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2012 Payrolls By Division

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Last week, the Associated Press published 2012 payrolls for all 30 teams based on information sent by the clubs to the commissioner's office. Here are the parameters as described by the AP:

The figures are for 40-man rosters and include salaries and pro-rated shares of signing bonuses, earned incentive bonuses, non-cash compensation, buyouts of unexercised options, and cash transactions. In some cases, parts of salaries that are deferred are discounted to reflect present-day values.

In total, MLB teams spent $3,149,424,396, up from $2,999,557,280 last year.  The average payroll was just under $105MM and teams like the Cubs, Mets, White Sox, and Twins all came in around that number.  The Yankees had the highest payroll in baseball, as they have in every year since 1998, but the 2013 Dodgers will knock them from that perch.  The AL West champion A's had the lowest payroll of anyone in 2011 with a sub-$60MM tally.  Speaking of the AL West, it should be noted that the Astros are still counted as NL Central members for 2012.  Here's a break down of the spending by league and division with last year's averages in parentheses..

American League: $111.7MM per team ($104.7MM)

  • AL East: $128.9MM per team ($119.6MM)
  • AL Central: $96.3MM per team ($90.5MM)
  • AL West: $109.6MM per team ($103.9MM)

National League: $99.1MM per team ($95.8MM)

  • NL East: $111.5MM per team ($105.9MM)
  • NL Central: $89.4MM per team ($90.8MM)
  • NL West: $98.3MM ($88.5MM)

Remaining Free Agent Strikeout Relievers

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There are more than 40 unsigned free agent relievers at this stage of the offseason, but not all of those relievers are strikeout guys.  To zero in on the strikeout artists left on the market, let's take a look at the leaders in K/9 and K% in 2012.

You're probably familiar with K/9, which is strikeouts per nine innings.  The league average was 7.56 K/9 last season, and Craig Kimbrel led all qualified relievers with 16.66 K/9.  The second metric, K%, measures the percentage of batters faced that the pitcher struck out.  The league average was 19.8% in 2012, and Kimbrel also topped that mountain at 44.0%.

The K/9 and K% leaderboards are predictably similar, but not identical.  More efficient pitchers will have a higher K%, even though they may have a lower K/9 than their baserunner-prone counterparts.  Here are lists of unsigned free agent relievers with above average K/9 and K% rates.

Strikeouts Per Nine Innings (K/9)

  1. Jason Frasor – 10.92
  2. Mike Gonzalez – 9.84
  3. Manny Parra – 9.36
  4. Hisanori Takahashi – 9.30
  5. Brandon Lyon – 9.30
  6. Vicente Padilla – 9.18
  7. Rafael Soriano – 9.18
  8. Francisco Rodriguez – 9.00
  9. Juan Cruz – 8.33
  10. Matt Lindstrom – 7.66
  11. Kevin Gregg – 7.63

Just missing the cut was Rays left-hander J.P. Howell, who posted a 7.51 K/9 rate in 2012 to go along with a 3.04 ERA and 3.9 BB/9.  Howell has drawn interest from the Nationals, Phillies, Cubs, Mariners, and Rangers this winter.

Strikeouts Per Batter Faced (K%)

  1. Frasor – 27.8%
  2. Gonzalez – 25.8%
  3. Soriano – 24.7%
  4. Takahashi – 24.5%
  5. Lyon – 24.4%
  6. Rodriguez – 23.6%
  7. Padilla – 23.4%
  8. Parra – 22.3%
  9. Howell – 20.7%
  10. Cruz – 20.4%
  11. Lindstrom – 20.0%

That's a bit of redemption for Howell, as he posted an above-average K% while Gregg (18.5%) missed the mark.  That essentially means that Howell was more efficient and struck out a higher percentage of the batters he faced.  Chad Durbin was just left on the outside-looking-in with a 19.1% posting.

Special thanks to Mike Axisa, who compiled a similar post last year.

Remaining Free Agent Power Hitters

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MLB teams combined for 4,934 total homers in 2012, their most since 2009 (5,042). Power remains a hard-to-find commodity, and all you need to do is look at the big multiyear contracts signed by Josh Hamilton (43 HR), B.J. Upton (28 HR), and Nick Swisher (24 HR) for evidence. Power is at a premium.

Homers and slugging percentage are just two measures of power though. Isolated power, or ISO, is slugging percentage minus batting average, so it tells us extra bases per at-bat. Hamilton led all qualified hitters with a .292 ISO in 2012 while Edwin Encarnacion and Miguel Cabrera (both .277 ISO) were tied for second. Jamey Carroll and Ben Revere tied for dead last in MLB with a .049 ISO this past season. The MLB average was a .151 ISO in 2012, and here are the nine unsigned free agents who posted a better than league average ISO this summer (min. 200 PA).

