Nats’ Convoluted Pitching Contracts Make Up Most Of Future Payroll Cost

2020 salary terms still need to be hammered out. But what about what’s owed to players beyond that point? The near-term economic picture remains questionable at best. That’ll make teams all the more cautious with guaranteed future salaries.

Every organization has some amount of future cash committed to players, all of it done before the coronavirus pandemic swept the globe. There are several different ways to look at salaries; for instance, for purposes of calculating the luxury tax, the average annual value is the touchstone, with up-front bonuses spread over the life of the deal. For this exercise, we’ll focus on actual cash outlays that still have yet to be paid.

We’ll run through every team, with a big assist from the Cot’s Baseball Contracts database. Prior entries can be found here. Next up is the Nationals:

*Includes deferred salary and interest in Stephen Strasburg contract

*Includes deferred salary in Max Scherzer and Patrick Corbin contracts

*Includes buyouts on club options over Howie Kendrick, Anibal Sanchez, Adam Eaton, and Eric Thames

(click to expand/view detail list)