Brewers Payroll 2020 and beyond

[KeithStone53151]

I don't want to muck up the other thread to much with financial stuff. I looked at Brewers contracts 2022 and beyond, the only players we have signed to guaranteed deals in 2022 and beyond include Cain($18), Lindblom($3 with incentives), and Peralta($2.5). Cain and Lindblom both fall off the books after 2022. We obviously have considerable players in arbitration and will have to add some players via FA as our farm is not good right now...but overall we have an excellent base to build from with Yelich staying put for a long time.

[wallus]

Thank you for making this because I didn't really want to put this in the Yelich thread. It is easy to look at the off season afterwards and scrutinize. Not really my goal with this but just something to consider. Instead of signing Sogard, Gyroko, and Smoak (approximately 13 million total), we sign Rendon to the contract he agreed to with LA. We then trade for the very available Dom Smith from the Mets to play first base. The way the Rendon contract was setup (29 mill for 2020 and 27.5 mill for 2021), he makes less money in the first two years which would work well with our payroll obligations.

 

The lineup would be:

 

Cain- CF

Yelich- LF

Rendon- 3B

Hiura- 2B

Narvaez/Pina- C

Garcia/Braun- RF

Smith/Braun- 1B

Urias/Holt- SS

P

 

Payroll would go up approximately 15 million for this season. Obviously this would make it unlikely we extend Yelich but man that lineup is awesome. If you are really concerned for payroll in 2020, you could also have not signed Garcia.

[3and2Fastball]

You cannot assume that Rendon would have signed with the Brewers for the same money he signed for with the Angels

[wallus]

While that is true, if he signed the same deal with Milwaukee he would receive more money as Wisconsin's taxes are lower than Californias. I guess the main point I was trying to make was that if we can "afford" a big contract like that, I would have preferred it to be handled differently.

[TigerUppercut]

While that is true, if he signed the same deal with Milwaukee he would receive more money as Wisconsin's taxes are lower than Californias. I guess the main point I was trying to make was that if we can "afford" a big contract like that, I would have preferred it to be handled differently.

 

Not entirely true. Athletes are taxed based on the state/s they play in during a given pay period. While half of Rendon's games will be played in tax jail California, the other half are elsewhere.

[wallus]

While that is true, if he signed the same deal with Milwaukee he would receive more money as Wisconsin's taxes are lower than Californias. I guess the main point I was trying to make was that if we can "afford" a big contract like that, I would have preferred it to be handled differently.

 

Not entirely true. Athletes are taxed based on the state/s they play in during a given pay period. While half of Rendon's games will be played in tax jail California, the other half are elsewhere.

 

Still would be less overall, no?

[TURBO]

Imagine having signed Rendon, and let the Yelich contract play out. Potentially, we would have had them both for 3 years...

[wallus]

Imagine having signed Rendon, and let the Yelich contract play out. Potentially, we would have had them both for 3 years...

 

Yep, the point of my post!

[KeithStone53151]

One thing you all are missing, yelich gets no new money until 2022...when we have far fewer significant payroll commitments. We don't really have the ability to add 28 million for rendon for 2020

[SeaBass]

One thing you all are missing, yelich gets no new money until 2022...when we have far fewer significant payroll commitments. We don't really have the ability to add 28 million for rendon for 2020

I thought of this as well, and yet there is the possibility that Yelich could receive a signing bonus as part of the deal. If I were MA and Stearns, with this season's payroll being on the lower side, I'd be tempted to get some of that $215M salary added to this season. Trout got a $20M bonus so it wouldn't be strange if Yelich got $10M or more as a bonus.

 

They could even split the bonus over the next two seasons. Between a $10M bonus and deferred money, say maybe $20M deferred, that could make the 7 added years come in under $23M per season AAV while only adding $5M to his contract each of the next two seasons, so $12.5M + $5M in 2020 and $14M + $5M in 2021.

