Hart's Hint About Payroll

[nsacpi]

In the "lethargic" thread there is a link to the Jeff Schultz column summarizing some points by John Hart. I thought one bullet point deserved some additional discussion:

On significant roster moves: They almost certainly will be through trades and not free agency. Hart: “There are economic challenges.”

This serves as a reminder that 2015 payroll constraints will play a significant role on what the team will do this off-season. Some of the implications:

1) We'll go cheap with the fifth starter spot. Most likely Hale will be given the first shot at the job.

2) We probably can't extend both Jason and Justin without moving some salary. I think this points up the importance of moving at least a significant part of the BJ or CJ contracts. I would go further and say that doing this is so important that we will be willing to add a young prospect like Bethancourt or Hursh if that is what it takes to move one of them.

3) Significant opportunities will be given to cheap in-house options such as Cunningham, Terdoslavich, Peraza, Wren and Kubitza at various points in 2015.

4) We will add some veteran leadership, but won't spend much doing so. Maybe bring back Ross as backup catcher.

5) We won't spend much on our fourth starter in the rotation, unless we can get one as part of moving BJ's or CJ's contract. A trade involving Bethancourt and BJ for one of Jackson, Buehrle or Dickey is a good bet.

[Hudson2]

As of right now there are constraints. BJ and CJ are killin us. If we could get rid of those 2 then we'd be in pretty good shape.

[NinersSBChamps]

So Wren is still holding the team back even after his departure.

[Dalyn]

Hell. When he sees his team, Fredi might quit.

[cajunrevenge]

I think attendance being down is going to make a bad situation worse when it comes to payroll. We have roughly 90 million committed next year, assuming 100 million payroll which might be a stretch then that leaves 10 million to spend.