The Cubs will have a slightly lower payroll next season, chairman Tom Ricketts has already said, but they still are planning the same budget for the Baseball Operations department.
Ricketts made the announcement in a letter to season ticket-holders Friday, suggesting more money may be allocated towards scouting and draft picks.
"Given that we had the highest payroll in the NL in 2010, I get a lot of questions about our payroll commitment for 2011," he wrote. "As I said earlier, we are still working on our 2011 baseball plan, so it is hard to be too specific at this time. What I can tell you is that our overall baseball budget (scouting, player development and payroll) will be about the same in 2011 as it was in 2010."
"Continued long term success will come through superior scouting and player development, and we are committed to improving that facet of the organization. As a result, this likely means a shift of some of our resources from the major league payroll toward scouting and player development, but we are still very much in the evaluation phase."
The Cubs began 2010 with a $145 million payroll, but will probably be unable to shed too much of it because of back-loaded contracts and arbitration-eligible players like Carlos Marmol, Sean Marshall and Geovany Soto.
