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AL East salaries

Posted: Wed Dec 5, 2012 4:35 pm
by satyr9
Obviously there's a lot of offseason left to play out, but I was messing around and figured it was worth sharing:

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Salaries are only to two digits and deferred signing bonuses aren't included as they're small adjustments mostly for tax purposes, and I can't be bothered. I also broke down spending by area so you can see rotation vs. pen vs. starting 9 vs. back-ups. Teams are in no discernible order. Arb amounts are taken from mlbtr, who I don't always agree with, but has more authority on the subject than I do. Pre-arb is flat 500k, 'cause no one cares about the difference.

Anyone I'm missing that will be on these squads? I almost included a 6th starter slot, as everyone is going to have one, but in the end those spots don't affect payroll vs. payroll by an appreciable amount (NYY might have a 1.5 vs. TOR at 800k and TB at 500k).

One thing that scares me is how much money the Sox still have available. I don't see why they aren't in on Greinke. I know they're afraid of long-term deals, but Greinke is not Lackey.

The Yankees have a ton more to do. 3 starting 9 players plus I expect their bench to get way more expensive as the Keppinger and Chavez types are brought in/back to cover for all the 20m+ guys who're breaking down, and Soriano or replacement.

I also expect at least one substantial splash from BAL. After making the playoffs I can't see them sitting it out entirely.

I do think it's pretty remarkable that TB's entire rotation costs the same as CC on his own. And if Shields or Price goes, they'll likely be competing next year with less than half the 4th highest payroll in the East and easily less than a third of NYY and maybe BOS when it's all said and done. Friedman has worked absolute miracles to stay competitive this long.

Re: AL East salaries

Posted: Wed Dec 5, 2012 4:59 pm
by Skin Blues
What TB has done is amazing. $60M and that team looks pretty damn solid; not a single eight-figure salary.

Then you look at the Yankees; $100M on their starting 9 and they only have 2/3 of it filled. Their two washed up corner infielders are almost paid as much as Tampa's entire team, and they're stuck with them for another 4 years! And TB has Zobrist for another 3 seasons for dirt cheap. How the hell did that happen? Gotta be one of the best contracts in baseball, right there with Longoria's of course.

Re: AL East salaries

Posted: Wed Dec 5, 2012 9:16 pm
by kavan
I worry that if the likes of Lawrie and Gose along with JP get going they may be due for a pay day, hope Rogers doesn't start pinching! I think we have a great team and can figure this out. John Buck isn't really that expensive because we got 4mill cash along with him right? So Lets just hope for lots of sell outs!

Re: AL East salaries

Posted: Wed Dec 5, 2012 9:28 pm
by Skin Blues
My absolute last concern is that our young players turn out to be so good that we can't afford to keep them. It would probably mean we had a really good 2013/2014/2015.

Re: AL East salaries

Posted: Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:09 pm
by satyr9
I looked at the rest of the AL and it's really amazing how two-tiered the league is becoming:

NYY 174.2
DET 134
LAA 125.25
BOS 121.42
TOR 120.2
TEX 111.95
CHW 111.05
BAL 81.05
KC 65.05
MIN 63.65
TB 60.8
SEA 55
OAK 51.77
CLE 45.4
HOU 16.5

Some teams still have significant amounts to spend to fill roster spots, but it looks like there'll be 6 teams spending for sure (TOR is likely to be 6th by a considerable amount), 7 teams spending nothing or very little, and CHW and BAL trying to straddle the in between (CHW could go the other way, but it sure sounds like they'd rather move Floyd or Danks than add salary). It wouldn't shock me in the slightest to see a 30-40m gap with no teams spending between 70-100ish million by the time opening day roles around.

And HOU is just ridiculous. Whatever Bud Norris gets in first year arb is likely to be their largest contract for 2013. I thought at least they'd sign a 1 year vet SP or two, but with Humber and White in the fold, they may actually be done without even spending 7 figures on a FA pitcher. I think there can be a reasonable expectation they'll give 120 losses a run for its money, which means they'll probably end up .500 through some confluence of statistically impossible events.

