2006-2007 Payroll

[Chip R]

From time to time on here the subject of what the Reds' payroll will be or what a certain player(s) will be making the following season. It's always an interesting topic for discussion and in the past the Reds' front office has said to not expect a significant increase in payroll the next season because of who is under contract or because certain players are arbitration eligible and will be given hefty raises.

This didn't always ring true to me so I decided to see for myself what the straight story was. A few years ago I started tracking who was on the team, what salary they made and what salary they would command for next year. Thanks to JAX's site and other sources as well, I developed a spreadsheet devoted to that. This spreadsheet assumes that if the players under contract and under the Reds control are all re-signed and any player whose contract is up will not come back.

In this spreadsheet I've broken players down into 5 categories:

Arbitration Eligible Players
Arbitration Ineligible Players
Players Receiving Increases In Salary
Players Receiving Decreases In Salary
Players That Have No Change In SalaryFor all players who are eligible and ineligible for arbitration, I have assumed that the Reds are going to bring all of them back. Obviously that's not going to happen but most of these guys would fall in the latter category and won't swing the figures significantly one way or the other. I have also highlighted certain salaries in red. These are estimated salaries. I am making an educated guess as to what these players will be making next season. Also, I do not believe the minimum salary of $327,000 will be increasing for 2007. Again, that is not going to make a huge difference in payroll for the following season even if there was a small raise.

Players receiving increases in salary may be arbitration eligible but have already signed a contract for the following season. This category may also include players who are free agents but have a buyout in excess of what they made this year. Players who have player options for next year that, if they picked it up, would increase their salaries are also included.

Players receiving decreases in salary may have a buyout that would be less than what they made this year.

I have also chosen to use $12.5M for the salary the Reds pay Ken Griffey, Jr. since, even though they are deferring that salary, they are paying out $12.5M one way or another.

You'll also see some odd figures for some players, particularly the ones the Reds acquired during the season. This is an estimated amount of what the Reds will have paid them from when they joined the team until their contract was up or traded. Again, those figures will be in red.

If you have any questions or if I've omitted anyone or screwed something up, let me know. Many thanks to JAX and his website (http://redsinsite.com/cms/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=8) for most of these figures.


Arbitration Eligible 2006 Salary 2007 Salary
Grant Balfour 340,000 500,000
Aaron Harang 2,350,000 5,000,000
Sun-Woo Kim 100,000 1,000,000
Kyle Lohse 1,316,667 4,500,000
Total Arb Eligible 4,106,667 11,000,000

Arbitration Ineligible 2006 Salary 2007 Salary
Andy Abad 20,000 327,000
Matt Belisle 327,000 350,000
William Bergolla 2,000 327,000
Bill Bray 150,000 350,000
Brandon Claussen 370,000 500,000
Todd Coffey 339,000 400,000
Chris Denorfia 200,000 327,000
Phil Dumatrait 0 327,000
Edwin Encarnacion 332,500 500,000
Michael Gosling 3,500 327,000
Brendon Harris 120,000 327,000
Norris Hopper 120,000 327,000
Anderson Machado 0 327,000
Gary Majewski 208,000 375,000
Chris Michalek 80,000 327,000
Ray Olmedo 100,000 327,000
Miguel Perez 0 327,000
Elizardo Ramirez 310,000 350,000
David Ross 500,000 750,000
Dane Sardinha 0 327,000
Brian Shackelford 230,000 350,000
Jason Standridge 240,000 350,000
Joey Votto 0 327,000
Brandon Watson 1,700 327,000
Total Arb Ineligible 3,653,700 8,853,000

Salary Increases 2006 Salary 2007 Salary
Bronson Arroyo 2,750,000 3,800,000
Rheal Cormier 833,333 2,250,000
Adam Dunn 7,500,000 10,500,000
Ryan Freel 1,300,000 2,650,000
Chris Hammond 800,000 2,000,000
Scott Hatteberg 750,000 1,500,000
Jason LaRue 3,900,000 5,200,000
Eric Milton 8,000,000 9,000,000
Javier Valentin 1,150,000 1,250,000
Total Salary Increases 26,983,333 38,150,000

