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In accordance with the earlier slideshow of the same genre published last week on fielding a top notch arsenal of position players for the lowest real-life combined total as the 2015 Houston Astros will have (roughly $32 million), here is the pitching staff version to complement the lineup and complete a full 25-man roster.
Though the Astros will be fielding a cheap roster of position players in 2015, it’s the Cleveland Indians who will have the least amount of money tied up in their pitching in 2015. As of now, only $14.67 million is devoted to pitchers on their active 25-man roster.
Since I used 13 players to complete the position player version of this experiment, that leaves me with 12 spots to fill for an average of $1.25 million per arm in order to round out the 25-man roster. The pitching staff will be composed of the standard five starters in the rotation, with seven bullpen arms. Only a player’s base salary will be used as a foundation for creating the staff.
The grand total payroll for this pitching staff works out to $15,699,500.