Re: AL East salaries

Posted: Thu Dec 6, 2012 6:33 pm
by Lateral Quicks
Thanks for posting this. A few thoughts:

1. If the Yankees are telling the truth that they're not going over the cap, then they're in pretty bad shape.
2. The Rays' salary management continues to be outstanding.
3. AA did exceedingly well to lock up EE and Bautista when a guy like Napoli can get a 3/39 contract.

As of now I think the two favourites are the Rays and Jays, but still lots of off-season to go...

Re: AL East salaries

Posted: Thu Dec 6, 2012 6:44 pm
by baulderdash77
Houston is a disgrace with their payroll. Forbes had them with $196 million in revenue before their new $80 million TV deal kicked in. With the new deal they'll be in the $250 million revenue range and they'll put out the lowest payroll in the AL and lose >100 games. That's worse than what Miami is doing in a lot of ways.

I would be so mad if I was one of their fans.

Re: AL East salaries

Posted: Thu Dec 6, 2012 6:46 pm
by baulderdash77
If they Rays do trade James Shields then I really have a hard time seeing them compete like they have the last few years. This may be their last chance to have a run with their current core before they have to start breaking it up and starting over again.

We're really in good shape here I think.

Re: AL East salaries

Posted: Thu Dec 6, 2012 7:11 pm
by Skin Blues
A very easy way to guarantee profits in MLB is to be a really bad team with a low payroll. It's lucrative, especially once you sell your TV rights. We're lucky that the Blue Jays are highly motivated to increase viewership of Jays games since they directly profit from increased subscribers and advertising revenue during broadcasts. Just wait until everybody is forced to pay for Sportsnet One because half of the Jays games are shown on it, and it's no longer a free preview on basic cable. If the team was better, they probably would have started charging for it last season.

As for the Rays having to break it up, I'm just not seeing it. They have Longoria and Zobrist locked up long-term on two of the most team friendly deals in the majors. They have Yunel for 3 more years on another sweetheart deal. They have more pitching coming up, namely Chris Archer and I'm sure Moore will be improved, to go along with Shields/Price/Niemann. The latter are probably nearing their end as members of the Rays, but I have no doubt that they'll turn them into more cheap, productive assets. I just don't see them having to tear anything down to rebuild, they're essentially in a perpetual re-build. They have the Midas touch on guys like Keppinger and Kotchman and Rodney. Surely that will wear off somewhat, but I cannot see them being a bad team any time soon.

Re: AL East salaries

Posted: Thu Dec 6, 2012 7:12 pm
by satyr9
Lateral Quicks wrote:Thanks for posting this. A few thoughts:

1. If the Yankees are telling the truth that they're not going over the cap, then they're in pretty bad shape.
2. The Rays' salary management continues to be outstanding.
3. AA did exceedingly well to lock up EE and Bautista when a guy like Napoli can get a 3/39 contract.

As of now I think the two favourites are the Rays and Jays, but still lots of off-season to go...


Yankees goal is to be under the tax for 2014, not this year. I think they'll clear 200 again this year no problem. It's why you see them going high 1 year deals for the old farts and they'll trade Granderson before next year as he's do a raise then and they have to pay Cano already. What's fun is watching them miss on a guy like Keppinger because they don't want the years. When the Yankees miss on guys making 5mil or less it's a good time to take a shot at them.

Re: AL East salaries

Posted: Thu Dec 6, 2012 7:54 pm
by The_Hater
baulderdash77 wrote:If they Rays do trade James Shields then I really have a hard time seeing them compete like they have the last few years. This may be their last chance to have a run with their current core before they have to start breaking it up and starting over again.

We're really in good shape here I think.


I guess it depends on what return they would get for Shields but on the surface, I agree. I think Tbay would be better off keeping their great rotation in place and hope that they get some career years out of some inexpensive hitters like Loney and some of the incumbents. Plus there will always be hitting available at the deadline next summer if they're in the hunt.

