With the submission of arbitration numbers by Prince, Weeks and Hart, we now have a pretty good idea of where the Brewers' payroll is going to be in 2009 given the players who are currently in the picture.
Thanks to the incomparable Cot's Baseball Contracts, the known 2009 salaries of the Brewers are as follows:
Jeff Suppan: $12.5 M (!)
Mike Cameron: $10 M
Bill Hall: $6.8 M
Trevor Hoffmann: $ 6 M
J.J. Hardy: $4.65 M
Jason Kendall: $4.6 M
David Riske: $4.25 M
Dave Bush: $4 M
Seth McClung: $1.66M
Jorge Julio: $.95 M
Todd Coffey: $.8 M
Ryan Braun: $.745 M
RJ Swindle: $.4 M
Mike Lamb: $.4 M
The midpoint for the arbitration figures submitted by the Brewers and Prince, Weeks and Hall (which is a fair estimate of where those salaries will end up) is as follows:
Prince Fielder: $7 M
Rickie Weeks: $2.4 M
Corey Hart: $3.25 M*
*(gracias, AP)
Add all that up, and you get to just over $70.4 M for 17 players.
Then you add in renewal salaries for Villanueva, Gallardo, Tony Gwynn Jr., Mike Rivera, Manny Parra, Mitch Stetter, maybe that Morlan guy to get to the Brewers payroll for their 25-man roster. Trot Nixon and Chris Capuano are also possibilities - they're on minor league deals at the moment.
Figure those guys will average $.5 M a man (which is too high, probably, but we'll go with that for argument's sake) and the Brewers payroll will come in at around $74.5 M without adding anybody else.
We've heard that Milwaukee's budget is around $80 M for 2009. If that's accurate, I don't see room for Ben Sheets (or any other significant addition) in this picture without a corresponding move to shed some salary.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
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14 comments:
I don't mean to be an ass Matt, because I know it took a long time to put that together.
You have 4.25 for Mr. Hart. He requested 3.8 (and he's high if he thinks he's getting that) and the Crew submitted 2.7 for him. Midpoint would @ 3.1, so that would give us another million+ to spend.
Also per Cot's, our opening day payroll was about 81 million for 2008. We made the playoffs last year and the front office just said this is the quickest the team has ever sold a million tickets. I gotta believe there's some flexibilty to go a little bit past 80M if need be. In my book there's still room for him, but it doesn't matter since he doesn't really want to be here. A guy like Looper probably fills that spot, and they still stay under 80M, IMHO.
I think there may be a little bit of play in that budget. That was made before the team sold 1 million tickets by mid January.
It would be a terrible business move to not field a team that would continue to drive in the fans.
The team as it stands now will drive in the fans.
Barring a complete blowing up of the team, they should draw 2.5 million minimum for the next 2-3 years with minimum effort.
It's just stupid to throw money around just to keep the fans happy. Play with the guys we have this year, hope for some good luck (and bad luck for other teams) and if nothing happens, re-evaluate the free agent/trade thing next offseason.
I'm getting so tired of all these clueless fans who think last year is the new "norm" for this team and that we're going to spend $90+ million every year, sign big name free agents, etc... This is a small market team. We have to pick our spots. Last year was one of those "go for it" seasons, and we'll have another in 2-3 years likely.
And that Braun deal just looks better for the club as every day goes by.
If someone sees Jeff Suppan crossing the street please run him over, preferably hitting him on his right, throwing arm, side.
Thank you.
Anonymous, without the fans you won't have another opportunity to "go for it".
It sounds like you want the team to fail. Why would you be against them spending money? Maybe we should bring back the Seligs and suck for another fucking 25 years?
Thank you AP.
Hart should be $3.25, not $4.25. Clearly, I forgot to carry the 1 somewhere in there.
It really didn't take that long to put this together, because I never double-check my work when math is involved.
I don't know why we can't spend $90 mil every year when Mark A said he made money last year? Now, if they lost $10 million bucks last year, i would totally understand.
Give Hart whatever he wants with a big mouth clause. Every time he insults the fans or just opens his hick-trap he loses 1 Million. By the end of the contract he'll be paying us.
If you want asses in the seats you have to field a winner. I'm not sure Mark turns a profit last year if he doesn't throw all that cash at CC. A million tickets sold in January is impressive, but if you want to sell tickets in August and September the team needs to be in contention. The extra 10-12 million in the beginning of the season gives you a much better chanse of a lot of wins. What CC did last year was really remarkable, if not unprecedented, and you can't expect to catch lightning in a bottle twice in a row.
on the arbitration numbers, the panel can pick one of the two - the player number and the team number.
are you saying that the team will win some and lose some and therefore averaging the two to get to the ballpark number - or that you expect settlements up to the hearing award announcement?
just curious...
I think we're just using it here as an outline for the payroll, WV.
Don't the arbitrators rule in favor of the team like 70% of the time? You could just average it out that way too, I guess. You could just pick the low amount for Hart & Weeks, and assume Fielder gets his. Either way, it works out to around 13Mil for those 3 players. I would assume 1 or 2 of those guys settle somewhere.
I believe Matt was pointing to the fact that Melvin has a very good track record of settling these before the hearing; thus, splitting it down the middle would make sense.
Weeks would have to be on crack(which would explain a lot) to think he would win.
i want prince to go to a hearing so they have to explain to him why he's not worth what he thinks he is.
that would lead to a season long sulk.
My arbitration figures are admittedly a guesstimate. It's true, Melvin hasn't had to go to a hearing since he took over as GM, so splitting the figures down the middle is probably a pretty fair guesstimate.
A Prince hearing would not be pretty. It sounds like Melvin is going to do all he can to avoid it. I was pleasantly surprised by the number that Fielder submitted at $8 M. Hell, Adam LaRoche got $7 + M from the Pirates to avoid arbitration. Boras is also saying the right things right now about negotiating towards a deal prior to the hearing. We'll see.
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