Significant Payroll Flexibility?

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Captain Redbird
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Significant Payroll Flexibility?

Post by Captain Redbird »

I might be wrong, but I think next season we should have nearly $40 million to spend at least. Glaus is getting like $12 million and Wallace should take over for him. Plus, if payroll is $90 million or maybe higher then that's about 10 million more. We also have Greene, Pineiro, Wellemeyer, Anks coming off the books. Am I right? That means we have no excuse not to spend next offseason...oh, wait...we had no reason not to this offseason and we all know how that turned out.

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Ace
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Re: Significant Payroll Flexibility?

Post by Ace »

No response (I haven't been drinking tonight).

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Jmodene
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Re: Significant Payroll Flexibility?

Post by Jmodene »

Ordinarily, you might be right - but with teams looking at a 17-20% decrease in revenues this season, these are not ordinary times. And the big tax hike coming next year is only going to make it worse.

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cards2468
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Re: Significant Payroll Flexibility?

Post by cards2468 »

Plus we have many guys on our roster who will go up in cost next year, especially Ludwick if we can keep him around

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Leroy
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Re: Significant Payroll Flexibility?

Post by Leroy »

cards2468 wrote:Plus we have many guys on our roster who will go up in cost next year, especially Ludwick if we can keep him around
Right, assuming he has a year like last year (fingers crossed).

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cards2468
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Re: Significant Payroll Flexibility?

Post by cards2468 »

Leroy wrote:
cards2468 wrote:Plus we have many guys on our roster who will go up in cost next year, especially Ludwick if we can keep him around
Right, assuming he has a year like last year (fingers crossed).
Yes, if he can have a year like last year, he'll be pretty pricey, but definitely worth it.

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Re: Significant Payroll Flexibility?

Post by davefan »

from his contract situation that I read on the stltoday a few months ago. He has to go thro at least arb again next season. May be wrong but that is what I understood from the article.
cards2468 wrote:Plus we have many guys on our roster who will go up in cost next year, especially Ludwick if we can keep him around

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cards2468
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Re: Significant Payroll Flexibility?

Post by cards2468 »

davefan wrote:from his contract situation that I read on the stltoday a few months ago. He has to go thro at least arb again next season. May be wrong but that is what I understood from the article.
cards2468 wrote:Plus we have many guys on our roster who will go up in cost next year, especially Ludwick if we can keep him around
even then, a good year will still yield a decent salary increase as he'll be showing to be no fluke, or management may even decide to offer a multi-year deal.

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Jmodene
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Re: Significant Payroll Flexibility?

Post by Jmodene »

Ludwick is at 3.109 years of ML service, so he's actually got two more years of arb-eligibility. We don't have to worry about his becoming FA-eligible until after the 2011 season, when he'll be at 6.109.

But - if he has another good season in 2009, he'll probably make upwards of $7 million in 2010, and if he does it again in 2010, he'd be over the $10 million mark for 2011. The economy, of course, makes it a little difficult to predict with any sense of accuracy; were it not for the recession, a good 2009 could have gotten Ludwick as much as $10 million for 2010.

Now, we will have a few guys going FA at the end of this season: Ankiel, Pineiro, Glaus, K. Greene, Wellemeyer, Franklin (if we don't exercise the 2010 option we have on him), LaRue, and Miller.

It will be interesting to see which of those eight players we will try to keep. Right now, I couldn't even begin to guess, but if I *had* to, I'd probably rate Wellemeyer and Greene as most likely to be re-signed, and in Khalil's case, it would depend on what kind of season he has. The others are a lot dicier; I'd say that Glaus is almost certainly gone after the season, and probably Pineiro too - especially if we re-sign Wellemeyer instead (we won't keep both of them).

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Re: Significant Payroll Flexibility?

Post by Hungary Jack »

I don't think there'll be enough cash to raise the payroll much in 2010, so I would anticipate $95M or so in 2010 (Cot's has us at $99.6 for 2008). The good news is that there is no dead money for guys like Mulder, Pinata, etc. unless Kyle Lohse turns into Dontrelle Willis.

Raises for players under contract for 2010:
AP: $0 ($16)
Carp: $.5M ($14.5)
Lohse: $1.5M ($8.875)
Yadi: $1M ($4.25)
AW: $2.05 ($4.65)

That's roughly $47M after $5M in raises, so, yeah, there'll be money to spend. A lot of it depends on how the young guys develop. I think the relatively recent emphasis on player development will really start to pay off in terms of payroll flexibility.

There's a decent chance we'll be able to field a bullpen that is composed almost entirely of guys making the minimum for pre-arbitration players (Perez, Motte, Kinney, KMac, maybe Garcia/Mortensen/Todd; we'll have to buy a lefty somewhere probably).

Hopefully Rasmus is in CF. Hopefully von Crushtoven has earned another nice raise in RF. Perhaps Barton/Jay/Jones will emerge in LF.

This should leave significant money for the MI and 3B if Wallace/Freese/Craig aren't ready. It wouldn't surprise me to see Glaus at 3B in 2010. There should be money available for at least one significant FA signing if necessary.

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