Dodgers Salaries

With the lineup and rotation pretty much set, I don't expect the Dodgers to do much more during the off season except a couple more spring training invitees. So here's the salary for the Dodger players in 2008 taken from ESPN.

PLAYER	SALARY (US$)
1. Jason Schmidt	15,703,946
2. Andruw Jones	14,000,000
3. Rafael Furcal	13,730,196
4. Jeff Kent	9,814,117
5. Derek Lowe	9,500,000
6. Nomar Garciaparra	8,516,697
7. Brad Penny	8,000,000
8. Esteban Loaiza	7,500,000
9. Juan Pierre	7,500,000
10. Takashi Saito	1,000,000
11. Joe Beimel	912,500
12. Gary Bennett	850,000
13. Scott Proctor	445,923
14. Yhency Brazoban	395,000
15. Jason Repko	395,000
16. Jonathan Broxton	390,000
17. Russell Martin	387,500
18. Andre Ethier	387,500
19. Chad Billingsley	384,500
20. Hong-Chih Kuo	384,000
21. Matt Kemp	383,000
22. Wilson Valdez	381,000
Total Team Salary:	108,704,524

The Dodgers rank 6th in salary behind Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, White Sox and Angels. Taking a look at this figure, I simply have to smile about the future of the Dodgers. Obviously, the Dodgers overpaid for a lot of veterans who are past their prime, yet the future looks extremely bright. As the salaries of the veterans on top come off the books, the Dodgers will have plenty of money to improve the club through free agent signings. Furthermore, since the Dodgers farm system is so stacked with talent, we won't need to worry about not having money to lock out our young players because there will always be cheap talent coming through the farm. Through it all, all the bad signings have been negated, at least in terms of effect on the payroll, by the efficiencies of the Dodgers farm system. The future looks bright.