players and money in 2012

looking forward at our plans for next year, money is going to be a big deal, and a substantial limiting factor.

here's a collection of the information on the guys currently on the roster who may figure into the plans for next year. estimates are my best estimates. where a player seems likely to receive a FA offer i've put an estimation in brackets. on the last line of each section i've put in my best guess about how much gets spent in each group.

the starting rotation is a terrible place to start, yet i'm starting there. we are committed (by contract and our intent to take up wainwright's option) to pay out more than $34m just on our starting rotation -- $48m if we take up chris carpenter's option, and a tad less than that if we renegotiate it to a 2-3 season deal, maybe $44m.

the next bit is a little better.

the bullpen could be a very cheap $5-6m item; even cheaper if we non-tender mcclellan, or trade him after the arbitration. note that i gave up on mcclellan in the rotation; you can put him there if you like. also, i am willing to be corrected on motte being arb eligible for 2012, though $600k doesn't make a big hole in this plan one way or another.

the infield is where our biggest questions lie:

there's a whole bunch of questions here. pujols is the most obvious one. i suspect we re-sign him and to something like the AAV shown above. his 2012 salary may be less than that, but i'm guessing at AAV just because. i'm speculating we resign furcal as well, and go cheap elsewhere. you could see almost infinite variation here; especially if albert is not re-signed, you could see significant money being spent to improve 2B or SS or both.

the catcher corps is almost suspense-free. we'll exercise our option on yadi and have tony cruz as backup.

the outfield has a big question mark in the form of lance berkman. if he is not re-signed, or if he takes over first from albert, there's definitely room for a further acquisition to round center or right field out.

so, we're contractually committed to providing more than $40.5m of salary next year. add in wainwright, and you're up against $50m. add in a further $39-$41m to land albert, berkman, and furcal, then a further $7m to renew yadi, and you're pushing $100m. another $5m to retain our league min guys and motte, and you're busting a budget.

want to beef up the infield? you're going to have to either significantly expand payroll or forego a carpenter signing/option exercise, or find some other explanation of how to cut payroll significantly.

there aren't really any final answers proposed here, just a general notation of what we're facing for the purposes of discussion.