FanPost

2015 Opening day roster and payroll if the season started today

The goal of this post is to project the opening day roster using only players currently in the Jays system and under team control next year. The main reason for this is to keep track of various data sources - the Jays roster, projected arbitration salaries, and existing contracts. Note that it is not my intention to suggest that this should be the opening day roster - acquisitions are definitely needed - and it is also not necessarily the opening day roster I would want to see based on the players available, but the one I think we would see .... if that makes any sense. I will attempt to keep this fairly up to date as the offseason progresses, mostly for my own benefit so I don't have to keep looking up the same information over and over again.

Most of the data for this came from Cot's Baseball Contracts, with projected arbitration salaries coming from mlbtraderumors.

Position Players Salary (M)
LF Michael Saunders
2.875
RF Jose Bautista
14
CF Dalton Pompey
0.525
3B Josh Donaldson
4.3
SS Jose Reyes
22
2B Maicer Izturis
3
1B Edwin Encarnacion
10
C Russell Martin
7
DH Justin Smoak 1
Bench
1 Dioner Navarro 5
2 Steve Tolleson
0.525
3 Kevin Pillar
0.525
4 Danny Valencia
1.675
Starters
1 Mark Buehrle
20
2 R.A. Dickey
12
3 Marcus Stroman
0.525
4 Drew Hutchison
0.525
5 Marco Estrada 3.9
Bullpen
1 Brett Cecil
2.475
2 Aaron Loup
0.525
3 Todd Redmond
0.525
4 Rob Rasmussen 0.525
5 Chad Jenkins
0.525
6 Steve Delabar
0.525
7 Aaron Sanchez
0.525
Other


C
Josh Thole
1.75

Brandon Morrow
1

Ricky Romero
7.75

Dustin McGowan
.5

Justin Smoak
.15

Sergio Santos
.75

J.A. Happ
3.5


Summary
2015 Payroll 130.4
2014 Payroll 137.2



AAA Options


2B
Devon Travis
0.525
C
AJ Jimenez
0.525
SS/2B
Ryan Goins
0.525
SP
Daniel Norris
0.525
RP
John Stilson
0.525
RP
Bobby Korecky
0.525

To come up with this list, a few assumptions had to be made:

  • League minimum at .5M
  • Juan Francisco non-tendered, with a projected salary of 2.2M. If Pompey starts the year in MLB, he would be in CF, a Gose/Mayberry platoon would happen in LF, a Valencia/Francisco platoon at 3B, with Dirks and Pillar in AAA. I am on the fence on which way it would go, but based this assumption on Francisco's use in September and Pompey's limited time above A ball.

Update 2014-11-13

Gose Out, Pillar to minor league depth, Francisco and Pompey added. Josh Thole contract updated to 1.75M.

Update 2014-11-17

Thole to minor league depth, Martin added.

Update 2014-11-19

Francisco gone, Tolleson to the bench

Update 2014-11-28

Lawrie, Nolin, Graveman gone, Donaldson added.

Update 2014-12-03

Mayberry Jr., Dirks, and Happ, gone. Pillar, Saunders, and Rasmussen added. Smoak salary set at 1M

Update 2015-01-16

Arbitration player salaries updated

Update 2015-02-06

Valencia arbitration salary updated. Updated league min. to 525k.

Update 2015-02-13

Donaldson arbitration salary updated. Moved Thole to "Other" as a hit on this year's salary.

Editor's Note: This is a FanPost written by a reader and member of Bluebird Banter. It was not commissioned by the editors and is not necessarily reflective of the opinions of Bluebird Banter or SB Nation.