[Vollbc74]

40-Man Roster Control (via minimum/arb/options):

 

2027 - Yelich

 

2026 - Peralta

 

2025 - Hiura, Wahl, Ray, Supak, Taylor, Ray, Perdomo

 

2024 - Woodruff, Houser, Urias, Lauer, Burnes, Nottingham, Frietas

 

2023 - Hader

 

2022 - Cain, Narvaez, Arcia, Gamel, Suter, Lindblom, Healy

 

2021 - Garcia, Knebel, Pina, Braun, Phelps, Holt, Smoak, Sogard, Gyorko

 

Only player on our roster that we don't have at least partial control of after this year is Anderson.

[wallus]

We don't really have the ability to add 28 million for rendon for 2020

 

Only if we didn't plan for it at the start of the off season. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, if you didn't sign Sogard, Smoak, and Gyorko that saves about 13 million. Trade for Dom Smith or cheap equivalent for 1st base. If payroll is still too high, you don't sign Garcia. Doing all of that saves about 20 million which would keep payroll well below last year. That amount of salary would be affordable within the payroll. It would give us a three year window to get a World Series done. If it doesn't work out in 2 years, you trade Yelich, Hader (which we are probably going to do anyway) and rebuild.

[pacopete4]

I'll take my shot with Sogard/Smoak/Gyorko and the rest of the bad boys over throwing even more money at Rendon. What a hamstringing move that really could've turned out to being for the Brewers if they went down that path.

[KeithStone53151]

We don't really have the ability to add 28 million for rendon for 2020

 

Only if we didn't plan for it at the start of the off season. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, if you didn't sign Sogard, Smoak, and Gyorko that saves about 13 million. Trade for Dom Smith or cheap equivalent for 1st base. If payroll is still too high, you don't sign Garcia. Doing all of that saves about 20 million which would keep payroll well below last year. That amount of salary would be affordable within the payroll. It would give us a three year window to get a World Series done. If it doesn't work out in 2 years, you trade Yelich, Hader (which we are probably going to do anyway) and rebuild.

 

That strategy would make us dangerously thin at basically every position. You'd be looking at likely a ton of starts from Ronny Rodriguez and Ben Gamel when someone inevitably got hurt. That right there would be Doug Melvin style team building. Those teams under his tenure had so many starts from reeeeeeeeally bad players despite having basically an all star at every position when healthy. As currently positioned, we can sustain injuries to multiple players at every position except catcher and not really miss a beat(unless of course one of those is yelich).

 

All of the above doesn't even touch on whether he even wanted to come here, whether he would have taken the same $, whether the Angels would have bid more to make sure they got him. Also doesn't touch on his significant injury history, or the fact that he's significantly less valuable than Yelich yet paid on average $6 million more per year compared to Yelich's new money. Also, for all we know the Brewers analytics simply didn't deem Rendon to be all that valuable. Maybe they view him as very likely to regress quickly, especially considering his significant injury history.

 

There's so much more to the whole GM thing than sticking a square peg in a square hole.

[wallus]

 

There's so much more to the whole GM thing than sticking a square peg in a square hole.

 

That's pretty condescending but whatever. You wouldn't have a lot of starts from Ronny Rodriguez because you have Holt and Arcia. Gamel isn't a terrible 5th outfielder by any means. I realize people are pretty over the moon about the Yelich extension and I just happen to have a different view on team building.

 

Yes, you are right there is no guarantee Rendon wanted to come here but we still spent 20 million on Sogard, Smoak, Gyorko and Garcia for 2020 that could have gone towards an elite player. We will see if DS strategy will work this season, I hope it does.

[wntrtxn21]

 

There's so much more to the whole GM thing than sticking a square peg in a square hole.

 

That's pretty condescending but whatever. You wouldn't have a lot of starts from Ronny Rodriguez because you have Holt and Arcia. Gamel isn't a terrible 5th outfielder by any means. I realize people are pretty over the moon about the Yelich extension and I just happen to have a different view on team building.

