With the Tigers recent signings, I thought it might be helpful to get a handle on the team’s payroll this year, and in the near future. The table below shows how the current club stacks up through the end of Dave Dombrowski’s current contract.
As you can see the Tigers already have $84 million committed to next year’s payroll. Nate Robertson, Craig Monroe, Omar Infante, and Fernando Rodney will probably command $8-$10 million. Once the Granderson’s and Thames’ and such are added in the payroll will eclipse $90 million and could push $100 million.
You can also see with the recent deals that the Tigers are poised to keep their core intact through 2009 and make the most of the up and coming younger players and the veterans reaching the outer edges of their primes.
If you want to play around with this yourself, the spreadsheet is available on Google Spreadsheet. You can export it to an Excel file to use on your computer.
Virtually all salary information is from Cot’s Contracts.
Nice to see it all laid out, thanks Billfer.
Here’s hopin’ that 350K chip on Verlander’s shoulder creates a nice dynamic with Miller.
I also assume the “first” Polanco is Pudge (11M in 07), not PP.
That would be correct Chris – nice catch. It’s now fixed.
Looks like you forgot a shortstop…
Man, this is why I should do this stuff at 11:00 at night. I’ve updated the spreadsheet, the image in this post will have to wait til tonight though.
Great chart Billfer. It looks like the Tigers will be at about 95 million this year. Times are changing.
Just one other note, I of course had to estimate when guys who “are under club control” would become eligible for arbitration. While I know their current service time, I of course can’t predict how much service time they’ll accumulate in subsequent seasons.
Thanks for the info, billfer, this is great.
Does anyone have any ideas or info about revenues? For instance what % capacity Comerica would need to be in order to support a $100million payroll? Or how many playoff rounds?
Hard to imagine Maggs has five good years left in him, but otherwise it looks like Dombrowski has given himself a lot of payroll flexibility going forward. As some of the older players depart, he’ll have room to negotiate extensions with the young players who perform consistently. He’ll have a big decision to make on Guillen in the near future; if Carlos can play an effective shortstop he’s worth a lot of money, but he’s significantly less valuable as a first baseman.
In a couple years’ time, the bulk of the money will be going to pitchers (and Ordonez). We have to hope that some of the position prospects come through. If not, Dombrowski will have to get really creative to build a solid offense on the cheap.
Gawd, I’ll hate myself for asking this but…
With Santigo under contract and Infante at least going into arbitartion, what are the chances of them eating the 2.5 mill they owe Perez (the second least liked sports figure in Detroit) as Spring Training winds down? I think it could be pretty high if they pick up another bench outfielder who would that time in center away from Omar, but I could be wrong.
Great chart, Bilfer…and I concur on Neifi. I was wondering the same thing and would hope they’d admit their mistake in picking him up rather than allowing him to take up a valuable roster spot. I’m also still peeved that he had only 1 fewer WS AB’s than Thames.
Anyway…DD has done a nice job, with these latest two signings (Inge, Bondy) at very reasonable numbers, in giving the club good flexibility with “moderate” payroll increases.
However…the Maggs contract (and perhaps Sheffield) will likely be burdensome by ’08-’09…Oh well, at least were NOT burdened by that Juan Gonzalez contract.
Based on this list of 2006 payrolls, it appears the Tigers have basically moved into the tier of teams below the Yankees and Red Sox in the $90-$105 million range.
http://asp.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/salaries/totalpayroll.aspx?year=2006
More importantly, when do the TV contracts expire?
Jeff – Henning writes today that the radio contract is up, but it appears that FSN has at least 1 more year of TV rights for 110 games.
That’s cool. FSN deserves to have an ultra-profitable year.
accually, neifi is the 53rd most hated sports figure in detroit. (An NFL roster has 52 men)
I do wish the Tigers would recognize when they negotiate “free tv” that they need to be statewide and the state does not end at US-10. From my perspective, I always hope to get as many games on FSN as possible because I simply have no access to TV20 games. I know there’s quite a few Tigers fans up here who feel the same.
Agree Kurt