I would like to raise a hypothetical question that I would love as many opinions on as possible, but please if you respond, I only ask that you respect someone else's opinion that may differ from yours. Please bare with me as it takes a lot to fully describe this, and I urge you to read the entire post.
It has been assumed by most everyone -from national writers, to beat writers, and to those of us on here- that after Heyward was traded that Justin would be next and would/could net us a large return (possibly the future "Ace" we've long coveted in Taijuan Walker). I am under the impression that the reason Justin hasn't been signed to an extension is because of our lack of finances and the scarceness of RH power, resulting in somewhat of an overpay for those few RH power bats. Here is somewhat of another possibility that I think should be looked at:
1. As it stands our current payroll sits at $97,671,599 (this includes estimated arbitration salaries, pre-arb salaries and the remaining money owed to Uggla) and our 2013 Opening Day payroll was $115,000,000. This leaves us somewhere close to $17,000,000 -ownership has stated that payroll will not go down from last year- to fill out our remaining 6 roster spots or roughly $3,000,000 per spot.
Instead of trading Justin Upton would it be possible to do this:
1. Justin Upton will make $14,708,000 this season, B.J Upton will make $15,050,000 and Evan Gattis will make approx. $550,000
2. Trade B.J Upton and Evan Gattis to the Houston Astros for Dexter Fowler. Ken Rosenthal had said earlier in the week that Houston was very interested in aquiring Gattis but balked at the proposed idea of B.J Upton and Gattis for Fowler, a pitching prospect, and veteran Catcher Carlos Corporan. Now we would retract our demand of a pitching prospect and Corporan being added to the deal and hoped that would be enough to get it done. Like it was said in the article the Astros could look at it like they were paying Upton's salary to Gattis and Gattis's salary to Upton (both would be a fair value for each other IMO).
3. Take the money saved from the deal above -we would save $48,150,000 from dealing Upton + $550,000 for Gattis's 2015 salary - approx. $8,500,000 for Fowler's salary = $40,200,000- and extend Justin. So Justin Upton makes $14,708,000 in 2015 and would cost somewhere around $20-25 million per year to extend. Let's say we were to lock him up at 8 years / $180 million (which comes out to $22.5 million per year). Now his $14.7 million 2015 salary is already on our books so that would add $7.8 million per year to our payroll but if we were to take the money saved from dealing B.J and apply that to Justin's new salary we would basically be getting Justin at his current salary of $14.7 million for 5 more seasons -$40,200,000 (money saved from B.J) / $7,800,000 (difference in Justin's current salary and his new one) = 5.15- and all this would add up well when you factor in our increased revenue come 2017.
4. When Uggla's money comes off the books after this upcoming season, we could possibly look at extending Fowler -a Atlanta native- to a long-term deal to play CF.
So in the end I think tying B.J to Gattis which would rid us from B.J's contract, while netting us Fowler to play CF, and most importantly giving us the funds to extend Justin is something I would strongly consider. Again, I hope I didn't lose you with all the numbers above but it gives us another possible option to look at and would give us a long-term lineup/rotation that looked something like:
1. Jose Peraza - 2B (Right)
2. Dexter Fowler - CF (Switch)
3. Freddie Freeman - 1B (Left)
4. Justin Upton - LF/RF (Right)
5. Nick Markakis - RF/LF (Left)
6. Chris Johnson - 3B (Right)
7. Christian Bethancourt - C (Right)
8. Andrelton Simmons - SS (Right)
Phil Goselin - 2B/3B/SS/OF (Right)
Tyler Pastornicky - 2B/OF (Right)
Todd Cunningham - OF (Switch)
Kyle Kubitza - 3B/1B - (Left)
Catcher
1. Julio Teheran- RHP
2. Alex Wood- LHP
3. Shelby Miller- RHP
4. Mike Minor- LHP
5. 2015 veteran / Tyrell Jenkins / Jason Hursh / Lucas Sims / David Hale / Cody Martin
CL- Craig Kimbrel - RHP
SU- Arodys Vizcaino - RHP
SU- Shae Simmons - RHP
Chasen Shreve - LHP
Luis Avilan - LHP
Jim Johnson - RHP
Anthony Varvaro - RHP
James Russell - LHP
David Carpenter - RHP
Juan Jamie - RHP
I could certainly get on-board with this.
