The Indians have been somewhat loosely connected to outfielder Austin Jackson in the past week, but Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer writes that Cleveland is “pretty much tapped out as far as payroll goes,” and specifically calls out Jackson as an unlikely target for the team.
The Indians have spent a combined $12.25MM on Mike Napoli and Rajai Davis this winter, and they recently agreed to terms with infielder Juan Uribe to add a further option at the hot corner. ESPN’s Buster Olney reported tonight that Uribe’s guarantee is $4MM, bringing Cleveland’s free-agent expenditures to a fairly modest $16.25MM. The entirety of that $16.25MM will be added to the club’s 2016 payroll, however, which currently sits at about $93.435MM by my rough estimate (h/t: Cot’s Contracts) after factoring in money owed to Chris Johnson and the $15MM Cleveland included in the trade to acquire Johnson while shedding Michael Bourn and Nick Swisher. That figure eclipses last season’s Opening Day mark of just under $88MM.
Even if the match between Cleveland and Jackson is unlikely or impossible, it’s easy to see how the connection would’ve made sense. Michael Brantley is among the game’s best outfielders, but he’s recovering from shoulder surgery and isn’t expected to be ready come Opening Day. Beyond Brantley, the veteran Davis can see time all over the outfield, but the rest of the mix features Abraham Almonte, Collin Cowgill and Lonnie Chisenhall — none of whom comes with much of a track record in the Majors.
As far as Jackson goes, the apparent removal of Cleveland as a suitor for his services further clouds an uncertain situation for the former Rookie of the Year runner up. While Jackson’s production at the plate has taken somewhat of a dip in the past two seasons (about 10 percent below average, per park-adjusted metrics OPS+ and wRC+), he’s rated as an average center fielder in that time per UZR and DRS. In addition to the Indians, Jackson been thinly connected to the White Sox, Rangers, Cubs, Brewers and Angels over the past five weeks. Texas, though, is said to be in a similar boat to the Indians in terms of payroll (or, at least, reportedly does not want to spend additional funds). The Brewers, meanwhile, haven’t given any indication that they’re pursuing outfield help, and the Angels are perilously close to the luxury tax barrier that they’re reportedly loath to exceed.
$93 MM and “tapped out?” By MLB standards, that’s pathetic. They either need new ownership or to move somewhere that they can compete better financially – where that would be, I’m not really sure, which seems to prove that expansion isn’t a good idea anytime soon.
Their current financial issues are unfortunate but there’s no way MLB moves a historic franchise like that out of a once-great (and could be again) baseball city. That would be truly pathetic.
the former is the issue not the latter. they are just cheap mfers.
$93M is an inflated figure that the ownership is using to disguise the fact that they are really cutting payroll compared to last year’s $88M. last year, when swisher and bourn were traded to atlanta for chris johnson, $15M was sent to the braves. bourn and swisher reportedly had a combined $39M owed for the duration of their contracts and chris johnson had $19.5M.
mlbtraderumors.com/2015/08/nick-swisher-trade-brav…
as of now, bourn/swisher have a combined $29M owed and johnson $17.5M for the duration of his contract. given that swisher/bourn were owed $10M for the remainder of ’15 and $2M for johnson, you would expect that at least $8M of the 15 given to atlanta should have counted to last year’s payroll. nope, ownership only counts $5M of that for ’15 and $10M for ’16. on top of that, an additional $4-5M was saved from last year after dealing away david murphy, brandon moss and marc rzepczynski. counting $10M of the $15M given to atlanta for this year is just an accounting maneuver that they hope gets past anyone who isn’t looking too closely.
I’m a Rays fan and would love to have a 93 million dollar payroll. Haha.
Not too far from KC payroll territory. KC had to contend before the crowds started showing up and they could bump payroll a bit.
It’s the ownership. One of the main reasons why most Clevelanders aren’t attending home games is to boycott the ownership. It’s been nearly two decades since we sold out 455 straight home games. The fan base is here…the problem is the owners won’t spend the money and it’s made a major dent in our attendance. When you look to Detroit, a more economically depressed city, and see how much they spend, then you look at Cleveland and see how little we spend it’s incredibly disheartening and quite frankly infuriating. Until Dolans sell the fans will continue to stay home and watch games on TV. I still try to make it to 10 or more games a season, and there are still a lot of die hards who will go no matter what…but the broad base of fans won’t start showing up until the Dolans sell.
I am a life long Braves fan, consider growing up watching Ted Turner build a dynasty, only to sell it, have it sold again to owners that could care less about the team.
I hear ya Cleveland fans, still holding out hope Arthur Blank buys the team. Haha
@Michael: Expansion was a bad idea in 1961 as 16 teams in MLB was the limit for MLB ready talent. Most folks will disagree with me on this, but the “Golden Era” of baseball ended with expansion.
The “Golden ERA” ended as Pro Football and basketball became more popular. For the first 60 years, MLB was the only game in town for the most part. Outstanding athletes began to turn to other sports. But then again, in 1960, we were a country of 180 million people. Now it’s well over 300 million so the pool of potential talent is a lot larger. Plus, MLB is importing talent from Asia and south of border a LOT more than 60 years ago.
Luxury tax wise, what if the Angels gave Jackson a veterans minimum contract with a player option for a second year at the value of what a two year contract they would theoretically give him would be if they weren’t worried about tax this year? Does an option factor into the AAV of a contract? If not it seems like they could get around it this year.
I could be wrong but doesn’t that option have to be picked up before the numbers are finally calculated. Therefore it would take the AAV plus the option. 15 mill for 2 years is probably what it would take. That’s a huge amount for Austin Jackson.
“Veterans minimum?” Is he going to play point guard?
I will be disappointed if the Rangers do not end up signing Jackson. Delino was plus in left and poopoo in center last season, and Hamilton is terribly unreliable even as a platoon corner outfielder anyway. Makes sense, either him or Venable.
When is the deadline for a team to be under the luxury tax threshold to avoid penalty? Or is it just once they hit it, the get penalized?
Indians did the best they could, Swisher/Bourn/Johnson trade was a necessity. The Indians had to move the cancer out of the clubhouse. If they kept Swisher/Bourn the team would of lost 90-100 games. Tito & the front office would have been dismissed. New manager & rebuild would be worse then Napoli/Davis/Uribe/Hunter additions with the pitching staff intact.
They would have been 15-20 games worse just by giving those two roster spots? Doesn’t make much sense.
The Orioles should attempt to sign Jackson
Amazing to think how the Indians entire season was sold out before opening day several years in a row. They ranked #1 or #2 in attendance in the AL with over 40k per game. Now…they rank near the bottom with around 17k per game. Poor management.