A closer look at the budget

Cots contract has a spread sheet for each teams payroll obligations for the next three years. Click here for the Mets. This is more a reference post for later in the off season but here is a look at the budget .

The Mets are already obligated to 89.6MM ( Wagner's 1MM taken out of the budget & Beltran's deferment) for next year to only eight players.

Santana-- 21MM

Beltran-- 20MM ( Actual amount 18.5MM due to deferment)

Perez-- 12MM

Rodriguez-- 11.1MM

Wright-- 10.2MM

Reyes-- 9.3MM

Castillo-- 6.2MM

Putz-- 1MM buyout ( 8.5MM to pick-up the option)

The Mets have eight arby eligible players, below is last years figure and what year of arby they'll be in for 2010.

Francoeur-- 3.3MM-- Arb. 2

Maine-- 2.6MM-- Arb. 2

Redding-- 2.5MM-- Arb. 3

Feliciano-- 1.6MM-- Arb. 3

Reed-- 925k-- Arb. 2

Sullivan-- 600k-- Arb. 2

Pagan-- 575k-- Arb. 2

Green-- 471k-- Arb. 1

In all the Mets paid 12.57MM for arbitration players this year, if they kept them all and all received a 20% increase it would be 15.08MM ( 2.51MM increase). I'm going to guess Redding, Reed ( because Pagan/Sully are cheaper) and Green wont be back, which would save the team about 4.6MM ( this year's salary plus 20% increase) if they're replace by cheaper players.

Then the Mets have filled out the rest of the roster with controllable players or veterans who signed minor league contracts. League minimum is 400k but with service time some players can make up to 600k; Stokes, Evans, Murphy, Niese, Parnell, Figgy, Broadway, Misch, Hernandez, Santos, Dessens, Valdez.

They have five free agents and I don't expect any of them back except maybe Alex Cora for his leadership if the price is right but Sheffield, Delgado, Tatis and Scheinder all would surprise me if they return.

There is an interesting situation with Mike Pelfrey who signed a four year deal straight out of the draft, he made 2.2MM this year but next year the contract is over while he still has another year before arbitration.

So without signing a free agent the Mets are already looking at 89.6MM in guaranteed contracts (7 players), 10MM in arbitration (5 players), plus Pelfrey's new salary somewhere around 3MM and if they filled all 13 positions left with league min. it would be an additional 4.8MM, making the overall payroll 107.4MM.

The scary thing is that, one of the rumors is that the Mets will attempt to reduce payroll to 100MM which would be this roster, that is no where near a contender.

What do I expect from the Mets this off-season, I don't have a figure in my mind because I have no idea what salaries are going to look like. If they respectably fill the holes they have and salaries are down again which allows them to cut the overall salary, then of course they did a good job. The Mets need to obtain at least a power bat, a #2 starter and a strong reliever, they could use more but anything short of three players and Madoff questions will not go away.