Nationals Arm Race

"… the reason you win or lose is darn near always the same – pitching.” — Earl Weaver

Nats 2013 Salary Status Updated – Post Haren, Duke signings

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Oh, how much changes in just a couple days during the Winter Meetings.  The signing of Dan Haren and to a lesser extent Zach Duke now provide a bit more clarity to the Nats off-season plans.  Terms of the Duke deal have yet to be disclosed, but I’m going under the assumption that its about a one year, $1.5M deal to be safe.

Using the 12/3/12 post on this same topic as a point of reference (I won’t repeat all the contract details here; see this post for the way I arrive at these numbers, or click on the 2013 Payroll Worksheet link along the right-hand side of the blog), here’s where the Nats payroll now breaks down:

Players under Contract for 2013:

  • was 12 players for $66,708,500
  • now 14 players for $81,208,500

Arbitration Cases for 2013: remains 7 players with an $18,600,000 estimate.

Pre-Arbitration players with club-Assigned Salaries: remains 7 players with a $3,490,000 estimate.

Totaled up, the Nats now stand at an estimated 2013 payroll of $103,298,500.  As Mark Zuckerman alluded to, this is the first time the Nats payroll has broached 9 figures.


My theory is that the team has a working goal of $110M salary.   If we sit at $103M now, with a couple of signings/decisions yet to be made (namely, to Adam LaRoche or not to Adam LaRoche and to find another loogy), can we hit $110M?  Seems so:

– Add LaRoche at $14M/per.

– Subtract Morse at $6.75M for 2013.

– Add Loogy-to-be-named (JP Howell?) at a nominal amount (he made $1.35M last year and seems like he could be had for about the same this year).

$103M + $14M – $6.75M + $1.5M = $111.7M dollars, or just slightly above a $110M budget.  Seems like a workable plan to me.  If $110M was a hard and fast budget line, we could eschew the final loogy signing and hope that Bill Bray makes the team out of camp, earning something close to a veteran minimum salary of about $800k.

Written by Todd Boss

December 5th, 2012 at 2:58 pm

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