Brewers Reportedly Concerned about Payroll

[wallus]

The Brewers are concerned about their 2026 payroll, according to reporting from Will Sammon, Ken Rosenthal and Katie Woo of The Athletic. The reporters then wonder if this will lead the Brewers to more seriously consider trading right-hander Freddy Peralta.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/11/brewers-reportedly-concerned-about-payroll.html

Discuss/complain

[adambr2]

Looks like I wasn’t too far off with the Tiger King “ I am never going to financially recover from this” meme when Woodruff accepted a QO.

[adambr2]

Also, Mark A has been an awesome owner for the Brewers. Still is. Glad we have him, 

But I hope he doesn’t echo comments like this, because it would make him look quite out of touch. You’re a really rich dude and you spent about 40% of your revenue on payroll last year.  The Brewers will be really good next year and still make you more money. You and your fellow investors can carry a $136M payroll for one season. It will be okay.

[SF70]

It’s total payroll for the year that matters and if the team needs to shed a little now to be able to add at the deadline then so be it.

I’m hoping they trade Mears & Megill (injury risk) and if they trade Peralta that means they got what they wanted in return.

Matt Arnold & co will figure it out.

[wiguy94]

Ken Rosenthal does this crap literally every single offseason with the Brewers. This is nothing new. 

[wiguy94]

1 hour ago, adambr2 said:

Also, Mark A has been an awesome owner for the Brewers. Still is. Glad we have him, 

But I hope he doesn’t echo comments like this, because it would make him look quite out of touch. You’re a really rich dude and you spent about 40% of your revenue on payroll last year.  The Brewers will be really good next year and still make you more money. You and your fellow investors can carry a $136M payroll for one season. It will be okay.

% of revenue to payroll is just a really pointless number to care about. There’s much more spending to running a baseball team than just payroll. Seeing that chart get so much traction is really annoying. 
 

To make it easier, I’m just going to refer to all non-payroll expenditures as overhead. These expenditures probably have some variation across the league but this spread is probably pretty small. A team that has $600M in revenue and say $200M in overhead has 66% of their revenue left over for payroll. A team that has $350M in revenue and say $150M in overhead has 57% of their revenue left over for payroll. The lower your revenue is the lower your % of revenue spent on payroll is going to be because you’re spending a higher % of revenue on overhead.

If you look at that chart for example and look at the Dodgers revenue minus payroll and compare it to the Brewers revenue minus payroll the numbers are basically identical.

[adambr2]

9 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

% of revenue to payroll is just a really pointless number to care about. There’s much more spending to running a baseball team than just payroll. Seeing that chart get so much traction is really annoying. 
 

To make it easier, I’m just going to refer to all non-payroll expenditures as overhead. These expenditures probably have some variation across the league but this spread is probably pretty small. A team that has $600M in revenue and say $200M in overhead has 66% of their revenue left over for payroll. A team that has $350M in revenue and say $150M in overhead has 57% of their revenue left over for payroll. The lower your revenue is the lower your % of revenue spent on payroll is going to be because you’re spending a higher % of revenue on overhead.

If you look at that chart for example and look at the Dodgers revenue minus payroll and compare it to the Brewers revenue minus payroll the numbers are basically identical.

 

I guess the only point I really wanted to make is that the Brewers can afford to spent $130M-$140M on payroll for a season and it is not going to hurt them.

[wiguy94]

4 minutes ago, adambr2 said:

I guess the only point I really wanted to make is that the Brewers can afford to spent $130M-$140M on payroll for a season and it is not going to hurt them.

The Brewers year end 40-man payroll in 2025 according to Cot’s was $131M so they were right there in the range you want them to be.

[sveumrules]

I’m not an Athletic subscriber, are there any direct quotes from Attanasio, Arnold or anyone else relevant?

Or is it more speculation based on intel from unnamed sources?

[wiguy94]

10 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

I’m not an Athletic subscriber, are there any direct quotes from Attanasio, Arnold or anyone else relevant?

Or is it more speculation based on intel from unnamed sources?

It was the Rosenthal special.

