Baseballessential.com estimates that the starting point for a David Price free agent contract would be around $210M over 7 years, and probably closer to $215M. Let’s stay conservative and go with $210M, which equates to $30M per year for those 7 years (Price would be 37 at the end of that contact).
The Blue Jays already have around $84M in guaranteed contracts owed to just 6 players: Troy Tulowitzki ($20M), Russell Martin ($15M), Jose Bautista ($14M), R.A. Dickey ($12M), Edwin Encarnacion ($10M), and Marco Estrada ($11.5M). The rest of the team, with arbitration contracts, brings them to around $117M. So, with just the addition of Price’s contract, we would be talking about $147M payroll for 2016.
Now let’s bring Zimmerman into the fold. In a simulated season in OOTP16, Jordan Zimmerman landed a 4 year, $89M contract in this free agency. So add another $22.25M to the mix and we are looking at nearly $170M total. They could structure the deal so that it’s cheaper up front, so maybe the total for 2016 is $155M or $160M.
In 2014, the Jays had a $137M salary and $127M in 2013. Last year it was just about $135M. So do the boys in Toronto have deep enough pockets? Will last year’s journey to the ALCS motivate such an increase in spend?
How scary would a rotation of Price, Zimmerman, Stroman Estrada and Dickey be, with Daniel Norris, Drew Hutchison and Aaron Sanchez waiting in reserve? That might just put the Blue Jays over the hump and into next year’s World Series.
photo credit: http://www.baseballprospectus.com
salary data courtesy of baseball-reference.com: http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/TOR/2015-payroll-salaries.shtml
Categories: (GM) General Musings, MLB, Transactions Analysis
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