Salary Decreases 2006 Salary 2007 Salary
Rich Aurilia 1,300,000 0
Mike Burns 60,424 0
Juan Castro 660,000 0
Royce Clayton 416,667 0
Ryan Franklin 866,666 0
Justin Germano 14,000 0
Eddie Guardado 800,000 0
Todd Hollandsworth 300,000 0
Jason Johnson 50,000 0
Austin Kearns 925,000 0
Felipe Lopez 1,350,000 0
Joe Mays 327,000 0
Quinton McCracken 327,000 0
Kent Mercker 1,350,000 0
Cody Ross 50,000 0
Scott Schoeneweis 800,000 0
Ryan Wagner 280,000 0
David Weathers 1,250,000 0
Rick White 300,000 0
Dave Williams 966,666 0
Paul Wilson 3,700,000 850,000
Tony Womack 1,100,000 0
Estaban Yan 869,565 0
Total Salary Decreases 18,062,988 850,000

No Changes In Salary 2006 Salary 2007 Salary
Ken Griffey, Jr. 12,500,000 12,500,000
Total No Changes 12,500,000 12,500,000

Grand Total 65,306,688 71,353,000

[Red Leader]

If we can't get rid of Milton and LaRue this offseason, I think the chances of Adam Dunn being moved increase.

Thanks for the post, Chip. Good stuff.

[Team Clark]

I am curious as to why all of the Minor League guys are being counted as $327,000 when they have split contracts. They do not get paid 327K while in AAA. (i.e. Dumatrait, M. Perez, Machado, Olmedo, Votto & Bergolla) You can throw Gosling in there too. They have split contracts that pay 50-60K in the Minors and then they get paid the 327K upon reaching the bigs. (There is a minimum based on years of service for the minor league contracts but I can not remember what it is at the moment) Balfour will be LUCKY to get a contract at all. If he does he's not getting 500K. I would re-work that before putting together payroll projections.

You have Belisle at 350K for '07 but have Balfour and Kim making more? Not in this lifetime. Kim would love to have you as his agent! 1 Million? With his numbers! The Reds would foam at the mouth to take him to arbitration. Coffey is listed at 400k which I suspect he will get more. He'll end up in over 80 games. Belisle will get 400K.

Good work but missing a few key components. Jax's site is the bomb!

[RedsManRick]

Chris Hammond @ 2 million? Do we have to pay his option by DFA'ing him?

[Chip R]

I am curious as to why all of the Minor League guys are being counted as $327,000 when they have split contracts. They do not get paid 327K while in AAA. (i.e. Dumatrait, M. Perez, Machado, Olmedo, Votto & Bergolla) You can throw Gosling in there too. They have split contracts that pay 50-60K in the Minors and then they get paid the 327K upon reaching the bigs. (There is a minimum based on years of service for the minor league contracts but I can not remember what it is at the moment) Balfour will be LUCKY to get a contract at all. If he does he's not getting 500K. I would re-work that before putting together payroll projections.

You have Belisle at 350K for '07 but have Balfour and Kim making more? Not in this lifetime. Kim would love to have you as his agent! 1 Million? With his numbers! The Reds would foam at the mouth to take him to arbitration. Coffey is listed at 400k which I suspect he will get more. He'll end up in over 80 games. Belisle will get 400K.

Good work but missing a few key components. Jax's site is the bomb!

Yeah, I know. But that's assuming they all make the roster which they won't but it doesn't make a whole lot of difference anyway.

If you look again at the list, Belisle is not arbitration eligible and has been hurt most of the year but Balfour and Kim are. Arbitration is funny, you never know what someone's going to make. Neither Balfour or Kim will probably be with the Reds in 07 anyway so that's not that big of a deal. Coffey did appear in a lot of games but he hasn't had the best of years. He didn't pan out as the closer and he gives up a lot of hits. But it's not like they are going to pay him $1M anyway.

[DeadRedinCT]

According to the website, Cot's baseball blog (http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/2005/01/cincinnati-reds_24.html), Ross is arbitration eligible after this season (he had more than 3 complete seasons of major league service coming into 2006). With the season he's currently having, he could, at minimum, double his salary.

[Kc61]

Milton, Griffey, Dunn, Larue. These are the pressure points in terms of salary next year. For Reds to have any flexibility they will have to move some of these contracts.

Milton -- wrong pitcher for GABP. Reds presumably will try to move him to a friendlier ballpark and replace him with a ground ball type.

