Cubs payroll blueprint tool - please give advice

[Brock Beauchamp]

I'm working on getting this up to speed for Monday and could use some feedback. I haven't finished the FA section yet - I will do that before Monday - but can you all take a look at the rosters and see if I've misplaced anyone or missed anyone?

And if you have suggestions for internal options, please let me know!

https://northsidebaseball.com/payroll-blueprint

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Interesting!  Some immediate thoughts from clicking around for a minute:
 

• Since the Luxury Tax payroll number is the most relevant to the Cubs situation, I don't think there's a need to break out Gomes salary v. buyout.  Treating him like you did Hendricks(who also has a buyout) would be preferable
• Similarly, having a way to account for non-26 man pre-arb salaries and non-payroll LT expenses(even as a combined line item) would help make the actual and budget number more relevant to how folks will use this in a comparative sense.  Fangraphs' payroll pages (which assume additional pre-arb salaries adding up to 33 total roster spots to account for roster churn/IL time) handle this pretty well.
• Barnhart and Bote have dead money for 2024, 3.25 and 3 million respectively from a LT perspective
• This may be part of the unfinished bits but having the ability to add dead money values would be useful to visualize money paid in/out as part of trades(you could technically do this with the acquisition's salary but IMO the dead money value is clearer)
• There's a couple super nitpicky things about the default roster(looks like you're using MLBTR arb values but Wisdom's is 2.6, Nico's LT number is 11.67, Heuer is technically arb eligible and will probably be a hair over the minimum if kept) but nothing that an individual couldn't "fix" themselves if they cared about it

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 hour ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

Interesting!  Some immediate thoughts from clicking around for a minute:
 

• Since the Luxury Tax payroll number is the most relevant to the Cubs situation, I don't think there's a need to break out Gomes salary v. buyout.  Treating him like you did Hendricks(who also has a buyout) would be preferable
• Similarly, having a way to account for non-26 man pre-arb salaries and non-payroll LT expenses(even as a combined line item) would help make the actual and budget number more relevant to how folks will use this in a comparative sense.  Fangraphs' payroll pages (which assume additional pre-arb salaries adding up to 33 total roster spots to account for roster churn/IL time) handle this pretty well.
• Barnhart and Bote have dead money for 2024, 3.25 and 3 million respectively from a LT perspective
• This may be part of the unfinished bits but having the ability to add dead money values would be useful to visualize money paid in/out as part of trades(you could technically do this with the acquisition's salary but IMO the dead money value is clearer)
• There's a couple super nitpicky things about the default roster(looks like you're using MLBTR arb values but Wisdom's is 2.6, Nico's LT number is 11.67, Heuer is technically arb eligible and will probably be a hair over the minimum if kept) but nothing that an individual couldn't "fix" themselves if they cared about it

Thanks for the input! We only rolled this out at the last minute in 2022 and you have some good ideas, especially about dead money in trades. I'll have to think over how to handle that aspect.

[Brock Beauchamp]

What about the baseline for budget? Should I keep it at $190m or should it be higher?

You can blow right by the budget with no ramifications from the tool, I'd just like to start from an agreed-upon number.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

7 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

What about the baseline for budget? Should I keep it at $190m or should it be higher?

You can blow right by the budget with no ramifications from the tool, I'd just like to start from an agreed-upon number.

With the way it exists right now, the 'Budget' number that best matches the 2024 Luxury Tax threshold(which makes sense to me as a single line since you'll either want to stay under it or be aware of how much over it you are) is around 210m I think?

[Tim]

This is always my first resource on payroll:  https://www.fangraphs.com/roster-resource/payroll/cubs

The multi-year visualization is helpful, but as TT says, it is the luxury tax implication that matters the most for the Cubs. 

I think this (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nmPQ56LkPRaGl-70Yq_SFWjaiVsL8Ta5isMHQgzwRmA/edit#gid=834544774) is still shared. I put that together last offseason for putting together free agent scenarios for the offseason.

[Stratos]

I like the idea of using the salaries per their luxury tax implications instead, since that's what's relevant to the CBT line.  The luxury tax salaries I reference are here: https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/chicago-cubs/payroll/

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

Okay, I'm pretty close to running the page as-is with the intent of making some improvements later in the offseason or for next offseason. If you see something that needs changing, please let me know. Thanks!