Nationals’ payroll seen to exceed $100M next season

WASHINGTON – The baseball offseason will start to crank up this weekend, when teams are allowed to contact free agents without any restrictions. As the Washington Nationals wade into the hot-stove season with an eye on turning a contender into a champion, they almost certainly will reach new boundaries with their payroll.

Between their players already under contract for 2013 and estimated salaries for arbitration-eligible players they are likely to keep, the Nationals already have roughly $87 million committed to their 2013 payroll. That’s without a clear No. 5 starter or first baseman currently on the 2013 roster. Some way or another, the Nationals seem likely to push past a $100 million payroll this winter for the first time.

The Nationals’ 2012 payroll stood at about $92.5 million, by far their highest since baseball returned. The Nationals will almost match that simply with the players they have under team control already. The Nationals have several players under contract who are due more in 2013 than 2012, either in back-loaded contracts (such as Jayson Werth) or through arbitration. Re-signing either Adam LaRoche or Edwin Jackson alone would be enough to push the Nationals’ close to a $100 million payroll.

That should not necessarily be constricting. The Nationals will receive increased revenue from MASN whenever their protracted, bitter standoff with Peter Angelos is finally settled. Their attendance rose by about 400,000 fans from 2011 to 2012, and they can expect another large jump next season. The Lerner family is one of the wealthiest ownership groups in baseball, anyway. The Nationals could have one of the 10 highest payrolls in baseball this year, but that would be in line with the state of the franchise and the market.

The Nationals could create more financial room by trading pieces such as Michael Morse (set to make $6.75 million) or Tyler Clippard (who will probably make between $4.5 million and $5 million in arbitration) during the winter. But, again, they are not really in a position where they need to prioritize frugality in regard to their 2013 payroll.

They need to be careful long-term, because core players such as Ian Desmond, Jordan Zimmermann, Stephen Strasburg, Bryce Harper and others will become eligible for free agency in the coming years. They already have Werth and Ryan Zimmerman signed to long-term, $100 million deals, and no team has bottomless pockets. But in the short term, the Nationals have wiggle room to splurge. That should guide them when shopping for a fifth starter (if they don’t sign Jackson), back-of-the-bullpen help and bench upgrades.

But then, even with the money necessary to lock up their young, star players into the future, the Nationals should be in strong financial shape. They may not need to prioritize frugality, period, thanks to the growth of the sport and their place in it.

The Lerners bought the Nationals in 2006 for $450 million. Given the rising revenues in baseball, the additional money set to come in from MASN, the growth of the Nationals’ brand in Washington and the pipeline of marketable talent in their system, the team may now be worth north of $1 billion.