 

Yes, you are right there is no guarantee Rendon wanted to come here but we still spent 20 million on Sogard, Smoak, Gyorko and Garcia for 2020 that could have gone towards an elite player. We will see if DS strategy will work this season, I hope it does.

 

If there is no Garcia then Gamel becomes a starter when Braun is out, or if any OF gets injured.

w/o Smoak then Braun plays 1B and Gamel would be the best option as an OF. They certainly wouldn't have signed Holt if they had Rendon's contract. Rodriguez, Mathais, etc.. would be playing if anyone got hurt which is bound to happen. Small market teams can ill afford two elite players' contracts unless one is a pitcher who will dominate.

[wallus]

 

If there is no Garcia then Gamel becomes a starter when Braun is out, or if any OF gets injured.

w/o Smoak then Braun plays 1B and Gamel would be the best option as an OF. They certainly wouldn't have signed Holt if they had Rendon's contract. Rodriguez, Mathais, etc.. would be playing if anyone got hurt which is bound to happen. Small market teams can ill afford two elite players' contracts unless one is a pitcher who will dominate.

 

Holt would be your 4th outfielder. (.771 OPS in 2019) Like I had mentioned, Dom Smith from the Mets would have been picked up (was available this off season) and he is cheap for a while.

 

Why wouldn't they have signed Holt if they signed Rendon? His contract is small and his versatility is excellent. He can play everywhere but pitcher and catcher.

 

Right now we have two elite players signed for under market deals which is a nice advantage (Hader and Yelich). Moving forward, we will be losing that advantage which will make things more difficult.

[monty57]

40-Man Roster Control (via minimum/arb/options):

 

2027 - Yelich

 

2026 - Peralta

 

2025 - Hiura, Wahl, Ray, Supak, Taylor, Ray, Perdomo

 

2024 - Woodruff, Houser, Urias, Lauer, Burnes, Nottingham, Frietas

 

2023 - Hader

 

2022 - Cain, Narvaez, Arcia, Gamel, Suter, Lindblom, Healy

 

2021 - Garcia, Knebel, Pina, Braun, Phelps, Holt, Smoak, Sogard, Gyorko

 

Only player on our roster that we don't have at least partial control of after this year is Anderson.

 

With the Peralta extension, I'd guess that Stearns is also approaching some others, notably Hiura and Urias, and possibly guys like Burnes and Narvaez. As long as he can maintain a solid core, he can build around that core. Extending good players while they're young helps keep your core intact.

 

Stearns showed this off-season that you can turn over a good portion of your roster in one off-season. Some of these replacements (Narvaez, Urias, Lauer) are longer-term pieces who could be "core" guys going forward, while others are 1- or 2-year commitments to fill in holes until longer-term pieces can be found.

 

If Urias can get on base like he did in the minors, he, Yelich, and Hiura should be a strong top of the order for a long time. My one concern is that we don't have a strong farm. We need to be able to keep quite a few pre-arby guys on the roster to keep payroll down so we can afford some expensive contracts. Even if these are only bullpen arms and bench guys, paying some of your 26 guys $550k really brings the average price-per-player down.

[rickh150]

40-Man Roster Control (via minimum/arb/options):

 

2027 - Yelich

 

2026 - Peralta

 

2025 - Hiura, Wahl, Ray, Supak, Taylor, Ray, Perdomo

 

2024 - Woodruff, Houser, Urias, Lauer, Burnes, Nottingham, Frietas

 

2023 - Hader

 

2022 - Cain, Narvaez, Arcia, Gamel, Suter, Lindblom, Healy

 

2021 - Garcia, Knebel, Pina, Braun, Phelps, Holt, Smoak, Sogard, Gyorko

 

 

 

Yelich has the mutual option presumably in 2029, not 2027.