  1. Scott Hairston – .241 ISO
  2. Adam LaRoche – .238
  3. Luke Scott & Travis Hafner – both .210
  4. Kelly Shoppach – .192
  5. Yuniesky Betancourt – .172
  6. Brandon Inge – .165
  7. Miguel Olivo – .159
  8. Scott Rolen – .153

Hairston and LaRoche are both in line for multiyear contracts this winter while Rolen is still undecided about retirement. Scott and Hafner would provide some left-handed thump to a team unwilling to spend huge dollars on a DH-type, and both Shoppach and Olivo would make sense for clubs seeking a backup catcher who can hit the ball out of the park on occasion. Betancourt and Inge may have to settle for minor league contracts.

Team Facebook/Twitter/RSS

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If you prefer your MLBTR fix limited to only your favorite team, we've got you covered.  Below are links to our team Facebook, Twitter, and RSS pages and feeds.

AL East

AL Central

AL West

NL East

NL Central

NL West

Transactions only: Twitter / RSS

MLBTR’s Extension Tracker

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Contract extensions are all about comparables, especially when it comes to arbitration eligible players. Coming up with the relevant position, salary and service time data would have been a serious obstacle for most observers until MLBTR introduced an Extension Tracker.

The tracker shows all contract extensions, whether they cover the player's arbitration years, free agent years, or both. All the extensions are listed by date, and our filter button allows you to change the date range. You can also filter by any combination of team, position, guaranteed years, amount in millions, number of options, service time, super two status, and agency. The service time filtering allows you to choose one or both boundaries of a range. Service time is denoted as years.days, so 4.148 means four years and 148 days. The player name is hyperlinked to MLBTR's post on the story of the extension.

For example, if you wanted to put Santiago Casilla's recent contract extension in context, it'd be possible to determine if there’s been another multiyear extension worth $10MM or more for a right-handed setup man with five or more years of service time since 2009. As the Tracker shows, Ryan Madson’s 2009 deal with the Phillies resembles the deal Casilla and the Giants just agreed to sign.

The extension tracker can be found under the Tools menu in the navigation bar up top, along with our 2013 Free Agent Tracker, Arbitration Tracker, Non-Tender Tracker, Agency Database and Transaction Tracker.

How To Use MLBTR

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An explanation of the many ways to enjoy MLB Trade Rumors:

  • If the main site doesn't load perfectly on your cell phone, try the more mobile-friendly mlbtraderumors.mobi.  It's a simple page that shows you just the headlines and lets you click through to what you want to read.
  • If you're an iPhone user, be sure to pick up our app for the latest news and rumors. MLBTR just introduced an Android app as well.
  • If you want only the hard news in the form of transactions, our transactions page is the ticket.  You can also get only the transactions via Twitter or RSS. 
  • To return to the main page at any time, just click on the title or the Home button on the navigation bar below the title. 
  • The navigation bar will cover many of your needs.  Use the About dropdown to learn about this site or any of its writers. 
  • The Contact button takes you to a page where you can write an email message to the MLBTR writers.  If you have a link to a rumor we've missed, please send it in through the Contact page!  Also use the Contact page to inquire about advertising on MLBTR.
  • The Archives dropdown shows you 15 months worth.  If you need to go back further, click on Site Map at the very bottom of the page.  Site Map also lists out every MLBTR post category, including players, teams, and features.
  • The Tools dropdown takes you to a number of different places. The MLBTR Widget allows website owners to easily add a constantly updated box with all of MLBTR's headlines to their sites.
  • Also under the tools tab is our Transaction Tracker, which enables you to search about anything and everything to do with baseball trades, signings and extensions. 
  • Under the tools tab, you'll find a link to our Forums, a message board community of MLBTR readers with over 9,100 members.  You can discuss any baseball-related topic on the Forums, and start your own thread too.
  • MLBTR's Agency Database lets you know which agencies represent which players. It's searchable by team, agency or player, so be sure to check it out.
  • Feeds By Team is a very useful dropdown.  Hover over it to see all 30 teams.  Click on the team name to bring up a page of every post containing information about that team, with the latest on top.  These are the same pages you'll find if you go to the Rumors By Team section on the sidebar and select A's Rumors, Angels Rumors, etc.  
  • Also under the Feeds By Team dropdown, you'll find RSS and Twitter buttons.  Those links allow you to follow a single team's rumors via RSS or Twitter.  Did you know we have a separate Twitter account for each of the 30 teams?  For example you can follow @mlbtrtigers, where you would get the latest Tigers updates.
  • You can also follow Tim Dierkes and Ben Nicholson-Smith on Twitter for more MLBTR content.
  • On the far right of the Navigation bar, you'll see buttons for Twitter, Facebook, and RSS.  MLBTR has over 213,000 Twitter followers, over 61,000 Facebook fans, and over 53,000 RSS subscribers.  Sign up for these and you'll be the first to receive all of our posts.
  • Be sure to check out your favorite team's MLBTR page on Facebook so you can receive and comment on the latest rumors.
  • On to the sidebar.  It begins with a list of our Top Stories, which our writers update any time major hard news occurs.  Go here for a quick update on the most important stories.  Below that is the site's Search Box, where you can type in any player's name and get the latest on him. 
  • MLBTR Features has all kinds of goodies, including our free agent lists.  Many of the MLBTR Features are constantly updated by our writers, so be assured that our free agent lists are always fresh. 
  • Below Features you've got headlines for all the Recent Posts, in case you'd rather not scroll to see all the headlines.  Then there's a box for our Mailing List, where you can sign up to receive a daily email containing MLBTR's posts.  Use this option if you don't need the news as soon as possible.
  • Next we have Featured Posts, where you'll find original work from MLBTR writers we consider noteworthy.  For example, check out our Offseason Outlook series.
  • There's also a contact form in case you need to reach MLBTR.

