Where Are the Milwaukee Brewers Going to Spend All This Cash?

I have seen a lot of talk around the "blogs" that the Brewers have freed up a lot of money with the recent trade of J.J. Hardy to the Twins.

I saw numbers ranging from $13 million to $24 million. I thought how much money do we really have to spend on FA pitchers? So I did a little fact finding with some help from Cot’s.

I will give you my best attempt at the Brewers 25 man roster and their salaries. I am assuming that the club will be without Dave Bush and Braden Looper. While I am of the belief that Dave Bush should be on the staff next year it isn't practical to leave Suppan out. I will also include the money we are paying Bill Hall, and the buy-out to Braden Looper and David Weathers.

These are the players that we currently have under contract. Meaning, they will be paid this amount no matter what.

Suppan, Jeff        $12,750,000

Fielder, Prince      $11,000,000

Hoffman, Trevor   $7,500,000

Riske, David        $4,500,000

Braun, Ryan        $1,287,500

Total-               37,037,500

The following players are arbitration eligible. I will give you their 2009 contracts for a starting point, and my projections for their 2010 salaries.

To low-ball some figures lets say that Hart, Weeks, and McClung's contracts all stay around the same. Rivera, Villanueva, and Gomez will probably see contracts around a million dollars. Gerut will probably receive two million.

Now for Todd Coffey, this one will probably be a little bigger as, he had the best year out of the group. I would think he will receive a raise to somewhere in the neighborhood of two and a half million. 

                            2009                 Projected 2010

Hart, Corey         $3,250,000            $3,250,000     

Weeks, Rickie      $2,450,000            $2,450,000

Gerut, Jody         $1,775,000            $2,000,000

McClung, Seth     $1,662,500            $1,662,500

Coffey, Todd       $800,000              $2,500,000

Villanueva, Carlos $447,000              $1,000,000

Gomez, Carlos      $437,500              $1,000,000

Rivera, Mike        $415,000