New 3-year plan gives D-Backs some money to spend

Forget the former financials. The Diamondbacks have adopted a new fiscal plan that will treat the next three years as one extended pay period.

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They can do it because they have so many young, quality players whose costs are fixed for that length of time.

It may just be a model for the rest of the baseball world, or at least for those prescient enough to have a stockpile of talented youth.

The immediate effect of the three-year approach is to give the D-Backs more maneuverability in the present, and the first manifestation is their pursuit of Japanese free-agent right-hander Hiroki Kuroda, whose asking price is believed to be about $10 million a year.

Kuroda’s salary would not fit into the old 2008 budget, expected to be about $75 million.

Now, such a big deal is no big deal.

“We’re looking at it as a three-year payroll model,” D-Backs managing general partner Ken Kendrick said.

“We have set a number” to spend “for the next three years. By virtue of looking at it that way, we may have a payroll greater in ’08 than it could be in ’09. That probably will happen.

“You can spend the money where you think it is appropriate.”

So Kuroda received an offer because the D-Backs believe he may be the best starting pitcher, foreign or domestic, on the free agent market.

The new plan also means the D-Backs may be able to take on heavier contracts in offseason trades rather than limiting their pursuits to low-cost options.

The D-Backs would not reveal their estimated payroll figure for the next three seasons because they do not want to alert the competition.

It appears, however, the number could be in the $230 million to $240 million range for the years through 2010, when the current contracts of Brandon Webb, Eric Byrnes, Chad Tracy and Justin Upton expire.

The D-Backs also have control of 11 other essential players through at least 2010 (Emilio Bonifacio, Conor Jackson, Miguel Montero, Micah Owings, Tony Pena, Carlos Quentin, Mark Reynolds, Doug Slaten, Chris Snyder, Jose Valverde and Chris Young) because of their relatively low experience levels.

While salaries for those players will rise as they advance through the arbitration process, those costs can be determined to a high degree of accuracy because of the way the system works.

Assistant general manager Peter Woodfork is considered one of the best executives in baseball at determining arbitration values after spending several years in the labor relations department in the major league office in New York.

“We have virtually no one on our roster that we can’t predict their salaries in ’09 and ’10,” Kendrick said.

As far as the rest of the roster, Stephen Drew and Doug Davis are also locked in through 2009.

Only Juan Cruz, Orlando Hudson, Randy Johnson and Brandon Lyon are out of the D-Backs’ control after this season.

Moreover, about $25 million goes away when the deals with Russ Ortiz ($8.5 million) and Johnson ($16 million) expire in 2008. The D-Backs will count Ortiz’s salary against their costs this year.

The D-Backs’ deferred compensation costs to former players such as Matt Williams, Jay Bell, Steve Finley and others also will decline going forward.

The D-Backs paid about $29 million in deferred money in 2007 and will pay about $20 million in deferments the next two years. The number drops substantially, to about $5 million, in 2010 and 2011.

While contract costs are one issue, so is increased revenue.

“Our economic circumstances have changed over the last three years,” said Kendrick, addressing the new plan.

“Good things have happened. Our attendance went up last season. The postseason (income) was not dramatic, but it was real. The deferred money is going down. And not one cent is going into the partners’ pockets.”