Payroll question

[monty57]

Hello everyone. Long-time poster here who's taken about a year off to deal with other things going on in life. 

Anyhow, I've been looking over posts for the past few days, and there seems to be a belief that the Brewers are going to drastically cut payroll this year. Have they stated this, or is this just the overriding opinion on the site?

It seems likely that they'll trade Burnes, and they've already let Woodruff go, so it seems to me like they should have a lot (for the Brewers) of money to play with this offseason. The only eight-figure salaries on the roster are Yelich and Adames, so they could do something like sign Hoskins (MLBtr estimate 2 year / $36M) and a $10-$15M pitcher like Montas, Manea, Lorenzen, Martinez, or Clevinger and still be under the '21 and '22 opening day payrolls. 

I haven't paid nearly as much attention to the team as I normally do, but if they feel that they could contend, they'll probably put out an opening day payroll in the $100M-$110M range. Right now, assuming a Burnes trade, they're sub-$80M. So, unless I missed the memo that they're "tanking" this season, I expect some singings this offseason. The past few years, they had guys going through arby raises, which limited their ability to spend. They don't have that now, so it'll be a different playbook this offseason.

I think they'll get at least one MLB-ready prospect back in the Burnes trade (in addition to some other good young talent), so they need to know what holes are going to be filled in the inevitable Burnes trade, and then they'll build from there. 

[MrTPlush]

They will end up cutting payroll, but simply a reality of Burnes being traded, Woodruff gone, and possibly a trade of Williams/Adames. I don’t think they have a huge amount of big arby raises. Tellez and Winker are also not on the books.

I could see them signing someone if they feel he is a good value add…but that is kinda rare in baseball FA. They would probably be wise to see how young guys do this year before investing money in FA. It’s hard to know the direction of the team. If some guys break out, they may have a quick turnaround…if prospects start flopping, a bigger rebuild may be upon us.

[Thurston Fluff]

I think a lot of people are looking at 2024 as a mini rebuild. Rebuilds tend to be with cheap players because there's little reason to pay when there's little hope of being competitive. I get why some think we're going to rebuild but I don't agree. It'd be hard to ask for and receive half a billion of public funds only to turn around and cut payroll. There's enough talent in the pipeline to keep this thing going if we supplement the roster of youngsters with a veteran or two.

[sveumrules]

I think it pretty much all depends on what kind of offers they get for Burnes, Adames , maybe Williams.

Using Cot's estimates they would have about $25M to spend this offseason to hit last year's OD payroll without trading anybody,

That should be enough to buy a bat for 1B/DH and an arm for the rotation if they want to go that route.

If they decide to re-tool or whatever, I could see a cut in spending for a couple years like they did in 2016-18 before building back up the when the next wave hits.

 

[Playing Catch]

"Cutting payroll," suggests the roster decisions they make are primarily a function of finances. While I'm sure they always have a budget, if they decide to do a big rebuild with younger players given roster spots, they will necessarily be less expensive, thus having a lower payroll. This isn't necessarily about being "cheap," although certainly there have been many examples of other teams going cheap/cutting payroll.

[Fear The Chorizo]

If an organization like the Brewers finally starts getting young talent infusions from their farm system every year, their payroll will fluctuate as one core of talent reaches free agency/leaves and is replaced by prearbitration players on their roster.  It's the system they have to play within, and even the successful large market teams operate that way to an extent.

 

That's what I see happening over the next couple of seasons - id rather they give Black the 3b spot next year at league minimum salary than spend $20+ million annually to sign a guy like Chapman to play there.

[sveumrules]

17 minutes ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

If an organization like the Brewers finally starts getting young talent infusions from their farm system every year, their payroll will fluctuate as one core of talent reaches free agency/leaves and is replaced by prearbitration players on their roster.  It's the system they have to play within, and even the successful large market teams operate that way to an extent.

Yup, Cot’s has OD payroll ranks going back to 2000. The cycles are pretty evident…

Late Selig Years (2000-2004)
23rd, 23rd, 21st, 29th, 30th
[332-447, 3rd worst in MLB over that span]

Early Mark A Years (2005-2007)
27th, 24th, 20th
[first .500 season in 13 years in 05, lost division by two games in 07]

First Window (2008-15)
15th, 17th, 17th, 17th, 13th, 19th, 16th, 20th
[343-305 from 08-11, then 307-341 from 12-15, spending didn’t buy squat in the back half]

First Rebuild (2016-18)
30th, 30th, 26th 
[miss WC by 2 games in 2017, NLCS in 2018]

Second Window (2019-23)
17th, 22nd (COVID), 19th, 19th, 20th
[Stearns gone, Hader gone, Counsell gone, Woodruff gone]

Whats so exciting about this offseason is there are justifiable reasons to push payroll, maintain the status quo, or make some deals to go into another hopefully quick rebuild.

There are scenarios where they can cut salary and maybe still come out with a better team next year depending on the specifics of the deals and how the stable of young position players develops.

[Playing Catch]

5 hours ago, sveumrules said:

how the stable of young position players develops.

This is the key. If they are never given the chance, one may as well trade them. Repeating time in AAA does nothing for their development if they've already performed there. It's merely valuable as a way to stash guys that aren't quite good enough for MLB, or for service time manipulation.