{"id":9919,"date":"2014-10-31T09:02:22","date_gmt":"2014-10-31T13:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=9919"},"modified":"2014-10-31T09:02:22","modified_gmt":"2014-10-31T13:02:22","slug":"nats-payroll-projections-for-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=9919","title":{"rendered":"Nats Payroll projections for 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_9926\" style=\"width: 287px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/WerthJayson-huge-beard-via-fansided.com_.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9926\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9926\" alt=\"Jayson Werth remains the Nats highest paid player ... but for how long?  Photo via fansided.com\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/WerthJayson-huge-beard-via-fansided.com_.jpg\" width=\"277\" height=\"182\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-9926\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jayson Werth remains the Nats highest paid player &#8230; but for how long? Photo via fansided.com<\/p><\/div>\n<p>As we start to debate what the team may do this coming off-season, it is worth discussing the projected payroll for 2015 and the impact it may have on the moves this team makes.<\/p>\n<p>A couple of salient points to start with:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Nats opening day 2014 payroll was somewhere in the $135M range (depending on your source; USA Today had opening day payroll at $133M, Cots had it at $136M).<\/li>\n<li>Owner <strong>Ted Lerner<\/strong> was quoted in April that &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sbnation.com\/mlb\/2014\/4\/4\/5583386\/nationals-payroll-owner-mark-lerner-mlb\">payroll was beyond topped out<\/a>.&#8221;\u00a0 Which probably can explain some of the cost-savings moves the team made later in the year (acquiring\u00a0<strong>Asdrubal Cabrera<\/strong> and getting the Indians to kick in his salary).<\/li>\n<li>The MASN debacle is still not sorted out, meaning the Nats are still operating on a smaller budget than they should be, and the Nats are likely holding down payroll to a certain operating level until they know exactly how much money they can expect out of the deal going forward.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, based on the above three facts, I&#8217;m working under the assumption that the Nats 2015 payroll isn&#8217;t going to change much.\u00a0 The Lerners may be the league&#8217;s richest owners, but they&#8217;re not running the Nats as a money loser.<\/p>\n<p>Which will make the following analysis kind of scary, honestly, because I&#8217;ve got the 2015 Nats payroll projecting at close to $150M.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/spreadsheets\/d\/1uqBGjpotmJgGi5hdIYMUq0p23fqCkReEephyLtRUoqI\/edit?usp=sharing\">I&#8217;ve posted my work here<\/a> (a Google xls, also available as a &#8220;link&#8221; along the right hand column of the blog), so you can see if I made some egregious errors in calculation.\u00a0 Let&#8217;s play along by section to see how I arrived at this number and what I think it means for this off-season.\u00a0 This accounts for all 39 guys currently on the 40-man roster:<\/p>\n<table width=\"511\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<colgroup>\n<col width=\"176\" \/>\n<col width=\"246\" \/>\n<col width=\"89\" \/> <\/colgroup>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td colspan=\"2\" width=\"422\" height=\"20\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Under Contract for 2015 &#8211; 10<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/span><\/td>\n<td width=\"89\"><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td height=\"20\">Werth, Jayson<\/td>\n<td>7 yr\/$126M (11-17)<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$21,571,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Zimmerman, Ryan<\/td>\n<td width=\"246\">6 yr\/$100M (14-19)+20 opt<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$14,000,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Gonzalez, Gio<\/td>\n<td width=\"246\">5yr\/$42M (12-16)+17,18 options<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$11,100,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Zimmermann, Jordan<\/td>\n<td>2yr\/$24M (14-15) 7.5 and 16.5<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$16,500,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Desmond, Ian<\/td>\n<td>2yr\/$17.5M (14-15), 6.5 and 11<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$11,000,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Span, Denard<\/td>\n<td width=\"246\">5 years\/$16.5M (10-14), $9M club opt 15<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$9,000,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">McClouth, Nate<\/td>\n<td width=\"246\">2yr\/$10.75M (14-15) with opt<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$5,000,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Rendon, Anthony<\/td>\n<td width=\"246\">4yr\/$7.2M ($6M bonus)\u00a0 (11-14)+15 opt<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$1,800,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Harper, Bryce<\/td>\n<td>5 yr\/$9.9M (11-15)<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$2,250,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Thornton, Matt<\/td>\n<td width=\"246\">2yr\/$7M (14-15)<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$3,500,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><strong>Total Payroll for Players under Contract for 2015: <\/strong>$95,721,000<\/p>\n<p>$95M already, and we&#8217;re only to 10 players of the 40-man roster.\u00a0 So much for all that savings we were getting by declining Soriano and LaRoche&#8217;s options.