Arbitration Station

Two weeks from now the deadline will have passed for players and teams to have submitted figures for arbitration. As we learned in 2011, Alex Anthopoulos does not negotiate one year deals after figures have been submitted, so one may safely assume a high likelihood that all Blue Jays arbitration eligible players will be signed by then and we will know within les than a million what the payroll cost for the current roster will be.

It is my custom to try to predict what the agreed upon deals will be, and i've gotten pretty good at it. Here are m guesses for 2012 (note I have a predilection for rounding the numbers to no more than one decimal place, while the agreements are often not so well rounded):

Kelly Johnson: Made $5.85 in 2011, accepted the Blue Jays offer of arbitration. Anticipated 2012 salary - $6 mil

Brandon Morrow: $2.3 in 2011, 2nd year of arbitration eligibility. Anticipated salary - $5 mil

Carlos Villanueva: $1.415, 3rd year. Anticipated - $2.4 mil

Casey Janssen: $1.095, 3rd year. Anticipated - $2.23 mil (strong possibility of multi-year deal here)

Ben Francisco: $1.175, second year of arbitration. Anticipated - $1.5 mil

Colby Rasmus: $0.443, first arbitration year. Anticipated - $1.43 mil

I wouldn't be shocked if Morrow was negotiated with on an extension, I'm uncertain whether he'd be willing to sign one at this point (as opposed to holding out for a breakthrough season first)

That's a total of $18.56 and in the past, my estimates were about 10-12% too low (in the aggregate). so that could go some $2 mil higher but we're in the general neighborhood.

Using my anticipated results, the current salary projection stands at approx $72.7 mil

EDIT: Oliver's contract, revealed today, makes it $76.7