St. Louis Cardinals' payroll obligations: 2015 vs. 2016

The St. Louis Cardinals' offseason is underway. On Monday morning, after the final out of the World Series, six Cardinals became free agents. In early December, the team must decide which players it will place on the reserve list for 2016. This includes individuals who are salary-arbitration eligible and, as a result, will likely see their 2016 salaries increase over 2015. Then are the guaranteed contracts, which require a couple salary reductions from 2015 to 2016, but many more salary increases. So I thought it might do us well to take an accounting of the required and possible salary fluctuations for the Cardinals from 2015 to 2016 in order to set the scene for the Hot Stove.

Let's start with the free agents whose contracts have expired, causing their salaries to come off the books. Salaries, including pro rata 2015 shares for players acquired via trade, are courtesy of the indispensable Cot's Baseball Contracts, which is now a part of the wonderful Baseball Prospectus.

Salary Off the Books: Free Agents and Outrighted Players

Jason Heyward might return to the Cardinals in 2016 at a far higher salary. Though, if the Fangraphs' crowdsourced contract is remotely accurate, Heyward's guaranteed wage might be less than some in Cardinaldom feared. The Fangraphs crowd forecasts Heyward to receive a contract that spans eight years and costs in the $174.7 million (average) to $184 million (median) via free agency.

I included Pete Kozma on this list because he was on the active major-league roster all year (until the postseason, oddly enough), which means that the Cards paid the entirety of his $522,000 salary. Someone like Ed Easley, on the other hand, spent a fraction of the year of the 25-man roster, which means the Cardinals paid a fraction of the league minimum, on a pro rata basis.

The Cardinals renegotiated John Lackey's contract. The veteran's 2015 base salary was the league minimum: $505,700. However, St. Louis added incentives. Lackey received a $400,000 pay increase for reach each of the following innings-pitched benchmarks: 100, 125, 150, 175, and 200. Lackey reached each of those, which increased his 2015 salary by $2 million.

All told, the departing free agents and outrighted players remove $24,024,421 off the St. Louis payroll from last season.

Salary Reductions:  Guaranteed Contracts

General manager John Mozeliak negotiated a salary reduction in the contracts for each of Yadier Molina and Jhonny Peralta. The combined salary decrease is just $3,500,000 (a Matt Belisle!). It brings the total salary reduction to $27,524,421.

Salary Increases:  Guaranteed Contracts

It's much more common for guaranteed major-league contracts to include salary increases. So it's no surprise that the Cardinals will see three times as many players have their salaries increase between from 2015 to 2016 than decrease. The total amount of those increases comes out to $9,600,000, which eats up over one-third of the salaries that will come off the books, dropping that total to $17,924,421.

Projected Salary Increases:  Arbitration

When considering arbitration-eligible players, we leave the certain and get into the foggy. MLB Trade Rumors has a great salary projection tool for arbitration-eligible players that I liked to use. They released their 2015-16 offseason projections right after the regular season ended. You can view them here.

This summer, the Cardinals acquired two players who are eligible for salary arbitration this winter:  Steve Cishek and Brandon Moss. They paid a pro rata share of each player's 2015 salary, which is shown on the chart. (The Indians paid the remainder of Moss's $6.5 million 2015 salary and the Marlins did the same for the balance of Cishek's $6.5 million.) So each player will receive a larger raise relative to what the Cardinals paid him in 2015 than other arbitration-eligible Cardinals who played the entirety of 2015 with St. Louis.

At this point, it's important to remember that the Cardinals are not yet obligated to pay any of the players in 2016. The Cardinals must make the decision to tender (or not) each of the players on this chart. Looking at Cishek's projected 2016 season, the righty reliever seems like a prime candidate to be non-tendered by St. Louis, which would make him a free agent able to sign with any team, including the Cardinals at a salary lower than his projected arbitration salary.

It also appears likely that the Cardinals will attempt to trade Bourjos this offseason and that they've already started to do so, which would take his salary off the books.

If we remove Bourjos and Cishek from the Cardinals' arbitration-eligible raises and count their 2015 salaries as a payroll reduction, we are left with $13,748,952 in projected pay increases for arbitration-eligibie players. This lowers the Cardinals' projected overall salary reductions to approximately $4,175,469.

Some of that will get eaten up by the Cardinals' league-minimum eligible players because the organization pays them a bit more than the league minimum, based on MLB service time. But we won't have an idea of what those players might earn until the 2016 league minimum is announced. That figure won't be that high. Last year, the Cardinal who made the most in excess of the $505,700 was Trevor Rosenthal at $535,000; or, $29,300 more than the minimum. MLB will probably announce the 2016 league minimum later this month.