Tracking 2012 Payroll (Theo year 1)

[Bull]

Having good players under long-term contract > having payroll flexibility > having mediocre or bad players signed to long-term contracts.

 

We're making a transition from No. 3 to No. 2, and people are happy about that. That doesn't mean nobody wants to be in the first one.

 

I think its pretty obvious this is what the poster meant by refreshing. The tendency of some folks here to jump down a guys throat is becoming crazy.

[jersey cubs fan]

Having good players under long-term contract > having payroll flexibility > having mediocre or bad players signed to long-term contracts.

 

We're making a transition from No. 3 to No. 2, and people are happy about that. That doesn't mean nobody wants to be in the first one.

 

I think its pretty obvious this is what the poster meant by refreshing. The tendency of some folks here to jump down a guys throat is becoming crazy.

 

That's so crazy.

 

The Cubs haven't acquired or signed a longterm contract in quite some time. This isn't new. This isn't refreshing. It's been this way for quite a while. It will be refreshing once they actually are good again.

[Bull]

Having good players under long-term contract > having payroll flexibility > having mediocre or bad players signed to long-term contracts.

 

We're making a transition from No. 3 to No. 2, and people are happy about that. That doesn't mean nobody wants to be in the first one.

 

I think its pretty obvious this is what the poster meant by refreshing. The tendency of some folks here to jump down a guys throat is becoming crazy.

 

That's so crazy.

 

The Cubs haven't acquired or signed a longterm contract in quite some time. This isn't new. This isn't refreshing. It's been this way for quite a while. It will be refreshing once they actually are good again.

 

they haven't signed a long term contract in a while, because they've been weighed down with bad along term contracts. Did you want Pujols at 10 years? The Cubs are in a better place going forward right now than they have been in a long time. That won't translate into a WS this year, but it should translate into a perennial winner and soon. Right now, riding out and trading off some big contracts was the right thing to do.

I just don't see how you can argue with Kyle said even if you didn't understand what TheLogan meant.

[davell]

What's sad about this is we only have 2 players on our roster(Castro and Garza) that any of us would feel comfortable with giving a contract to, that takes us into 2015.

[Clem Fandango]

It's refreshing because it means we have a bunch of shitty contracts coming off the books and, unlike the rest of those teams, we have an assload of money to spend on GOOD long term contracts before then. It doesn't take into account Castro, Rizzo, Jackson, et al., it means we're not gonna be hampered by ridiculous contracts that were given out last decade anymore (finally), and we can spend the money wisely and where it counts because our front office isn't stupid.

 

By 2015 I fully expect to have several key players still under team control, with several others locked up to contracts. We've got a farm system that keeps getting better and terrible salaries coming off the books giving the Cubs a clean slate to go bonkers bat [expletive] crazy in the FA market if they wanted to whenever a marquee name becomes available.

 

THAT is refreshing.

[CarolinaCubFan]

It's refreshing because it means we have a bunch of [expletive] contracts coming off the books and, unlike the rest of those teams, we have an assload of money to spend on GOOD long term contracts before then. It doesn't take into account Castro, Rizzo, Jackson, et al., it means we're not gonna be hampered by ridiculous contracts that were given out last decade anymore (finally), and we can spend the money wisely and where it counts because our front office isn't stupid.

 

By 2015 I fully expect to have several key players still under team control, with several others locked up to contracts. We've got a farm system that keeps getting better and terrible salaries coming off the books giving the Cubs a clean slate to go bonkers bat [expletive] crazy in the FA market if they wanted to whenever a marquee name becomes available.

 

THAT is refreshing.

 

This.

[El Duderino]

do we have a final number on this now?

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Posted this info over at PSD, but I thought it'd be relevant here.

 

It's really hard to get a hold on exactly what the Cubs spent in baseball operations, because teams don't generally open their books. We know from various reports that the Cubs had roughly a $200 million budget for "total baseball operations" in 2011 and that it was supposed to be "about the same" for 2012.

