FORT MYERS, FLA. – The Boston Red Sox announced Friday that Travis Shaw would be the starting third baseman and Pablo Sandoval would be part of their four-player bench.

This put the payroll for the Boston bench at $37.7 million: Sandoval ($17M), Rusney Castillo ($10.5M), Chris Young ($6.5M) and backup catcher Ryan Hanigan ($3.7M).

The Twins will be spending closer to $3.25 million for their bench, with $1.475 million for Eduardo Nunez and in the $575,000 to $600,000 range for three players who were not eligible for arbitration: Danny Santana, Oswaldo Arcia and backup catcher John Ryan Murphy.

The Red Sox brought in Young because he mashes lefthanded pitching, and he's going to platoon with Brock Holt in left field. It's nice to have $6.5 million to spend on a weapon like that.

That said, you might prefer the potential of the bench the Twins are getting for 8½ percent of Boston's outlay.

Santana was a revelation for the Twins in 2014 as the emergency center fielder and then a bust after opening as the everyday shortstop in 2015.

The advantage he started with this spring was being out of minor league options. The advantage he had when the Twins left Florida on Thursday was that over the 30 exhibitions, the base-stealing, switch-hitting Santana was the Twins' best player.

Arcia also was out of options. He had a mediocre spring at the plate, but what he did have in his favor was a tremendous offseason that showed a dedication to becoming a better all-around player. The Twins would have been fools to simply put a 24-year-old with thunder in his bat on waivers.

Nunez had a bad stretch throwing across the infield this spring. That would have worried the Twins more if he hadn't established himself as an asset off the bench with speed and effective hacking at the plate the previous two seasons.

Murphy batted .100 in Florida. The Twins remain hopeful of something closer to the .277 that he hit as the 2015 backup for the Yankees. His presence will allow Kurt Suzuki to start closer to 110 games than the 123 he did with Chris Herrmann as the backup in 2015.

Read Patrick Reusse's blog at startribune.com/patrick. E-mail him at preusse@startribune.com.