”In what has become an annual rite of autumn, the Milwaukee Brewers are fretting over their payroll, according to people briefed on their plans. The possibility exists that the team might need to subtract from their roster in order to add.”

[BrewerFan]

4 hours ago, SF70 said:

It’s total payroll for the year that matters and if the team needs to shed a little now to be able to add at the deadline then so be it.

I’m hoping they trade Mears & Megill (injury risk) and if they trade Peralta that means they got what they wanted in return.

Matt Arnold & co will figure it out.

You trade 4.2M in Megill so you can... do what at the deadline? Try and add another high leverage reliever? 

I'm fine with Mears, even though I think it's a bad idea. The whole article sounds like just... complete speculation. It even suggests they sign Woodruff to an extension for a lower AAV so their payroll isn't as high

3 hours ago, wiguy94 said:

% of revenue to payroll is just a really pointless number to care about. There’s much more spending to running a baseball team than just payroll. Seeing that chart get so much traction is really annoying. 
 

To make it easier, I’m just going to refer to all non-payroll expenditures as overhead. These expenditures probably have some variation across the league but this spread is probably pretty small. A team that has $600M in revenue and say $200M in overhead has 66% of their revenue left over for payroll. A team that has $350M in revenue and say $150M in overhead has 57% of their revenue left over for payroll. The lower your revenue is the lower your % of revenue spent on payroll is going to be because you’re spending a higher % of revenue on overhead.

If you look at that chart for example and look at the Dodgers revenue minus payroll and compare it to the Brewers revenue minus payroll the numbers are basically identical.

It's... really annoying. They're still paying for the AZ facilities, the DR, they just bought a minor league affiliate, they have to pay the staff, everyone.

If you're going to go by Forbes numbers,

2024- net revenue;

LA Dodgers- 25M
Milwaukee Brewers- 21M

LA Dodgers- 353
Taxable Payroll-Brewers 114
 

That accounts for the 48% that teams take from their local revenue and pay in...except it's like the tax Code where it's pretty convoluted. The Dodgers for instance... they don't have to pay their full TV deal because of how it was structured and because if you own your TV rights, you're taking on extra risk and have an ownership stake apparently. I don't know, I don't fully understand the MLB CBA.

BUT... I do know that framing it as though we're paying 40% of our revenue toward payroll is... pretty misleading. 

It suggests we're like the Hntington family and not trying to compete. 

PLUS, the Brewers had some pretty large capital expenditures in the past few years. 
1-Dominican Republican Academy. State of the art facility in AZ and the Carolina Affiliate and their investment in their ~75M stadium. 

They had Rick Schlesinger on to talk about those investments and while they initially committed around 20M to the first round of the DR facility(when it had 22 Dorms) the 31 Acre facility now has 120-some dorms and the price ballooned both there as well as the AZ facility that was originally projected to cost 60M and due to Covid, supply  shortages, it escalated to over 100M. 

ALSO during this time, the Low A Carolina Affiliate... which we don't know what they spent to buy the team
(generally about 20M) or to invest in the Stadium(though estimated at 35M). That, as well as Miller Park investments is a WHOLE lot of money from ~2018 and they likely have pretty significant debt payments each year when added together.

 

EITHER way... I expect to see the "the Brewers spend 40% of their revenue on their payroll," but a... very Twitter like post that leaves out all context or the fact the Brewers STILL end up with less net revenue than the Dodgers. 

[BrewerFan]

4 hours ago, sveumrules said:

I’m not an Athletic subscriber, are there any direct quotes from Attanasio, Arnold or anyone else relevant?

Or is it more speculation based on intel from unnamed sources?

Absolutely ALL speculation based.

They may want to cut some payroll so they have room to add later... and the players they'll use to do so are POTENTIALLY Freddy Peralta and his 8M deal, Trevor Megill, our closers, part of the duo at the back of the pen that features two elite closers, and then Nick Mears... who is due to make 1.7M.

Oh, and then the brilliant suggestion. The Brewers are concerned about their payroll. So what are they going to do? Well, since this is like the NFL and it always makes sense to just add years to a deal to lower this years salary, the Brewers are going to extend Woodruff to a longer team deal, but for less than 22.5M a year. 