 

First, I'll list my estimate of their budget, and then I'll defend each line below:

 

1) MLB payroll $105 million

2) Team ops: $20 million

3) Baseball ops salaries: $10.3 million

4) Minor league ops: $10 million

5) IFA and draft bonuses: $11.2 million

6) Scouting costs: $2 million

7) Dominican Academy: $8 million

Total: $166.5 million

 

1) This one's pretty easy. Most of the numbers come from here:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/?page_id=140

 

We started the year at $109 million, added Concepcion and Soler, shed some guys in trades.

 

2) This one's probably the murkiest, so I tried to estimate high. "Team ops" includes things like travel, stadium costs, salaries of baseball personnel, baseball infrastructure (like the video system in the dugout or the massive database Epstein commissioned). Normally, this would include salaries of people inside the baseball operations, but I separated that out into No. 3 because that's an interesting one for this year's Cubs.

 

Basically, I'm estimating $20 million because $10-15 million seems to be about the consensus of the four leaked team documents in 2010 that Deadspin got, and I want to error on the side of guessing high:

 

http://bizofbaseball.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4654:detailed-financial-info-from-pirates-rays-marlins-angels-and-mariners-released

 

3) The Cubs current baseball operations lists 20 employees, from Theo Epstein down through video operators. They also have 26 employees under scouting and development, from McLeod on down through equipment managers.

http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/team/front_office.jsp?c_id=chc

 

We know Epstein make $4 million a year. In pro sports operations, the salaries tend to be very top-heavy. The grunts make almost nothing, because those jobs are in such high demand. I'm completely WAGging here, but I put down $4 million for Epstein, $1 million each for McLeod and Hoyer, and an average of $100k for the other 43. Again, trying to error on the high side.

 

4) This is the cost of running a minor league system, basically player salaries (not their signing bonuses, their monthly salaries) and coach salaries. The minor league team pays the rest. This was pretty consistently $8-9 million across the four teams that leaked their documents, so I put down $10 million for this.

 

5) This one is easy. We know this down to the dollar, pretty much. $8.3 million in the draft and $2.9 on IFAs. Soler and Concepcion got MLB deals and are accounted for in part 1.

 

6) These are a pretty incidental cost. Basically, the scouts are already accounted for in baseball ops salaries, but it costs money to fly/bus/drive them around.

 

7) That's the high end of the $6-8 million estimate the Cubs gave out.

 

 

I know I did a lot of guessing, but the numbers come out really nicely, because we know that they had roughly a $200 million baseball operations budget in 2011, too. And that year, they spent about $45 million more in combined MLB payroll and amateur bonuses than they did this year. Take the final total of $166.5 million, add in $45 million, subtract the Dominican Academy ($8 million), the cost of all these new executive and staff (maybe $5 million?) and a few million for infrastructure, and it takes you right to about $200 million.

 

So by my rough estimate, we left about $30 million on the table this year. That either goes into Ricketts' pocket, saved for future years, or goes against something like the Wrigley Field rebuilding or whatever.

[davell]

Cool, glad you researched this and put actual numbers on each line. Not positive, but I "think" Hoyer is around 1.2 and thought I remembered rwadibg McLeod is in the 550k range. Hoyer seems clearer though. So, I look at this and wondwr two things: 1) does the leftover get rolled into future years where we can go over? And 2) does this money just go towards the renovation and it's gone from Theo's uses forever? I guess a remote possibility of the lack of money being spent is could this have been the Darvish posting fee and they were going to account for it all in one year?

[CubColtPacer]

The only thing off the top of my head that I'd add to the expenses for this year are the salaries for Hendry, Quade, and anybody else fired before the end of their contract. That adds a couple million more to the total.

[Neuby]

With Fujikawa /Baker/Fieldman/Navarro in the fold where does the Cubs payroll stand at now?

[Hairyducked Idiot]

With Fujikawa /Baker/Fieldman/Navarro in the fold where does the Cubs payroll stand at now?

 

After arbitration awards and filling out the roster with minimums, about $90 million.

[cbbryan]

After arbitration awards and filling out the roster with minimums, about $90 million.

 

That's not too shabby! It's a far cry from a few years ago.

[Sammy Sofa]

Yay?

[jersey cubs fan]

I'd be curious how much 2013 payroll (and slot space) they trade away versus how much slot space they bring on. I am assuming they will be saving money overall by shift 2013 expenses away from 2013 payroll and toward more kids.