Right now, I have them at:
$88.96M for 27 players
$1.5M for Gardy (it's an estimate, but I think a good one)
$0.1M for Mike Lamb
$4.625M in 3 international free agents (Kepler, Polanco, Artist Formerly Known As Sano)
And that's with no money yet committed towards the draft and no raise for Mauer. (And no potential bonus payouts, though we don't have any highly incentivized contracts at the moment, like we did last year with Crede and eventually Pavano.) The Twins have averaged about $4.5M/year in draft spending over the last seven years. So figure they are probably going to go around the $3M mark unless they pull another 2007 draft on us.
Do the Twins have any money left for next year? I am beginning to wonder if they really are going to be able to pick up another infielder, and pitching is probably out of the question. (Except for NRIs and minor league signings.) One thing we know is that they don't have any extra 40-man roster spots at the moment, so someone has to go for anyone to get added to the roster.
In 2009, I get:
$73.86M for 45 players (including the Silence of Mike Lamb)
$1.25M for Gardy
$4.223M for first 9 rounds of the draft
$????? in international free agents
Does anyone have info on the Twins' international free agent signings from last year? Also, does anyone have solid info on what Humber made last year? (Baseball-reference reports him at $1.125M, which we would have been on the hook for if true.)
I note here that my figure for the 2009 payroll is about $8-9M (or what I like to call two Puntos) higher than the commonly reported $65M figure, mainly because that was the opening day number, they increased spending down the stretch, and from counting salaries for bit players who got shuffled in and out of the lineup as the year went along.
I can't believe we are still paying Mike Lamb.
A small price to pay for all the awesome memories he left us...
It was a very nice beard.
A $90 million payroll. It's really hard to argue that the Twins haven't spent money. Yet, there are still holes!
We really don't have any idea of what the Twins are projecting for income, so it's hard to project payroll. I wouldn't be surprised if they are pretty conservative at estimating what the revenues will be like in the new ballpark, but even so, the Twins had a terrible deal with the Metrodome with concession revenues, etc. and I would think a $100M payroll would not be out of the question. The Twins are certainly spending more on international players and draft picks than ever before, so hopefully that's not a re-route of funds but a sign that all spending has been raised. Hopefully, the Twins are just being smart and waiting for desperate free agents to fall in their laps this spring much like Joe Crede or Kenny Rogers in 2003.
Also, does anyone have solid info on what Humber made last year? (Baseball-reference reports him at $1.125M, which we would have been on the hook for if true.)
that's the number Cot's Contracts has Humber at
Really? I can't find Humber anywhere on Cot's. Do you have a link?
Cot's spreadsheet link
Working the Google a bit more, it appears as though Humber signed a major league deal in 2005 for 5 years and $4.2M, so he well could have been guaranteed $1.125M in 2009, which the Twins must have paid. That would effectively put the Twins at $75M last year, plus Gardy's $1.25M, plus the draft plus international signings.