A run down of financial obligations, with arbitration raises, Tim Dierkes puts the final payroll around $80 million, leaving $10 million-ish to play with.
If contending in 2010 is the plan, the Astros need to upgrade the left side of their infield. Tejada could return and play third base, but he'd presumably want at least $7-8MM a year. The third base market has other interesting names such as Adrian Beltre, Mark DeRosa, Chone Figgins, Troy Glaus, and Juan Uribe...
...This is an unfortunate time for the Astros to be cutting payroll, because they could contend with the right free agent additions.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