So they'll make a LESS responsible decision(if they're worried about payroll) and go 3 years and 60M on Woodruff to save a couple million or they're trade Nick Mears and his 1.7M...

Ya know, because the Brewers do this every year and in order to add, they'll have to subtract.

The ACTUAL quote with regard to Woodruff was;

Quote

After right-hander Brandon Woodruff accepted the team’s one-year, $22.025 million qualifying offer, both owner Mark Attanasio and general manager Matt Arnold said they were excited about the rotation, indicating they did not view Woodruff’s decision as a prelude to moving Peralta.

So it really sounds like they're... just making things up because the Brewers had a player accept the QO.

I honestly don't think they'd have any trouble at all trading Woodruff. Nathon Evoldi was the comp for his contract. I think he accepted because he wanted to be back in Milwaukee and the Brewers, namely owner Mark Attanasio wanted him back. 

6 hours ago, adambr2 said:

But I hope he doesn’t echo comments like this, because it would make him look quite out of touch. You’re a really rich dude and you spent about 40% of your revenue on payroll last year.

ONE more comment regarding this... which... just drives me nuts in general, but Mark Attanasio owns about 34-39% of the Brewers. He's their principal owners, not the majority. 

But the 40%... that's... really "out of touch." Especially for fans who I think know better. That's a good talking point when you're trying to troll another team, but... it lacks ANY nuance that I would expect. 

[Outlander]

Ken Rosenthal reportedly knows something about finance. As discussed when Woodruff accepted the qualifying offer the Brewers have quite a bit of payroll flexibility even after he accepted. It's hard to find short term deals for quality players but if they are out there the Brewers can afford it. One year deals like Woodruff and Peralta is not a payroll concern for the Brewers. If the Brewers get blown away with an offer for Peralta they should certainly consider it but there isn't financial pressure to trade him.

[SF70]

4 hours ago, BrewerFan said:

You trade 4.2M in Megill so you can... do what at the deadline? Try and add another high leverage reliever? 

I'm fine with Mears, even though I think it's a bad idea. The whole article sounds like just... complete speculation. It even suggests they sign Woodruff to an extension for a lower AAV so their payroll isn't as high

It's... really annoying. They're still paying for the AZ facilities, the DR, they just bought a minor league affiliate, they have to pay the staff, everyone.

If you're going to go by Forbes numbers,

2024- net revenue;

LA Dodgers- 25M
Milwaukee Brewers- 21M

LA Dodgers- 353
Taxable Payroll-Brewers 114
 

That accounts for the 48% that teams take from their local revenue and pay in...except it's like the tax Code where it's pretty convoluted. The Dodgers for instance... they don't have to pay their full TV deal because of how it was structured and because if you own your TV rights, you're taking on extra risk and have an ownership stake apparently. I don't know, I don't fully understand the MLB CBA.

BUT... I do know that framing it as though we're paying 40% of our revenue toward payroll is... pretty misleading. 

It suggests we're like the Hntington family and not trying to compete. 

PLUS, the Brewers had some pretty large capital expenditures in the past few years. 
1-Dominican Republican Academy. State of the art facility in AZ and the Carolina Affiliate and their investment in their ~75M stadium. 

They had Rick Schlesinger on to talk about those investments and while they initially committed around 20M to the first round of the DR facility(when it had 22 Dorms) the 31 Acre facility now has 120-some dorms and the price ballooned both there as well as the AZ facility that was originally projected to cost 60M and due to Covid, supply  shortages, it escalated to over 100M. 

ALSO during this time, the Low A Carolina Affiliate... which we don't know what they spent to buy the team
(generally about 20M) or to invest in the Stadium(though estimated at 35M). That, as well as Miller Park investments is a WHOLE lot of money from ~2018 and they likely have pretty significant debt payments each year when added together.

 

EITHER way... I expect to see the "the Brewers spend 40% of their revenue on their payroll," but a... very Twitter like post that leaves out all context or the fact the Brewers STILL end up with less net revenue than the Dodgers. 

I want Megill traded because of injury concerns. Saving 4.4 million is an ancillary benefit.

