1. I figured I would give you a look inside the Met payroll today and the Yankee payroll tomorrow. So here are the Mets for 2009 with some explanations to follow: Carlos Beltran — 20,071,429
Johan Santana — 20,000,000
Carlos Delgado — 12,000,000
Oliver Perez — 12,000,000
Billy Wagner — 10,500,000
Francisco Rodriguez — 9,166,667
David Wright — 7,750,000
Luis Castillo — 6,250,000
Jose Reyes — 6,125,000
J.J. Putz — 6,000,000
Brian Schneider — 4,900,000
Ryan Church — 2,800,000
Ramon Castro — 2,625,000
John Maine — 2,600,000
Tim Redding — 2,250,000
Mike Pelfrey — 2,020,000
Alex Cora — 2,000,000
Fernando Tatis — 1,700,000
Pedro Feliciano — 1,612,500
Scott Schoeneweis — 1,600,000
Marlon Anderson — 1,150,000
Livan Hernandez — 1,100,000
Jeremy Reed — 925,000
Angel Pagan — 575,000
Sean Green — 471,000
Brian Stokes — 409,500
Darren O’Day — 406,000
Nick Evans — 403,000
Daniel Murphy — 401,000
Bobby Parnell — 400,000
Duaner Sanchez — 276,639
TOTAL — $140,487,735
–OK, let’s deal with some stuff:
–This is just a snapshot of a payroll to give fans a general feel where the Mets are residing to begin the 2009 campaign. No one should take this as biblical for a variety of reasons, including that different institutions within the game figure out payrolls in different ways. For the purposes here, I used players’ base salary for 2009 plus their pro-rated signing bonuses. But, in one case, that is unfair to the Mets because J.J. Putz had his signing bonus paid by the Mariners. However, just for uniformity, I stuck the Mets with the extra $500,000.
–I did not calculate the impact of deferrals where necessary, such as with Carlos Beltran and Johan Santana. In reality, they will cost the Mets a bit less than the listed prices, but the truth is I do not know how long each deferral is into the future and, thus, how to calculate those numbers.
–There are 31 players listed here not 25. I included Livan Hernandez (who will not begin the season on the 25-man roster) and Nick Evans because Evans is only supposed to be with the team temporarily before Hernandez is needed as the fifth starter. Both Tim Redding and Angel Pagan will begin the year on the major league DL.
The three other extra players are symbols of the Mets still paying for their 2008 bullpen. Billy Wagner will be on the DL most, if not all of the season. The Mets probably have some insurance on him, but his whole salary counts toward the payroll. In order to trade Scott Schoeneweis, the Mets had to pay a significant part of his 2009 salary. And the Mets had to pay one-sixth of Duaner Sanchez’s salary when waiving him.
2. The Indians should have a very good offense this season, especially if Travis Hafner returns anywhere near his best form (and privately Cleveland officials think he is making moves back toward at least production after shoulder misery and horror show performances). Their bullpen should be better especially if Kerry Wood can stay healthy closing. They have a deep farm system bolstered, in particular, by trades last year that brought top-flight catching prospect Carlos Santana (for Casey Blake) and outfielders Matt LaPorta and Michael Brantley (for C.C. Sabathia). One rival GM said that the best thing that happened to the Indians’ future was their recognition early last season that they were not going to win the AL Central and that it was important to trade veteran pieces for high-ceiling youth. This GM said other struggling teams should learn a lesson from that not to con themselves and to act quickly in season to decide you are not going to win and, thus, set yourself up for the future.
But Indian officials recognize that much of this season hinges on the performance of projected top two starters Cliff Lee and Fausto Carmona. And that area does make Cleveland executives edgy because they know they have depth everywhere else, but they have no other top-of-the-rotation options. Carmona was an ace in 2007 and a dud last year. Lee was a dud in 2007 and the Cy Young winner last year. Who are they now? If they combine for 30-plus wins then Cleveland probably is the AL Central favorite. If Carmona and Lee struggle, the Indians are going to be trying to outscore their problems.
The only other team I see as that beholden to the state of their front two starters is St. Louis. If former Cy Young winner Chris Carpenter (no wins in the last two years) is really back from arm misery and Adam Wainwright also can start 30 games then the Cardinals are going to pester the Cubs. If they do not, then it will be difficult for St. Louis to be even a .500 team.
Right now, after Carmona and Lee, the most experienced member of Cleveland’s rotation is Carl Pavano. Cue the laughs if you would like, but Indians GM Mark Shapiro was cautiously encouraged by the veteran righty’s camp, in specific because of how dull it was. Pavano was healthy and, according to Shapiro, meshed wonderfully with the Indians’ clubhouse culture.
“He is interesting to you guys (the New York media), but the great thing is he has not been that interesting in our camp,” Shapiro said.
The scouting report on Pavano this spring is that he was throwing 88-90 mph and relying heavily on his sinker. He was a finesse guy with his power stuff greatly diminished, plus he had inconsistency in his secondary repertoire. There is still some hope as he gets further away from surgery that Pavano could add 2-3 mph more. But even Shapiro said that was not highly likely. Shapiro said, however, the Indians are comfortable with this version of Pavano.
3. Here is an update on where the four pieces the Yankees shipped to Pittsburgh for Xavier Nady and Damaso Marte last July will begin this year: Jeff Karstens and Ross Ohlendorf will open as part of the Pirates’ uninspiring rotation. Daniel McCutchen will begin the season in the Triple-A rotation. And the player with the highest ceiling, but also great volatility, Jose Tabata, will be the starting center fielder at Double-A.
Pirates GM Neal Huntington wrote in an e-mail response to the players’ status that, “We like each player similar to the way we did on the day the trade was consummated. There is risk that each player will reach his ceiling, but we felt (and still feel) it was a good baseball trade and both teams benefitted.”