Griffey/Dunn -- would guess that Krivsky will try to move one and replace with speedier outfielder. A lot of money for these two next year.

Larue -- makes no sense to pay him if he is a backup now.

Making these deals is not easy and may not happen. All these guys make real money and some have special rights.

Don't know why an arbitrator would give Lohse $4.5 million. I know he has a fairly big contract now, but his overall 2005 stats aren't good. Does he have rights to that amount next year?

[Always Red]

Milton, Griffey, Dunn, Larue. These are the pressure points in terms of salary next year. For Reds to have any flexibility they will have to move some of these contracts.

Milton -- wrong pitcher for GABP. Reds presumably will try to move him to a friendlier ballpark and replace him with a ground ball type.

Griffey/Dunn -- would guess that Krivsky will try to move one and replace with speedier outfielder. A lot of money for these two next year.

Larue -- makes no sense to pay him if he is a backup now.

Making these deals is not easy and may not happen. All these guys make real money and some have special rights.


I like your caveat at the end, because none of these guys would be easy to move with out losing money, except for Dunn. Dunn would (should) bring some excellent young talent if he is moved.

Milton- we're "stuck" with him, unless we kick in some $$ to move him, and why don't we just pay him to pitch for us instead of someone else? Plus, I've been generally happy with the way he's pitched since he got his kneee problem straightened out. He's done a good job this summer. I agree with you that he doesn't match this ballpark very well (thanks, DO'B).

Junior- what can you do with him? Move him from CF, certainly, but unless Steinbrenner gets a wild notion that Junior must retire as a Yankee, he's here until he plays out his contract or retires. Plus, if Dunn goes for pitching, we're gonna need Junior to hit some HR's for this team. From LF, RF, 1B, it doesn't matter to me. Problem is that he and Dunner are both LF'ers at this point.

LaRue- a mystery, totally. He seems to have lost his confidence, to me. I don't know if anyone in recent baseball history has ever lost it so quickly, but I know he's not as bad a hitter as his numbers say they are this year. His defense has been steady though- I think he's easily our best defensive catcher. Ross is coming back to earth, and Valentin is not an everyday catcher. I'd hang on to LaRue for a while- someone will always be in need of a decent receiver an may bite the bullet, maybe towards the end of spring training.

Dunn- I'd keep him on my team. Put him in LF, put someone with range next to him, and don't worry about him. The usual numbers will be there at the end of the year; 40 HR, 100 BB, 100 RBI, 100 R, 10 errors. But no injury; he's seldom hurt, always shows up and is streaky as all get out. Again, I'd build my offense around he, Edwin and Phillips.

[Patrick Bateman]

Chris Hammond @ 2 million? Do we have to pay his option by DFA'ing him?

Hammond had a mutual option with a buyout based on appearances. We owe him nothing next year.

[oneupper]

Off the top of my head, I thought Freel was $3 mm for two years, not $4 mm...am I wrong?

[Kc61]

I like your caveat at the end, because none of these guys would be easy to move with out losing money, except for Dunn. Dunn would (should) bring some excellent young talent if he is moved.

Milton- we're "stuck" with him, unless we kick in some $$ to move him, and why don't we just pay him to pitch for us instead of someone else? Plus, I've been generally happy with the way he's pitched since he got his kneee problem straightened out. He's done a good job this summer. I agree with you that he doesn't match this ballpark very well (thanks, DO'B).

Junior- what can you do with him? Move him from CF, certainly, but unless Steinbrenner gets a wild notion that Junior must retire as a Yankee, he's here until he plays out his contract or retires. Plus, if Dunn goes for pitching, we're gonna need Junior to hit some HR's for this team. From LF, RF, 1B, it doesn't matter to me. Problem is that he and Dunner are both LF'ers at this point.




I don't think Krivsky will throw up his hands and say that guys like Milton can't be moved. He is very focused on pitching and defense and the candidates for trades are pretty obvious. Milton has been better this year, and I hope he does well tomorrow, but he is not a fit at GABP.

Krivsky has already shown that he won't accept Jim Bowden's core of players. (O'Brien didn't really change the major league core.) I think everyone is fair game in the offseason except perhaps the two stud pitchers, Harang and Arroyo, and the two young infielders, EE and Phillips.