Mears Can go — we don’t need him. That saves another 2M+.

That’s $6.4M that can be used at the trade-deadline. If the team needs to shed more, then Peralta can get traded for the best return, that saves another $8M, provided the return is pre-arby or prospects.

Potentially $14.4M saved less $2.4M for 3 pre-arby replacements.

Losing Mears won’t matter at all, and Megill can be replaced by Uribe. The team is as good as there is in this game at finding good bullpen arms and they have starter arm options internally that they can use throughout the season there plus Yoho and Bukauskas, who was a nice leverage arm before his lat injury. 

Peralta would potentially be a bigger loss with his veteran leadership and likely 170 innings of mid-rotation or better performance. But with Ashby returning to starting and the large number of controlled starters plus Woodruff, they should be able to get to the trade-deadline in good shape rotation-wise and if not, they have an enormous amount of prospect-capital of which to pull-off another Priester-like addition.

 

[SF70]

9 hours ago, wiguy94 said:

The Brewers year end 40-man payroll in 2025 according to Cot’s was $131M so they were right there in the range you want them to be.

And Forbes has them at $137.6M year-end, 40-man payroll for 2025.

[homer]

One thing mentioned in the article is the possibility of signing Woody to a multi-year deal thus lowering his number for 2026.

[umphrey]

Ugh. No hate for Woodruff but that QO offer is going to look like a huge mistake if they have to drop a lot of guys off the edge of the roster to make up for it, or even worse a Freddy trade. 

 

I wonder if they could just trade Woodruff on his QO? Seems a little shady but there are a number of teams that would love that deal, although won't get much of a prospect back. 

[tmwiese55]

If this is true, wouldn't trading Woodruff be the solution in one easy move.  Just salary dump him for a minor league flyer. Some big payroll team would take that one year risk easily.    Unless there is some rule against traiding an Arb player, I looked a month or so back and couldn't find anything say you couldn't.

Peralta is the more reliable pitcher at a drastically better contract.

[Frisbee Slider]

48 minutes ago, umphrey said:

I wonder if they could just trade Woodruff on his QO?

Can’t trade a player who accepts QO until June 15.

[trwi7]

14 hours ago, SF70 said:

It’s total payroll for the year that matters and if the team needs to shed a little now to be able to add at the deadline then so be it.

When do we ever add at the deadline?  If we add it's just a cheap reliever or something.  Not a reason to shed payroll.

[nate82]

44 minutes ago, Frisbee Slider said:

Can’t trade a player who accepts QO until June 15.

I don’t believe the QO has the same rules as a player who signs a new contract in the off season.  I believe a team can trade them whenever and don’t have to wait.  I don’t see anything in the CBA that states a team would have to wait until June like they would with a FA signing.  I believe the QO acts similarly to another year of arbitration between a player and a team.

[Frisbee Slider]

20 minutes ago, nate82 said:

I don’t believe the QO has the same rules as a player who signs a new contract in the off season.  I believe a team can trade them whenever and don’t have to wait.  I don’t see anything in the CBA that states a team would have to wait until June like they would with a FA signing.  I believe the QO acts similarly to another year of arbitration between a player and a team.

Per CBS Sports:

Players who accept the QO remain with their team and cannot be traded without their consent until June 15.

[nate82]

23 minutes ago, Frisbee Slider said:

Per CBS Sports:

Players who accept the QO remain with their team and cannot be traded without their consent until June 15.

So they can be traded, if the player approves. The consent part is the key here.  

[adambr2]

8 minutes ago, nate82 said:

So they can be traded, if the player approves. The consent part is the key here.  

Well, my assumption based on him accepting the QO and not rolling the dice on free agency would be that he prefers to be here.

[nate82]

17 hours ago, wallus said:

The reporters then wonder if this will lead the Brewers to more seriously consider trading right-hander Freddy Peralta.

I don’t believe if the Brewers were to trade Peralta it would be because of payroll.  The amount that Peralta is making is far far far smaller than Woodruff’s.  If the Brewers were to make a payroll dump it would be Yelich and not Peralta.  Yelich’s contract off the books would be a net savings versus Peralta’s who would be a net negative.