Toronto Blue Jays Payroll

 

 

Earlier in the season, we wrote a story of the Blue Jays “Big Four”, and their salaries. With the signing of Frank Thomas, the big four now becomes the big five. Let’s look at the upcoming salary structure for these five players in 2007 & 2008.

 

 

Here’s a quick clip of what we said a few months back.

 “The Blue Jays currently have four players locked into large, long term contracts. The players are Troy Glaus, Roy Hallady, BJ Ryan, & AJ Burnett. The table below illustrates the “big four’s” combined salaries this, and the next couple of upcoming seasons.

Year	Big Four
2006	$27,950,000 (Rest of the roster: $43,950,000)
2007	$40,400,000
2008	$44,500,000

As the table shows, this season the big four are making $27,950,000 this season, while the rest of the roster making $43,950,000. This is due to structure of BJ Ryan and AJ Burnett’s contracts, as Ryan only counts for $4 million against this years team salary, and AJ accounts for only $2.2 million. Starting next year and heading into the future, both players salaries will increase significantly, with both players making over $10 million a season by 2008.”

That was then, this is now. Let’s add in the Big Hurt’s contract (we’re going to count his signing bonus as salary), turing the big four into the big five;
 

In 2006, the rest of the roster (outside of the big four) made $43,950,000. I think that this would again be a safe projection, as this number will include Vernon Wells, arbitration cases such as Overbay & Johnson, and any other possible free agent signings. That would bring the total to around $95 million for 2007.