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               $1,000,000

Totals-                 $11,236,500           $14,862,500     

The rest of the guys on the list are not arbitration eligible, with the exception of Craig Counsell (I will project him at last years salary to keep with the low-ball theme). Meaning that they will make the amount that the agreed when drafted.

Parra, Manny       $426,000

Gallardo, Yovani   $414,000

Stetter, Mitch     $407,500

DiFelice, Mark      $403,000

Dillard, Tim          $402,000

Escobar, Alcides   $400,000

Gamel, Mat          $400,000

McGehee, Casey   $400,000

Lucroy, Jonathan $400,000

Counsell, Craig      $1,000,000

Total-                     $4,652,000

Whew! Now the names on this list may change, most likely, the players going through arbitration. McClung is a strong candidate to be non-tendered, and this will be a record year for the amount of players that get non-tendered. So, look for the Brewers to be looking through the large group of young players that they can get for cheap.

All totaled, my projected 23-man roster would be paid $56,552,000. This is a pretty low-ball estimate of the raises that Craig Counsell and the arbitration eligible players will receive, but it should leave us around $60,000,000 in payroll for the guys on the 25-man roster.

Here is where it goes south. We owe a total of $8,300,000 to Bill Hall, David Weathers, and Braden Looper.

Last years Opening Day payroll was $80,182,502 . It would be hard to predict that Doug Melvin would get much more to play with this year. If this years payroll is anything like 2008, and 2009 that leaves us with about $11,882,502 .

It seems more, and more likely that Braden Looper will not be resigned and that Dave Bush may be non-tendered. Although, I would rather see McClung gone and Bush on the team it would leave us with about 10 million to spend on two pitchers. Also, this would be the year to sign Gallardo to an extension before he hits arbitration next year.

The Brewers have pitching needs to say the least, and with under $12 million to spend they need to make every penny count.