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Edwin Encarnacion, Jose Bautista would cost Red Sox more than dollars in free agency

The 2017 Red Sox should fall somewhere in the middle of the great baseball spectrum between young and athletic and old and slow.

Whoever they sign to help fill the David Ortiz-sized void at designated hitter will skew the scale greatly.

Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista, two players who don’t offer much with a glove but have clubbed their way toward the top of MLB's great power hitters, are two options who predictably became costlier on Monday afternoon.

Both players declined the qualifying offers (a one-year pact worth $17.2 million) presented to them by the Toronto Blue Jays before Monday’s 5 p.