I'd argue playing him this year is exactly the time to do it. Let him play the rest of the second half and see what you get out of him. At best he helps his value, at worst we lose a game or 2 because of him. We are going to finish 3rd in the division, it literally does not matter if we throw Palka out there and he's garbage.
You have Jose Abreu, Colome, Herrera, and McCann factored in. The only one of those that might be here in 2 years is McCann. They have no money on the books dude. They have played with top 10 salary rosters fairly recently with shit teams.
They have no real money comitted to anybody why don't you understand this? They could have Machado and Cole/Wheeler/whoever else they want.
Machado is going to end the year close to 5 WAR again lol. He is absolutely worth 30 mil.
The Sox have 25 million on the books next year and Tim Anderson and Eloy for 2021. They could have signed Harper, Manny, Cole, Wheeler, and any combination of RP and been fine.
Manny has also not dropped off significantly by any stretch.
Bleday is also better than Tilson, Cordell, Palka, Rutherford, Walker and plays a more valuable position. They were graded pretty similar as well. I'm not going to beat a dead horse about it but we will see.
That's 35+ HR and 100+ RBI with GG caliber 3B defense. He is definitely worth that.
Then you have Yo at 2b and don't have to see putrid Rondon ever again.