogaerts at shortstop. Realmuto could be surplus to requirements with Christian Vazquez catching and Bobby Dalbec – or, longer term, Triston Casas – ready to man first base.

It’s here where Bloom could be creative to reinforce a pitching staff that posted a franchise-worst ERA in 2020. The Red Sox could use free agency as a way of bolstering areas of strength and making future deals. The likes of Vazquez and Bogaerts could be dealt to reinforce the club’s pitching depth, and they’re likely the two premier assets – absent players with more team control, like Devers – who would return maximum value.

Bloom has been tasked with what would have been a similar challenge offered to Oakland Athletics executive Billy Beane. The pioneer of the sport’s Moneyball philosophy nearly became the Red Sox general manager in 2002. Henry reportedly tabled an offer of $12.5 million to Beane, who declined – Theo Epstein was hired in the days that followed.