Re: AL East salaries

Posted: Thu Dec 6, 2012 10:27 pm
by Homer Jay
Baltimore needs to seriously address that rotation if they want to compete again. Last year was a fluke. I'm surprised they are in on more offense like Hamilton and not a top starter like Grienke. It seems that would address their bigger issues.

Re: AL East salaries

Posted: Thu Dec 6, 2012 11:12 pm
by Ado05
Homer Jay wrote:Baltimore needs to seriously address that rotation if they want to compete again. Last year was a fluke. I'm surprised they are in on more offense like Hamilton and not a top starter like Grienke. It seems that would address their bigger issues.

I wouldnt say fluke. They won a lot of games by walking off, but they probably wont be able to repeat it. But they had a formula. They would let the starters go out and do their thing for as long as possible, but when the starters started to falter, they would just call upon their bullpen, which was beastly. So what im trying to say is, their bullpen saved the starters buttsand won them games, and if they can keep their BP intact, then I dont think they would return to being a bottom feeder. Thats why they won so many close games. BP would just come in and shut it down.

But, the bullpen could suck next year and then they will most likely be bottom feeders.

Re: AL East salaries

Posted: Fri Dec 7, 2012 3:47 pm
by Skin Blues
Adrian_05 wrote:But, the bullpen could suck next year and then they will most likely be bottom feeders.

And this is the main thing to focus on. Their bullpen was insanely good. But we know that relief pitchers are by far the most fickle, unpredictable, and injury prone players in baseball. You can't count on those guys to repeat what they did last season. It's like relying on winning $100,000 on a scratch ticket jackpot every year instead of investing in education and getting a job that actually pays you $100,000 every year. The Orioles won the jackpot in 2012. Unless they make significant changes, they will be terrible in 2013.

Re: AL East salaries

Posted: Fri Dec 7, 2012 4:46 pm
by satyr9
I don't think they'll be terrible. The lineup is okay and right now has some obvious open spots that wouldn't be too hard to fill for a decent improvement. I joke about the starting rotation, but give them credit for it being very deep.

Also, with Machado and Bundy, they may get much better based on internal development alone, not to mention the possibility Matusz, Britton, Tillman, and Arrieta could bring some of the promise they've had in the past.

Now the bullpen was absurd. The biggest part is how universal their success was. If that bullpen had even one crack, I wonder if it could've been as impactful as it was. I don't know what happens to it as its future performance inevitably reverts to mean, but they will not have 6-7 elite relievers next year. You could spend 50m on relievers and still not achieve that kind of performance twice. And so many of their 'pen arms were guys the league thought very little of just a year ago. Johnson is good, and better than we thought. Strop as a prospect is looking very strong. but Ayala, O'Day off injury, and Patton are basically replacement players, at least they were a year ago. The big names they brought in were actually their worst performers in Gregg and Lindstrom, which speaks against BAL having any kind of special insight into picking relievers who will outperform their previous accomplishments. I think we may have mildly over-valued the bullpen as Jays fans, so I don't think they'll be terrible, but there undoubtedly was a tremendous amount of luck involved in have a perfect bullpen that won't be replicated.

Re: AL East salaries

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 6:24 pm
by akakalakin
Are we paying out more than Boston now?

Re: AL East salaries

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 6:27 pm
by satyr9
akakalakin wrote:Are we paying out more than Boston now?


Not even close. If Buck goes in this trade, the salary will be almost identical (actually save 500k) to what it was before, because Dickey only makes 5m in 2013. You'd add 5 and 0.5 for Dickey and Thole and subtract 6 and 0.5 for Buck and a reliever (Happ moving to the 'pen).

edit: I updated my sheet with Dempster, Uejara, and Drew for the Sox and Dickey and Thole for the Jays and have BOS at 148m, Tor at 119m and we both need one more bench player.

Re: AL East salaries

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 7:45 pm
by Skin Blues
Napoli's deal with the Red Sox fell through when he failed a physical. They're trying to renegotiate, and the Sox want it reduced from 3 years to 2 years, I believe. Not sure if the money will be the same.