Mets To Target $100mil Payroll in 2010 (???)

I read recently that the Mets were going to try and operate 2010 with a payroll of $100,000,000.

I thought I’d go through the exercise of trying to see what this would look like.

First of all, I took the current salary and added in the $9mil worth of normal raises due next season to the players the Mets will keep on their team. I followed that by just about gutting the team of every contract they can get out of, and any of the part time players that are making over the minimum:

2009 Salaries: $149,373,987

Approximate Salary increases for 2010 on existing players: 9,000,000

Total: $158,373,987

Reductions:

Gary Sheffield: $ 400,000
Carlos Delgado: 16,000,000
Billy Wagner: 9,500,000
J. J. Putz: 4,000,000
Brian Schneider: 4,900,000
Tim Redding: 2,250,000 ( 37,050,000 ) $121,323,987

Stage 2 Cuts:

Livan Hernandez: 2,000,000
Jeremy Reed: 925,000
Angel Berroa: 66,000
Ramon Martinez: 750,000
Cory Sullivan: 600,000
Ken Takahashi: 1,500,000
Robinson Cancel: 408,000
Brandon Knight: 404,000 (6,653,000) $114,670,987

As you can see, I simply can’t get to $100mil, unless you additional trade a key player for minimal wage prospects. Trade Beltran ($18.5mil) and you’re there.

A $100mil team would stack up as follows:

1B: Ike Davis – Dan Murphy
2B: Luis Castillo
SS: Jose Reyes – Alex Cora
3B: David Wright -
LF: Fernando Martinez – Fernando Tatis
CF: Angel Pagan -
RF: Jeff Francouer - Nick Evans
C: Omir Santos – Josh Thole -
SP: Johan Santana – Mike Pelfrey – John Maine – Oliver Perez – Jon Niese
RP: Frankie Rodriquez - Bobby Parnell - Sean Green - Jesus Feliciano – Adam Bostick – Roy Merrick – Brian Stokes