MLBTR Seeking Comment Moderators

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MLBTR is now looking for additional moderators to read through comments and make sure that they're not in violation of our commenting policy. We're looking for people to contribute throughout the week, including on weekends.  

It's not a paid position, but it will keep you connected to the latest trade and free agent rumors. If you're a frequent MLBTR commenter who can help us keep the comment section clean, send a short e-mail to mlbtrmods@gmail.com with the following: your username, the email (or other) account you use to comment on MLBTR, your availability, and a short explanation as to why you'd be a good fit. If you're responsible, respectful and interested in contributing at MLBTR, we want to hear from you.

Commenting Policy

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MLBTR is increasing efforts to enforce our commenting policy.  The goal is to raise the level of discourse in the comments, part of which involves eliminating inappropriate language and insults.

Comments of this nature are not allowed:

  • Attacks or insults towards other commenters, the post author, journalists, teams, players, or agents
  • Inappropriate language, including swearing and related censor bypass attempts, lewdness, insults, and crude terms for body parts, bodily functions, and physical acts.  Overall, we don’t want any language that a parent would not want their kid to see.
  • Juvenile comments or extensive use of text message-type spelling
  • Writing comments in all or mostly caps
  • Spam-type links or self-promotion.  Please submit to our weekly Baseball Blogs Weigh In feature if you have a website or blog.  Currently, permissible links in the comments are limited to MLB.com, Cot’s Baseball Contracts, FanGraphs, Baseball Prospectus, Baseball-Reference, and (of course) MLB Trade Rumors.  Comments linking to other sites will be deleted.
  • Comments about how you're sick of this topic or it's not newsworthy
  • No inappropriate avatars or images are allowed
  • Anything else we deem bad for business

If you see comments that fit the above criteria, please flag them and/or contact us.  Those who repeatedly violate the policy can be banned at any time.  Bans may be handed out liberally by our moderators, without second chances.  Remaining civil is not that difficult, though, and most commenters have no problems doing so as well as helping rein each other in.  We at MLBTR are grateful for long-time commenters and readers, though this policy applies equally regardless of tenure.  This policy is always available at the bottom of the site, and will be re-posted monthly.

Regular MLBTR Features

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If you're a regular MLBTR reader, you'll be familiar with our chats, our Week In Review posts and Mike Axisa's Baseball Blogs Weigh In feature. Here's some more detail on when you'll see our weekly features and exactly what to expect from them:

  • MLBTR Chats - Come join me every Wednesday at 2pm CDT to chat about the latest trades, signings and rumblings around the Major Leagues.
  • Baseball Blogs Weigh In - Every Friday morning, Mike Axisa directs you to some of the best writing on baseball blogs around the web. Whether it's opinion, stats or something else entirely, you can connect to the best of the blogosphere once a week on MLBTR. If you want to send Mike a post of yours, reach him at: mike@riveraveblues.com.
  • Week In Review - It's remarkable how much happens in seven days. Every Sunday night, Daniel Seco summarizes the week's biggest stories in our Week In Review posts.
  • MLBTR Originals - Edward Creech gathers all our original analysis and reporting in one place every Sunday night.

Free Fantasy Football Contest – $400 In Cash Prizes

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If you haven’t heard yet, there’s a new way to play fantasy football that turns the season-long grind into quick-hitting one week leagues. And the best part is that you can win cash every single week. You draft a team for one week and get paid out when the Monday Night Football game ends. DraftStreet.com is at the forefront of this new trend in the fantasy world and is giving us a great promotion for week 14: a free one-week fantasy league with $400 in prizes exclusively for MLBTR readers.

This free contest will be salary-cap style drafting where everyone tries to assemble the best team out of the available players. You will have a $100,000 budget to build a team of 2 QBs, 2 RBs, 2 WRs, 1 TE, 2 FLEX, and 1 Defense. Each NFL player has been assigned a price based on their expected fantasy performance. For example, Aaron Rodgers costs $18,755 whereas Andy Dalton only costs $14,325.  Here's a screenshot of my team:

Screen Shot 2012-12-04 at 7.31.18 PM

You can adjust your roster up until the contest starts on Sunday December 9th at 1:00pm ET at which time your rosters will lock and the Live Scoreboard will be available.

Click here to sign up for free and join the MLBTR $400 Freeroll on DraftStreet.com.

This post is sponsored by DraftStreet.

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