It was believed that the club had enough money to keep Jones once Corey Koskie signed a three-year, $17 million deal with Toronto that includes a fourth-year option for $6.5 million if Koskie gets 1,200 at-bats over three seasons.Posted by Batgirl at December 16, 2004 10:43 AMBut a closer look reveals how tough it will be for Ryan to keep the payroll at around $55 million, a number ordered unchanged from last season by owner Carl Pohlad.
The Twins have seven players under contract (Brad Radke, Torii Hunter, Joe Mays, Shannon Stewart, Joe Nathan, Juan Castro and Mike Redmond) at around $34.15 million. Terry Mulholland, who is expected to sign shortly, could make around $750,000 next season, pushing the total to $34.9 million.
That leaves Ryan about $20 million to sign 17 players, including arbitration-eligible players Jones, Rivas, Johan Santana, Kyle Lohse, Carlos Silva, J.C. Romero, Matthew LeCroy and Augie Ojeda.
So consider: Jones could get $6 million through arbitration, and Santana, coming off a Cy Young season, also could get $6 million.
That would leave around $8 million to sign 15 players. And keep in mind that Lohse, Silva, Rivas and maybe Romero could make between $1 million and $1.7 million next season.
Wow, what a buzzkill of a week. First, Koskie leave, then Croppzilla kills the Nats, now more depressing news about the end of the soul patrol (remix). Plus the fact that its finals week...just baaad times.
I was really looking forward to the Nats too-being a student in DC, Orioles games are a stretch to get to, and if I spend the summer out here working, I need a baseball team, even if it isn't the Twins. I don't think I can handle a summer w/o attending 20+ baseball games. Plus I would have had a chance to hopefully see guzie mature.
And now Jacque is pretty much gone, and also unlikely to get the Twins much in return, b/c of the fact that every other GM knows that we have to move him. Buzzkill. The Soul Patrol was always my favorite too-nothing against Lew (love his geekiness), but he's just too big of a dork to be a member.
Since I have to go to my Abnormal Psych final, I just thought I'd make a quick diagnosis-the owners and Selig have antisocial personality disorder. They're manipulative, have no empathy or conscience and have and utter contempt for the people they are manipulating.
-TBird