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Blog*Spot ArchivesContactRichard Ceccarelli Josh Mandir |
Tuesday, December 14, 2004The Money TrailI'm trying to get a handle on where the Angel's money is going, because it doesn't seem to me like they're going to approach the $100 million threshold as predicted by Bill Stoneman. Here are the Angels' guaranteed outlays in the coming season, complied from Dugout Dollars and various news sources:
Notice that I've included Tim Salmon, though it's likely that insurance will pick-up his contract. I'm not sure exactly how much, so I'll just put it all in there. (And I could have sworn that I had read an article somewhere describing Arte Moreno's business model, which included avoiding the high premiums that go along with player insurance - but I can't find it now.) The Angels have $68.25 million locked-up in nine players for next season, $58.50 million if you drop Salmon. Now comes the hard part - all the non-guaranteed contracts that will be handed out for next season. I've had to make educated guesses on these, and I've stayed on the high-end of the estimates. These players are either renewable major league contracts or arbitration cases (if you see any problems or have an opinion on any of these estimates, please feel free to call me an idiot):
Might as well round that up to an even $15 million to cover various other deals. It brings the total current 2005 payroll to about $83.25 million with Salmon, and $73.5 million without. So if you figure the Angels are set to spend $7-9 million on Matt Clement (or on some other starter) and a couple million to fill-out the bullpen and the bench, they will likely have a payroll in the neighborhood of $94 million with Salmon, and $84 million without. I can live with the actual payroll falling six million short of the $100 million promise. I mean, that wouldn't make up the difference between Steve Finley and Carlos Beltran or anything. But if the second, lower figure is the more accurate of the two, then I'm going to be pissed. Not so much that the Angels aren't spending enough (hell, its Arte's money - he can spend as much of it as he likes), but that they would purposefully mislead their fans in such a way. |
