Future Payroll

With one big caveat, the Nationals are in a unique position to improve themselves this season.

The team has the second best record in the National League and a robust and growing fan base. The future looks bright, and it's easy to find glowing assessments of the Nationals and baseball in DC. But let's step away from this feel-good atmosphere for a moment. The Nats score about as many runs as they allow, and that's a formula that leads to a .500 record. They've played above their heads for the first half of the season, and now is the time to find a way to capitalize on that success by improving the team through trades as the trading deadline approaches.

We think that the Nationals, with that one big caveat, are in perhaps the best position of any team in Major League Baseball to be an aggressive buyer of talent during this trade season. We reach this conclusion for one simple reason: more than any team in baseball, the Nationals are in a position to dramatically increase their payroll.

Via onestopbaseball.com, here is a list of major league teams ranked by the size of their payroll as of the beginning of the season:

1 New York Yankees $208,306,817
2 Boston Red Sox $123,505,125
3 New York Mets $101,305,821
4 Los Angeles Angels $97,725,322
5 Philadelphia Phillies $95,522,000
6 St. Louis Cardinals $92,106,833
7 San Francisco Giants $90,199,500
8 Seattle Mariners $87,754,334
9 Chicago Cubs $87,032,933
10 Atlanta Braves $86,457,302
11 Los Angeles Dodgers $83,039,000
12 Houston Astros $76,779,000
13 Chicago White Sox $75,178,000
14 Baltimore Orioles $73,914,333
15 Detroit Tigers $69,092,000
16 San Diego Padres $63,290,833
17 Arizona Diamondbacks $62,329,166
18 Cincinnati Reds $61,892,583
19 Florida Marlins $60,408,834
20 Minnesota Twins $56,186,000
21 Texas Rangers $55,849,000
22 Oakland Athletics $55,425,762
23 Washington Nationals $48,581,500
24 Colorado Rockies $48,155,000
25 Toronto Blue Jays $45,719,500
26 Cleveland Indians $41,502,500
27 Milwaukee Brewers $39,934,833
28 Pittsburgh Pirates $38,133,000
29 Kansas City Royals $36,881,000
30 Tampa Bay Devil Rays $29,363,067

The Nats are 23rd in a 30-team league. That might make sense for a Montreal team, but not for a D.C. team. We think we can assume that the Nationals should spend more, but how much more? There are two rational and objective measures to use as a proxy for determining how much the Nationals should spend. First, D.C. is the 8th largest media market in country. Via nielsenmedia.com, here is a ranking of the top 30 media markets in the United States:

1 New York
2 Los Angeles
3 Chicago
4 Philadelphia
5 Boston (Manchester)
6 San Francisco-Oak-San Jose
7 Dallas-Ft. Worth
8 Washington, DC (Hagrstwn)
9 Atlanta
10 Detroit
11 Houston
12 Seattle-Tacoma
13 Tampa-St. Pete (Sarasota)
14 Minneapolis-St. Paul
15 Phoenix (Prescott), AZ
16 Cleveland-Akron (Canton)
17 Miami-Ft. Lauderdale
18 Denver
19 Sacramnto-Stktn-Modesto
20 Orlando-Daytona Bch-Melbrn
21 St. Louis
22 Pittsburgh
23 Baltimore
24 Portland, OR
25 Indianapolis
26 San Diego
27 Hartford & New Haven
28 Charlotte
29 Raleigh-Durham (Fayetvlle)
30 Nashville

As the 8th largest media market, D.C. would support a payroll much higher than what the Nationals currently are spending. If we use this list as a proxy, and if the Nats were to spend as much money as teams in similar media markets, the Nationals could theoretically increase spending by almost $40 million. Let's assume for the moment that this is too aggressive given the embryonic nature of the franchise in D.C., the presence of the Orioles in Baltimore, and the uncertainty surrounding the team's media contract.

There is a more conservative measure of what the Nationals should spend. Via espn.com, here is a list of teams ranked by per-game home attendance. The first number after the team name is number of home games, the second, is total attendance, the third is per-game attendance, and the fourth is the percentage of seats sold.

1. NY Yankees -- 43 -- 2,066,704 -- 48,062 -- 83.6
2. LA Dodgers -- 42 -- 1,922,254 -- 45,767 -- 81.7
3. St. Louis -- 43 -- 1,811,582 -- 42,129 -- 83.7
4. LA Angels -- 39 -- 1,616,616 -- 41,451 -- 92.0
5. Chicago Cubs -- 41 -- 1,591,164 -- 38,808 -- 98.1
6. San Francisco -- 40 -- 1,549,348 -- 38,733 -- 93.3
7. San Diego -- 43 -- 1,521,772 -- 35,390 -- 83.3
8. Boston -- 38 -- 1,336,384 -- 35,168 -- 97.2
9. NY Mets -- 42 -- 1,468,094 -- 34,954 -- 60.9
10. Seattle -- 42 -- 1,417,955 -- 33,760 -- 70.7
11. Houston -- 38 -- 1,275,361 -- 33,562 -- 82.0
12. Philadelphia -- 41 -- 1,358,153 -- 33,125 -- 76.2
13. Washington -- 40 -- 1,311,971 -- 32,799 -- 72.5
14. Texas -- 40 -- 1,288,056 -- 32,201 -- 65.6
15. Baltimore -- 43 -- 1,364,644 -- 31,735 -- 65.9
16. Atlanta -- 37 -- 1,163,918 -- 31,457 -- 62.8
17. Milwaukee -- 39 -- 1,046,949 -- 26,844 -- 63.3
18. Arizona -- 41 -- 1,069,271 -- 26,079 -- 53.2
19. Chicago Sox -- 40 -- 1,041,251 -- 26,031 -- 64.1
20. Minnesota -- 44 -- 1,116,447 -- 25,373 -- 52.1
21. Detroit -- 40 -- 998,255 -- 24,956 -- 62.2
22. Oakland -- 43 -- 1,064,823 -- 24,763 -- 56.7
23. Cincinnati -- 46 -- 1,128,000 -- 24,521 -- 58.3
24. Colorado -- 41 -- 991,391 -- 24,180 -- 47.9
25. Toronto -- 36 -- 845,652 -- 23,490 -- 46.5
26. Pittsburgh -- 37 -- 858,125 -- 23,192 -- 60.5
27. Florida -- 41 -- 923,658 -- 22,528 -- 62.0
28. Cleveland -- 38 -- 840,212 -- 22,110 -- 51.0
29. Kansas City -- 40 -- 767,854 -- 19,196 -- 47.1
30. Tampa Bay -- 42 -- 565,597 -- 13,466 -- 30.8

The Nationals are a healthy 13th on this list. And, given that this is their first year in D.C., the team has done little marketing to date, and the fans are starting to get to know the team, there is substantial reason to believe that the Nats can move up on this list. In any event, were the Nats to spend as much money as those teams near them in per-game attendance, the team could increase spending by about $27 million to $75 million.

We obviously cannot use either of these lists as a definitive statement of what the Nats can spend, but they do demonstrate that the Nats should substantially increase their payroll. But here is where we encounter the caveat we mentioned earlier. The Nats can be bold in their spending only when they have an owner committed to doing what it takes to win. The owner of the Nats now is Major League Baseball. While we assume that MLB cares about the Nats, it is an unfortunate truth that the League is not going to approve the kind of spending we're discussing. That makes sense because MLB wants to give maximum flexibility to the new owner, but the delay in finding an owner is precluding the Nats from pursuing an aggressive spending plan that could keep them in first place for the rest of the season.

And for that we can blame MLB and one other person about whom we'll write a lot in the coming weeks: Peter Angelos.