\u00a0 By the way, I am assuming that the team exercises <strong>Denard Span<\/strong>&#8216;s $9M option, but not Soriano or LaRoche&#8217;s (<strong>Update<\/strong>: after I wrote this but before I published, the Nats indeed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/nationals-journal\/wp\/2014\/10\/30\/nationals-pick-up-denard-spans-2015-option-decline-options-for-adam-laroche-rafael-soriano\/\">exercised Span and declined the others<\/a>).<\/p>\n<table width=\"511\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<colgroup>\n<col style=\"mso-width-source: userset; mso-width-alt: 6436; width: 132pt;\" width=\"176\" \/>\n<col style=\"mso-width-source: userset; mso-width-alt: 8996; width: 185pt;\" width=\"246\" \/>\n<col style=\"mso-width-source: userset; mso-width-alt: 3254; width: 67pt;\" width=\"89\" \/> <\/colgroup>\n<tbody>\n<tr style=\"height: 15.0pt;\">\n<td class=\"xl66\" style=\"height: 15.0pt; mso-ignore: colspan; width: 317pt;\" colspan=\"2\" width=\"422\" height=\"20\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Arbitration Eligible Players for 2015 &#8211; 11<\/strong><\/span><\/td>\n<td class=\"xl67\" style=\"width: 67pt;\" width=\"89\">my arb estimate<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 15.0pt;\">\n<td class=\"xl65\" style=\"height: 15.0pt; width: 132pt;\" width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Fister, Doug<\/td>\n<td>1yr, $7.2M (14) (arb2)<\/td>\n<td class=\"xl69\" align=\"right\">$11,000,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 15.0pt;\">\n<td class=\"xl65\" style=\"height: 15.0pt; width: 132pt;\" width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Clippard, Tyler<\/td>\n<td>1yr, $5.85M (14) (arb3)<\/td>\n<td class=\"xl69\" align=\"right\">$7,500,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 15.0pt;\">\n<td class=\"xl65\" style=\"height: 15.0pt; width: 132pt;\" width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Strasburg, Stephen<\/td>\n<td class=\"xl65\" style=\"width: 185pt;\" width=\"246\">1yr\/3.975M (14) (arb1)<\/td>\n<td class=\"xl69\" align=\"right\">$6,500,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 15.0pt;\">\n<td class=\"xl65\" style=\"height: 15.0pt; width: 132pt;\" width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Storen, Drew<\/td>\n<td>1yr\/$3.45M (14) (arb2)<\/td>\n<td class=\"xl69\" align=\"right\">$5,000,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 15.0pt;\">\n<td class=\"xl65\" style=\"height: 15.0pt; width: 132pt;\" width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Detwiler, Ross<\/td>\n<td>1yr, $3M (14) (arb2)<\/td>\n<td class=\"xl69\"><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 15.0pt;\">\n<td class=\"xl65\" style=\"height: 15.0pt; width: 132pt;\" width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Ramos, Wilson<\/td>\n<td>1yr\/$2.095M with $105k incentives (14) arb1<\/td>\n<td class=\"xl68\" align=\"right\">$4,000,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 15.0pt;\">\n<td class=\"xl65\" style=\"height: 15.0pt; width: 132pt;\" width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Blevins, Jerry<\/td>\n<td>1 yr\/$1.6M (14) (arb2)<\/td>\n<td class=\"xl69\" align=\"right\">$2,000,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 15.0pt;\">\n<td class=\"xl65\" style=\"height: 15.0pt; width: 132pt;\" width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Stammen, Craig<\/td>\n<td>2yr, $2.25M (13-14)<\/td>\n<td class=\"xl69\" align=\"right\">$2,000,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 15.0pt;\">\n<td class=\"xl65\" style=\"height: 15.0pt; width: 132pt;\" width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Lobaton, Jose<\/td>\n<td>1yr\/$950k (14) arb1<\/td>\n<td class=\"xl69\" align=\"right\">$1,500,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 15.0pt;\">\n<td class=\"xl65\" style=\"height: 15.0pt; width: 132pt;\" width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Frandsen, Kevin<\/td>\n<td>1yr\/$900k (14) arb2<\/td>\n<td class=\"xl69\" align=\"right\">$1,250,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 15.0pt;\">\n<td class=\"xl65\" style=\"height: 15.0pt; width: 132pt;\" width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Espinosa, Danny<\/td>\n<td>1yr\/mlb min (14)<\/td>\n<td class=\"xl69\" align=\"right\">$1,000,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><strong>Total Estimate for all 2015 Arbitration Raises<\/strong>: $41,750,000<\/p>\n<p>The team has 11 players eligible for Arbitration this year.\u00a0 I&#8217;m assuming the team tenders 10 of them, which may be a bad assumption.\u00a0 Would you tender <strong>Ross Detwiler<\/strong> and pay him $3M (or close to it) again?\u00a0 Would you tender <strong>Jerry Blevins<\/strong>?\u00a0 How about <strong>Kevin Frandsen<\/strong>?\u00a0 Do you think <strong>Fister<\/strong> gets $11M after the season he had?<\/p>\n<p>Either way, even if some of guys aren&#8217;t tendered, it barely moves the needle here thanks to the expected paydays for the top guys.