[DHonks]

While that is true, if he signed the same deal with Milwaukee he would receive more money as Wisconsin's taxes are lower than Californias. I guess the main point I was trying to make was that if we can "afford" a big contract like that, I would have preferred it to be handled differently.

 

Not entirely true. Athletes are taxed based on the state/s they play in during a given pay period. While half of Rendon's games will be played in tax jail California, the other half are elsewhere.

 

 

Not true. He will also pay taxes on games in LA 2 (2) and Oakland (9). So he'll actually be at 92 games. Of course, that will partly be offset by playing games in Tampa, Houston, and Dallas.

[Ennder]

If Urias can get on base like he did in the minors, he, Yelich, and Hiura should be a strong top of the order for a long time. My one concern is that we don't have a strong farm. We need to be able to keep quite a few pre-arby guys on the roster to keep payroll down so we can afford some expensive contracts. Even if these are only bullpen arms and bench guys, paying some of your 26 guys $550k really brings the average price-per-player down.

 

The farm system rankings are always misleading. The Brewers don't have a ton of players ready to reach the majors but they have a lot of talent in the lower levels that tends to get overlooked unless it is can't miss talent. Even if they were to not draft another player they would move up in the rankings over the next few seasons as that young talent moved up. We just have a hole right now because we graduated or traded almost all of the older end of the prospects in the past 2 seasons.

[ThisIsMyCrew]

While that is true, if he signed the same deal with Milwaukee he would receive more money as Wisconsin's taxes are lower than Californias. I guess the main point I was trying to make was that if we can "afford" a big contract like that, I would have preferred it to be handled differently.

 

Not entirely true. Athletes are taxed based on the state/s they play in during a given pay period. While half of Rendon's games will be played in tax jail California, the other half are elsewhere.

 

 

Not true. He will also pay taxes on games in LA 2 (2) and Oakland (9). So he'll actually be at 92 games. Of course, that will partly be offset by playing games in Tampa, Houston, and Dallas.

 

This is just a whole lot of confusing. Makes me glad to only work in 1 state for tax reasons. Easy to keep track of but seriously I never knew they broke it down per pay period per location of games.

[sveumrules]

This is just a whole lot of confusing. Makes me glad to only work in 1 state for tax reasons. Easy to keep track of but seriously I never knew they broke it down per pay period per location of games.

 

Someone snapped a photo of Andrew McCutchen's pay stub on a clubhouse tour & it's kind of interesting to see the numerous deductions...

 

https://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2015/5/22/8647279/andrew-mccutchen-pay-stub-picture-taxes-deductions-money

[KeithStone53151]

This is just a whole lot of confusing. Makes me glad to only work in 1 state for tax reasons. Easy to keep track of but seriously I never knew they broke it down per pay period per location of games.

 

Someone snapped a photo of Andrew McCutchen's pay stub on a clubhouse tour & it's kind of interesting to see the numerous deductions...

 

https://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2015/5/22/8647279/andrew-mccutchen-pay-stub-picture-taxes-deductions-money

 

Super interesting. A couple observations. Deductions/taxes I don't see include social security and union dues. What the heck is major league dues? There's no way union dues are that low, so I automatically assumed that wasn't it. That "professional athlete fee" just makes my blood boil. What a ridiculous thing to get charged a fee for. If Pittsburgh has it, I'm sure every city does. Hopefully it's a percentage and not a set fee. $10k per check from a guy making $600k would add up in a hurry.

 

One thing maybe few think about, all these players playing in so many states and having to pay state tax...I bet their yearly tax return is quite the nightmare. They are for sure paying thousands to have a CPA do their taxes. I would like to think the union or their agent can generally help get a group rate for MLB players, but it definitely won't be free...or $50 if you itemize like for the average Joe. Little things add up for the min salary guys, and I sure hope minor leaguers don't have to deal with that junk.

[xisxisxis]

Deductions/taxes I don't see include social security and union dues.

OASDI is Social security. Based on this paystub he hit the yearly max on his first paycheck.