FanPost

2009 Astros Payroll Update

As per entropic soul's request, here's some updated payroll figures plus the list of players that are either on the 40-man roster, are Rule 5 picks, or are non-roster invitees to spring training. 

First, we'll start with the payroll that is locked in.  This includes the salaries of 18 players (including Oscar Villareal) and adds up to $95.985 million.  I was generous and went ahead and said everybody met all of their incentive clauses, no matter how ridiculous:  Backe (+$825k for 220+ innings), Hampton (+$2 million), and Hawkins (+$600k).

Salaries Set In Stone      Millions
Roy Oswalt 14
Mike Hampton 4
Brian Moehler 2.3
LaTroy Hawkins 4.1
Doug Brocail 2.5
Lance Berkman 14.5
Kazuo Matsui 5
Miguel Tejada 13
Geoff Blum 1.25
Carlos Lee 18.5
Darin Erstad 1.75
//Oscar Villareal 1.6
Jose Valverde 8
Humberto Quintero 0.61
Tim Byrdak 1
Brandon Backe 2.375
Jason Michaels 0.75
Aaron Boone 0.75
TOTAL

95.985

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We have two players headed to arbitration.  Here are the figures both the player and the team submitted.  Since the sum of the players' bids are a worst case scenario, those will be the numbers I use when totaling up at the end.


                Player's Bid
                  Team's Bid
Wandy Rodriguez 3 2.25
Geoff Geary 2.1 1.425
TOTAL 5.1 3.675

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There are 4 known remaining players on the 25-man roster.  I gave them all a slight bump over their previous year's pay because the labor agreement has the minimum salary for 2009 set at $400k.  I gave Sampson a bigger raise because he has slightly more service time and was paid slightly more last year.  These are just guesses on my part and I may be off (but probably not by much).


      Last Year's Salary    Possible 2009 Salary
Chris Sampson 0.401 0.45
Wesley Wright 0.396 0.406
Michael Bourn 0.396 0.406
Hunter Pence 0.396 0.406
TOTAL 1.589 1.668

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This leaves two more slots open on the 25-man roster:  a catcher and a backup infielder.  I imagine these two slots will be filled by guys making the major league minimum...Lou Palmisano and Drew Sutton, for instance.  So we'll tack on an additional $800k to represent them. 

So here's the totalboard so far:  $95.985 million + $5.1 million + $1.668 million +$0.8 million = $103,553,000.  This falls short of Ed Wade's $107 million estimate by about $3.5 million.  It may be possible that Ed Wade was taking other figures into account, like Cooper's salary and the various incentive clauses involving Gold Gloves, Silver Sluggers, Cy Youngs and World Series MVPs.       

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Here are the other guys you can expect to see at Spring Training:

Name Position Status
Alberto Arias P 40-man
Gilbert De La Vara P Rule 5
Jeff Fulchino P 40-man
Samuel Gervacio P 40-man
Brad James P 40-man
Tyler Lumsden P 40-man
Fernando Nieve P 40-man
Felipe Paulino P 40-man
Polin Trinidad P 40-man
Jose Capellan P NRI, minor league deal
Danny Graves P NRI, minor league deal
Clay Hensley P NRI, $550k minor league deal
Bud Norris P NRI
Russ Ortiz P NRI
Chad Paronto P NRI, minor league deal
Sergio Perez P NRI
Jason Castro C NRI
Brian Esposito C NRI, minor league deal
Toby Hall C NRI, minor league deal
Lou Palmisano C Rule 5
Lou Santangelo C NRI
John Gall IF NRI
Chris Johnson IF NRI
Matt Kata IF NRI
Mark Saccomanno IF NRI
Jason Smith IF NRI
Tommy Manzella IF 40-man
Edwin Maysonet IF 40-man
Drew Sutton IF 40-man
Brian Bogusevic OF 40-man
Yordany Ramirez OF 40-man
Reggie Abercrombie OF NRI

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If anyone sees any errors in my charts or if I've left out some known information, let me know in the comments so I can include them.