<\/p>\n<table width=\"511\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<colgroup>\n<col width=\"176\" \/>\n<col width=\"246\" \/>\n<col width=\"89\" \/> <\/colgroup>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td colspan=\"2\" width=\"422\" height=\"20\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Pre Arbitration MLB players &#8211; 18<\/strong><\/span><\/td>\n<td width=\"89\"><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Purke, Matthew<\/td>\n<td width=\"246\">4yr\/$4.15M (2.75M bonus) (11-14) with 2 opts<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$1,037,500<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Roark, Tanner<\/td>\n<td>1yr $506k (14)<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$550,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Florimon, Pedro Jr<\/td>\n<td>1yr $517.5k (14)<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$520,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Jordan, Taylor<\/td>\n<td>1yr $504k (14)<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$515,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Davis, Erik<\/td>\n<td>1yr Minor League deal (14)<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$505,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Barrett, Aaron<\/td>\n<td>1yr Minor League deal (14)<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$500,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Cedeno, Xavier<\/td>\n<td>1yr Minor League deal (14)<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$510,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Kobernus, Jeff<\/td>\n<td>1yr Minor League deal (14)<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$505,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Leon, Sandy<\/td>\n<td>1yr Minor League deal (14)<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$505,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Mattheus, Ryan<\/td>\n<td>1yr\/$520k (14)<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$525,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Moore, Tyler<\/td>\n<td>1yr\/mlb min (14)<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$510,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Rivero, Felipe<\/td>\n<td>1yr Minor League deal (14)<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$500,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Solano, Jhonatan<\/td>\n<td>1yr Minor League deal (14)<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$500,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Solis, Sammy<\/td>\n<td>1yr Minor League deal (14)<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$500,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Souza, Steve<\/td>\n<td>1yr Minor League deal (14)<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$510,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Taylor, Michael<\/td>\n<td>1yr Minor League deal (14)<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$505,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Treinen, Blake<\/td>\n<td>1yr Minor League deal (14)<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$515,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"176\" height=\"20\">Hill, Taylor<\/td>\n<td>1yr Minor League deal (14)<\/td>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"89\">$500,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><strong>Total Estimate for all 2015 pre-Arb 40-man players<\/strong>: $9,712,500<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m guessing on <strong>Purke<\/strong>&#8216;s deal frankly.\u00a0 And i&#8217;ve put in some nominal raises for the likes of <strong>Roark<\/strong> who did so well this year; he may get more than just a $50k raise.\u00a0 A few of these players may be DFA&#8217;d or released (wait for the post on options status to see just how many of these players are in jeopardy of a late March DFA).\u00a0 But we&#8217;re not talking about a ton of payroll difference if we cut a guy making a split deal worth $500,000.<strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Total Payroll estimate for 2015: $95,721,000 + $41,750,000 + $9,712,500 = <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>$149,183,500.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s $149M &#8230; way above the number this team sat at on 4\/1\/14 (which Lerner said was &#8220;maxed out&#8221;), and that&#8217;s before we count LaRoche&#8217;s $2M buy-out (not sure if that technically goes against 2014&#8217;s or 2015&#8217;s payroll).<\/p>\n<p>Oh, and that&#8217;s before the team even thinks about any free agents to fill holes.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe i&#8217;m a bit too generous with arbitration raises (Clippard from $5.85M to $7M?)\u00a0 But those estimates aren&#8217;t that far out of line with what will happen and combined won&#8217;t change the $149M more than a couple million one way or the other.<\/p>\n<p>So, what&#8217;s going to happen?\u00a0 Does this team go into the off-season thinking about shedding payroll through trades?\u00a0 Food for thought.\u00a0 We&#8217;ve talked in previous posts about flipping the likes of <strong>Jordan Zimmermann<\/strong> ($16.5M), Span ($9M), Clippard ($7M estimate) or even <strong>Drew Storen<\/strong> ($5M estimate) &#8230; maybe the team is thinking of flipping them to save cash and to acquire future pieces.<\/p>\n<p>Thoughts?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As we start to debate what the team may do this coming off-season, it is worth discussing the projected payroll for 2015 and the impact it may have on the moves this team makes. A couple of salient points to start with: The Nats opening day 2014 payroll was somewhere in the $135M range (depending [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[184,2370,482,241,115,2123,2384,166,1398,51,77,366,128],"class_list":["post-9919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natsgeneral","tag-adam-laroche","tag-asdrubal-cabrera","tag-denard-span","tag-doug-fister","tag-jayson-werth","tag-jerry-blevins","tag-kevin-frandsen","tag-matthew-purke","tag-rafael-soriano","tag-ross-detwiler","tag-tanner-roark","tag-ted-lerner","tag-tyler-clippard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9919"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9932,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9919\/revisions\/9932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}