I've seen several attempts to look at who we're adding and subtracting next year and attempt to adjust this year's salaries to see what we have next year.  I figured it would be better to actually lay out the expected salaries that each player is likely to make next year's team and add them all up.

Notes: This assumes that the A's do several things.

Re-sign (either through arbitration or multi-year deals) Willingham and Crisp.

Do not offer arbitration to Hideki Matsui, Conor Jackson, David DeJesus, Kevin Kouzmanoff, Adam Rosales, Rich Harden, Dallas Braden, and Jerry Blevins.

Decline team option on Michael Wuertz and pay buyout.

I have used .5 million for all pre-arbitration eligible players for the sake of simplicity.  Using the actual league minimum would realistically save the A's about half a million dollars.

Total Cost on Offense: 28.038M

Total Cost on Pitching: 27.2M

Other (BA and Wuertz): 3.5M 

Total team payroll: 58.738M

2011 Opening Day Payroll: 67.094M

This team is very young on offense, with only Willingham, Coco, and Suzuki being real veterans.  The offense(and the team for that matter) looks a lot like this year's team.  Brandon Allen can apparently play both 1B and COF, so this gives the A's 5 outfielders, 2 Catchers, 1 utility guy, 3 1B (including Chris Carter), and 2 guys best suited for DH.  There are several rookies playing important roles, with Allen, Carter, and Taylor likely to see significant playing time.  Of the starters, Coco, Sizemore, and Willingham have been above average hitters this year (Fangraphs wRC+ over 100).  Weeks has been average and Barton was excellent last year.  Suzuki and Pennington have been below average this year, but they play C and SS, so we're probably stuck with that production.  In summary, this roster requires that Taylor, Allen and Carter provide significant production in order to make this offense less offensive.

The pitching on this team is another story.  The bullpen looks excellent, and with Fuentes being properly managed could really be one of the best in the game.  The starting pitching is a big question mark, especially since I have no idea what Cahill'strue talent level is.  Ross and McCarthy have shown flashes of brilliance, but we may want to look elsewhere for our fifth starter.  It's gonna be tough to replace a guy named Guillermo with some plain guy named William.

Needs

We need one more starting pitcher for next year.  I'd be open to checking into cheap FA's or possibly hoping for health from Braden.

The offense is young and it's going to be difficult to make them much better.  One option is to sign an impact first baseman (eg. Prince Fielder) and move Brandon Allen to left.  This could be accomplished if the A's do not re-sign Willingham or Coco.  However, the A's have consistently said they're not going to commit long term right now due to the stadium situation.  While this would be the best option for next year, it's just not going to happen.

Other FA options which would generally fit in this scheme are Jason Kubel, David Ortiz (but we all know he's not going anywhere) and JD Drew.

I would love to see the A's pursue a trade for Nick Swisher, but have no idea how much the Yankees would want back in return.

The A's have roughly 9 million dollars, multiple areas of need, and lots of young guys who we have no idea what they're going to do in the Bigs.  Where do you spend and what young players do you want on the roster come Opening Day?

Special thanks to Cott's MLB contracts for being awesome.