Paul Lo Duca has passed his physical, making his signing with the Nats complete. He'll be introduced along with fellow ex-Met Lastings Milledge at a press conference later this afternoon.

Which brings me to something I've wanted to bring up to everyone: the Nats' payroll. I know there has been a lot of huffing and puffing from fans and media alike about the club going cheap and not spending money on players as it moves into the new ballpark. And certainly the Nats have not gone on an unlimited-budget spending spree this winter. But you may be surprised to see that the club will actually be devoting more to payroll in 2008 than perhaps you thought. Here are all the players who are already signed for next year...

SIGNED

1B Nick Johnson $5,500,000
OF Austin Kearns $5,000,000
1B Dmitri Young $5,000,000
C Paul Lo Duca $5,000,000
SS Cristian Guzman $4,200,000
OF Wily Mo Pena $2,000,000
2B Ronnie Belliard $1,600,000
3B Aaron Boone $1,000,000
LHP Ray King $850,000 (nonguaranteed, hasn't been announced yet)
OF Ryan Langerhans $500,000
TOTAL $33,150,000

OK, now let's add eight more players who are eligible for arbitration. These salary numbers are my best guess as to what they'll earn, but please remember these are only an estimate. They could wind up being very different...

ARBITRATION-ELIGIBLE (all estimates)

RHP Chad Cordero $6,000,000
2B Felipe Lopez $5,000,000
RHP Luis Ayala $2,000,000
RHP Jon Rauch $1,500,000
RHP Jesus Colome $1,000,000
RHP Tim Redding $1,000,000
RHP John Patterson $900,000
RHP Ryan Wagner $500,000
TOTAL $17,900,000

So, combining those two categories, we get 18 players making a total of $51,050,000. There will be seven more players on the Opening Day roster, all with less than three years' major-league experience. Their salaries will range from the league minimum of $390,000 to perhaps $500,000 for the most-established players in the group (like Ryan Zimmerman). Add them up, and that's another $3 million or so.

There's one more player that the Nats are partially responsible for in 2008: Jose Vidro. The terms of last winter's trade with Seattle stipulates that Washington will pay $2.5 million of the $8.5 million owed Vidro. Since he's obviously not on the team anymore, we won't count that in our final total, but we should remember that it's still money coming out of the Nats' pockets.

So what's the grand total? If the season opened today, the Nats' payroll would be roughly $54 million. Does that rank among baseball's leaders? No, not even close. But it would be a sizeable increase from last year's Opening Day payroll, which was a paltry $37 million. It also would be more than the Nats spent in their first season in the District ($48 million on Opening Day 2005). Only the Opening Day 2006 payroll ($63 million) was larger.

What does it all mean? Well, the Nats may still have a ways to go to catch the biggest spenders in the game. But they certainly seem to be showing a willingness to increase payroll as need be, and it's a safe assumption that the number will continue to rise over the next few seasons.