There's a different kind of Moneyball going on this October in Major League Baseball.
With two of the big spenders, the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees, meeting in the World Series, payrolls and the leaguewide disparity in that area will surely be at the forefront of the discussion in the sport as the teams vie for a championship. It's a good time to have money to spend.
The Milwaukee Brewers, of course, are on the opposite end of that spectrum. Playing in the league's smallest market, the Brewers typically operate with a payroll ranking in the range of 20th overall in the league. Only twice since at least 2000 have the Brewers had an opening-day payroll in the top half of MLB.
There's a different sandbox to play in along the shores of Lake Michigan; it's a bit smaller.
As the focus turns to 2025 for the Brewers, how might their payroll look and how much room does it give them to operate this winter?
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What is the current Brewers projected opening day payroll?
As currently constructed, the Brewers are projected to be sitting at approximately $113.8 million on their 2025 opening day roster payroll.
This projection includes salaries of players currently on the roster who we project to still be on the team next year. That means it includes the salaries of players who very well could be traded this winter, such as Devin Williams and Aaron Civale. It also includes projections of which club options the Brewers will pick up and what their decisions will be on arbitration-eligible players. Arbitration salaries are based off MLB Trade Rumors' estimates.
Brewers' contract obligations can be found here.
How much room does that leave the Brewers to spend?
At this point, we don’t know for certain.
Payroll fluctuates year to year and the Brewers have not publicly indicated what to expect from payroll for 2025. The Brewers’ decision going into any given off-season is dependent on a variety of factors, including revenue from attendance, playoff earnings, win expectancy and the club’s TV deal.
The latter of those above factors – the TV deal – could be particularly impactful in 2025, as the Brewers’ contract with Diamond Sports Group is up and the team will produce its games through Major League Baseball via a direct-to-consumer basis.
Payroll, however, is more than simply dependent on TV revenue, a point Brewers president of business operations Rick Schlesinger made when asked if payroll would take a hit because of the changing TV situation in 2025.
“Whatever the revenues are for TV, to me that's a different issue. Mark (Attanasio, team owner) and Matt (Arnold, Brewers general manager) are going to figure out what the payroll is," Schlesinger said. "They have not even finished all those conversations and decisions.
"Payroll will be determined, and I wouldn't jump to conclusions based on whatever revenues there are in TV, (that it) necessarily means anything in payroll. Those are part of a larger ecosystem for the Brewers. We look at everything, all the revenues, all the expenses. … We have a lot of revenue sources too, beyond TV."
The Brewers are also coming off a year in which their overall revenues were “as good at they’ve ever been.” In light of that, there’s nothing in the league’s rules limiting the Brewers from a big off-season of spending, but that is not how they have ever operated and it would be unlikely they would open the pocketbooks to spend in the $140 million-$150 million range on the opening day roster.
Recent history would suggest the Brewers would open the season most likely in the $110 million-$125 million range. (The highest opening day payroll in team history was $131 million in 2022.) Barring a break from the franchise’s historical spending trends, that doesn’t leave a ton of room to add on...unless the Brewers clear space.
How the Brewers can clear more space
Only $68.2 million in payroll is in guaranteed contracts or buyouts for 2025, so the Brewers do have some parameters to work within if they choose to clear space.
Some of that could come through arbitration processes. A rough projection has Milwaukee tendering contracts to the following arbitration-eligible players: Devin Williams, Aaron Civale, Joel Payamps, Eric Haase, William Contreras, Nick Mears and Trevor Megill. Any non-tenders from that group obviously would open up space, though at the cost of a potentially useful player.
Or, there could be trades. The most obvious trade candidate this offseason for the Brewers is Williams, the all-star closer with one year of team control remaining. Williams is certainly worth his salary – he carries a $10.5 million club option that likely will be declined in favor of going through the arbitration process – but the Brewers often trade players in their final years of club control and don’t otherwise have a ton of wiggle room to shed money from the roster.
A Civale trade, or non-tendering him for that matter, is also on the table. Civale carries a projected salary of $8 million in his final year before free agency. The right-handed pitcher could hold value at that price as a back-end starter, but the Brewers have shown an ability to find those types of pitchers for cheap. In recent years, too, the Brewers have been willing to retain players in that salary range before trading them, including Kolten Wong and Adrian Houser.
This projection also assumes the Brewers will pick up Colin Rea’s $5.5 million team option, which comes with a $1 million buyout. Rea has provided solid value in his consistency and availability the past two years, and his team option comes at a below-market rate, but with internal rotation depth perhaps the Brewers decline the option or trade him.
Between Williams, Civale and Rea, the Brewers could shed roughly $20 million from 2025 payroll, though it would be at the expense of having three valuable pieces.
That could leave them with some room to operate in free agency or via trade, with the biggest need being on the infield.