I don't know what Krivsky will do with Dunn, except that Adam gets a lot of money soon and, if Wayne doesn't view him as the future, this off-season would be the logical time to move him.

[Team Clark]

Yeah, I know. But that's assuming they all make the roster which they won't but it doesn't make a whole lot of difference anyway.

If you look again at the list, Belisle is not arbitration eligible and has been hurt most of the year but Balfour and Kim are. Arbitration is funny, you never know what someone's going to make. Neither Balfour or Kim will probably be with the Reds in 07 anyway so that's not that big of a deal. Coffey did appear in a lot of games but he hasn't had the best of years. He didn't pan out as the closer and he gives up a lot of hits. But it's not like they are going to pay him $1M anyway.

I see your point. Looking over the payroll it seems like the impact of the aforementioned parties would only effect the payroll by a slim margin. All in all I really like the concept and can appreciate the time you put in. Good stuff. :thumbup:

[REDREAD]

Yeah, I know. But that's assuming they all make the roster which they won't but it doesn't make a whole lot of difference anyway.
.


According to my count, you have 38 players making at least the minimum next year. I think for the purposes of estimation, it would be best to subtract 13 * minimum for next year.. that cuts about 4.2 million off next years budget, which is pretty significant. True, they might have a Balfour or two that they will pay all year to not be on the ML roster.

After that adjustment, the projected payroll only jumps about 2 million instead of 6 million, so it is kind of significant.

[mth123]

According to my count, you have 38 players making at least the minimum next year. I think for the purposes of estimation, it would be best to subtract 13 * minimum for next year.. that cuts about 4.2 million off next years budget, which is pretty significant. True, they might have a Balfour or two that they will pay all year to not be on the ML roster.

After that adjustment, the projected payroll only jumps about 2 million instead of 6 million, so it is kind of significant.


Also subtract $2 Million for Hammond and $1 Million for Kim. If you can dump Larue that would be about $12 Million to work with. With the new TV deal I have to believe that the Payroll will top $70 Million in 2007.

Please don't take my nitpicking as criticism. This was a very useful thread and I am glad you posted it.

[Highlifeman21]

Maybe I'm in the minority, but how much of a priority is it to get rid of LaRue in the offseason? If that's not 1 on the list, man, it should be.

[GOREDSGO32]

Overall we lose salary, which is awesome. It says we gain salary, but you are including like 60 players in that list, some who aren't even here now or won't be next year. Bottom line is Griffey and Milton. Without their salary this year, Reds would be 28th in the majors in salary, only above Florida and Tampa. No one is going to take their contracts, unless we make a bad contract for bad contract trade - which I would do if we get the better of it cash wise, even if we take an even crappier player than Milton.

[REDREAD]

which I would do if we get the better of it cash wise, even if we take an even crappier player than Milton.

I think at this stage, you hope Milton puts up semi-presentable numbers in the first half, and maybe you can trade him at the deadline to a team that needs a starting pitcher. Sure, even though he improved this year from horrible to below average with his 5.20 ish ERA, you MIGHT find a team willing to take him next July. You might get a Belise level prospect for him.

IMO, the alternative is to eat some salary to move Milton this winter. Since we need bodies in the rotation anyhow, might as well keep him if we're paying for him. I'm going to assume that next year is a transitional year, and Cast isn't going to dump 30 more million into payroll to try to win now.

[Chip R]

According to the website, Cot's baseball blog (http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/2005/01/cincinnati-reds_24.html), Ross is arbitration eligible after this season (he had more than 3 complete seasons of major league service coming into 2006). With the season he's currently having, he could, at minimum, double his salary.

I'm going by what Marc said in his article in the Post last week. If Ross is arb eligible, I could see him not only double but triple his salary.



Don't know why an arbitrator would give Lohse $4.5 million. I know he has a fairly big contract now, but his overall 2005 stats aren't good. Does he have rights to that amount next year?

Lohse is making almost $4M this year. Not a huge stretch to figure he might make $4.5M. Remember, the figures I have for this year are what the Reds are paying the players. Maybe next year I should put total salary on there too.


Hammond had a mutual option with a buyout based on appearances. We owe him nothing next year.

You may be right. I'm just going off the info on Jax's site. His buyout seems a bit confusing.