LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- So what is the Mets' 2014 payroll now that Bartolo Colon appears coming on board at two years, $20 million? It's not yet clear whether the money is evenly distributed, but let's assume so and do the math ...
Existing contracts:
David Wright $20M
Curtis Granderson $13M
Colon $10M
Chris Young $7.25M
Jonathon Niese $5M
Subtotal: $55.25M
Arbitration-eligible player estimates (via Pace Law and MLBTradeRumors.com):
Daniel Murphy $5.1M
Ike Davis $3.825M
Bobby Parnell $3.725M
Dillon Gee $3.55M
Eric Young Jr. $1.9M
Lucas Duda $1.8M
Ruben Tejada $1M
Subtotal: $20.9M
To round out the roster, you need to add 13 players, at least at the $500,000 major league minimum, for an additional $6.5 million.
So the rough calculation at this point is the Mets currently have a payroll of $82.65 million.
Of course, Davis (and even Murphy) may get traded, which means as much as $9 million could be freed to spend elsewhere, less the contracts the Mets got back in any such trade.
By the way, Sandy Alderson notes our calculation isn't entirely accurate. The Mets will be paying, perhaps, 35 players in 2014 -- not just 25. That's because every time a player lands on the DL, for instance, another player is called up. So the Mets are paying more than 25 players at any given time.