Personally I've never thought that Soler(and Concepcion for that matter) were counted towards the payroll in that manner, but it looks like you're missing Fujikawa's 4.5 million so it balances out. Since I read that this morning, I've been trying to think through some moves that make the best of an 85 million payroll. First pass was something like: Samardzija for 2 real good arms(Delgado and Skaggs is my favorite at the moment), one should be able to slot into the rotation Lake for Ackley Barney for Herrera Villanueva for Maybin Sign a FA SP(Ubaldo and Kazmir are the current favorites), sign a RH OF to share time with Schierholtz(Young, Gutierrez) That should get you to 85 million and have something like: Sweeney/Castro/Rizzo/Castillo/Platoon OF/Platoon 3B/Maybin/Ackley Ubaldo/Wood/Jackson/Delgado/Arrieta Strop/Herrera/Parker/Russell/Rusin/etc Not a playoff contender, but a lot deeper than recent years, and the coming power prospects are exactly what that lineup is missing. That's not a bad team if Ubaldo is close to 2nd half Ubaldo and the back end of that bullpen is good. Bounce backs from Castro, Rizzo, and Ackley and you have some offense once you add Baez.