Atlanta Braves Payroll Projection…as of Nov 21, Noon

Dec 8, 2014; San Deigo, CA, USA; A general view of the podium at the MLB Winter Meetings at Manchester Grand Hyatt. Mandatory Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

The trade of Cameron Maybin to the Detroit Tigers was 70% about payroll reduction and 30% about clearing a spot in the crowded outfield.  With that, it makes sense to start taking a preliminary look at the payroll situation for the 2016 Braves… at least as they are constructed today.

Yes – there are a couple of sites that keep track of this information on a regular basis, notably Cots (run via baseballprospectus.com) and Sportrac.

However, I like to run my own numbers here on occasion and I do that for a couple of reasons:  in the case of Cots, I believe that contract signing bonuses should be accounted for in the year in which they are paid.  There are “business” reasons for doing so.  With Cots’ policy of pro-rating these over the life of the contract, there are ‘baseball’ reasons for doing so, but that’s not my focus for our purposes.  With Sportrac… they have limited information, and well, frankly some of the data they have is just wrong.

That said, I also know that some of the information I’m about to present here is going to be wrong… but hopefully only to a limited and rational extent.  So here are the disclaimers:

• We will know soon whether Mike Minor will be tendered a contract.  I expect that he won’t.  I nonetheless have his estimated arbitration value penciled in, and that is currently counting against the 2016 payroll.  But I also have an extra pitcher included so that if/when the non-tender is made, you can simply subtract $5,600,000 from the bottom line and everything will be fine.
• We don’t exactly know how Cleveland is/was paying the Braves on the $10 million owed as part of the Chris Johnson/Michael Bourn/Nick Swisher trade.  Since it was a 2015 trade, I am accounting for it in 2015 dollars… and therefore I show no 2016 payroll impact.  Could they have split it up as $5m then, $5m later?  Yes… but I don’t know that, so we’re going with $0 for 2016… anything else would be a bonus.
• Some names on this chart are included mainly as placeholders.  It doesn’t mean that they will/won’t make the 25-man roster in April.  For the most part, the names are not relevant since we’re talking about major-league-minimum salaries regardless.
• Dian Toscano is something of an exception:  he may not make the 25-man list in April, but he’s going to be paid like it, and his major-league deal is included.  If someone else takes his place, then add another half million.
• Shae Simmons will begin the season on the DL.  The timing might work out that when Daniel Winkler is sent down (after fulfilling his Rule 5 draft roster obligation) that Simmons will be released from the DL.  We’ll see…but they both will have major league minimum deals in the meantime.  I’m not satisfied with that portion of the chart, but at most it will only be off by a half million… and that’s probably going to be spent anyway, so let’s just go with it.

… and of course if there’s another deal made, then this post will be obsolete faster than Mallex Smith‘s first step.  Oh, and he’s not on this chart because I don’t expect to see him in the majors until (a) Bourn is traded; or (b) the Super-2 cutoff passes.

Braves 2016 Projected Payroll Chart

Click on it for a bigger version if you’re geeky like me and want to really see the details:

Credit: Alan Carpenter, TomahawkTake.com

Bottom Lines:

• That’s a full payroll of $93,440,000 (corrected figure), which includes all arbitration estimates and enough min-salary players to fill out the roster.
• If a max payroll of $120 million is envisioned by the team, then that leaves a maximum ‘headroom’ of $26,560,000 remaining in the budget.
• Yes, that’s less than what most people are thinking, but see below.
• Do take note all of the specifics indicated at the bottom of the graphic.

Next: Reviewing the Trade of Cam Maybin

But wait:  Cots site only shows $68,542,707!  Why is there a huge discrepency?

• They are adding the Cleveland dollars back in. I did not.
• They do not “fill out” the roster with ML-minimum players.  I do because this is a projection that intends to guess a future reality.
• They do not include any arbitration estimates.  I do specifically because I want to know how much is available in reality.
• Again:  Mike Minor is the biggest wild card here… I do not expect him to be a Braves for much longer.  For that matter, we can also argue about Shelby Miller or others, but I’ll re-do the chart if/when those changes are warranted.