In the season where the Valencia rebuild has finished its demolotion stage and began the stage where a new landscape is developed, the payroll is sitting at 31st in the league. The only team lower than the Stars is the squad that calls its home Cobble Hill with a miserly $19.2M team salary.
The Valencia team payroll as the season ended stands at $53.9M. Out of that salary, the Mr. Moneybags trio of Tim Bartlett, Kinzo Iwamoto and Zenobius Kazantziakis make up $24M of that amount.
Third baseman Tim Bartlett is scheduled to receive another $9.5M in 2064 before a $10M team option season in 2065. The team option buyout for Bartlett is $3M. While Bartlett is considered to be an average third baseman, his production has fallen way off from his career-best season in 2060 when he had a WAR of 4.6.
Next up is Kinzo Iwamoto who earned $10M in 2063. He is scheduled to earn $7.5M salary next season but has a $1.5M buyout this coming off-season. While the Stars showed a marked improvement after Kinzo joined the team, inside sources say it is a done deal that he will be paid the contract buy-out this off-season.
Finally first baseman Zenobius Kazantziakis with his current salary of $7M is set to earn $8M next year but has a player option that he can exercise. It is pretty much a given that a 37 year-old with a WAR of 0.4 playing a third of the time would stay for the money. However, he was complaining to the front office the entire second half of the season that he wanted to be traded. Time will tell this off-season if Zeno will put his mouth where is money is and trade that money for his ego and test free agency.
When all is said and done, all three of these guys will probably be gone next season. If you factor in the departure of the expiring contracts not to be renewed, the expected team salary is set to be in the neighborhood of $19M.
This will give the Valencia front office quite a bit of room to maneuver if they so choose to make a run in 2064 or wait until 2065.
