By John Fay
The Cincinnati Enquirer

The Reds have been talking about the financial windfall that Great American Ball Park would bring since before the first shovel broke dirt there.

But, with the opening of GABP less than six months away, it's beginning to look as if it will help the Reds less and less.

Reds chief operating officer John Allen is still crunching the numbers and won't reveal what next year's budget for player payroll will be, but it's clear it won't be enough to make the Reds major players on the free-agent market.

Two sources say that to bring back last year's team would cost more than $60 million. It would require a $15 million increase in player payroll, which was about $45 million last season.

Allen has been throwing cold water on talks of a huge increase in player payroll since the new collective bargaining agreement was reached on Aug. 30. So a $15 million increase in player payroll might be a pipe dream.

"The one glaring misconception is we're going to get this windfall from revenue sharing," Allen said. "Revenue sharing did increase overall. But because of the added revenue from the new ballpark, we're going to move up the food chain. We're not going to be at the top, but we're going to jump over teams like Milwaukee and Pittsburgh."

The Reds collected $13 million in revenue sharing for the 2001 season, according to Major League Baseball. Next year, they could pay out money.

There's been speculation that when all the numbers are set, the increase in player payroll could be as little as $5 million.

"That's just speculation," Allen said, "by people who don't know what they're talking about. (The budget) is still a work in progress."

Asked if the payroll could go up as much as $20 million, Allen said: "I'm not going to go there. We'll finish working with the numbers before we give a number."

Allen would only say there will be some increase in player payroll.

But, unless the bump is at least $10 million, the Reds are looking at not re-signing free agents, such as pitchers Jimmy Haynes, Joey Hamilton and Brian Moehler, and jettisoning players under contract to meet the budget.

That's because bringing back players under contract would cost the Reds around $55 million, and that could be a low-end estimate.

In other words, this offseason could be much like last offseason when the Reds were forced to trade Pokey Reese and Dmitri Young simply to meet the budget.

The reason is arbitration.

The Reds have eight players on the 40-man roster eligible for salary arbitration - Aaron Boone, Jose Guillen, Danny Graves, Elmer Dessens, Ryan Dempster, Scott Williamson, Bruce Chen and Jason LaRue. Graves, Boone, Dessens and Dempster will get big raises. Graves, for example, will likely go from $3.25 million to $4.5-$5 million.

"The arbitration system drives up the salaries," Allen said. "That didn't change with the new (collective bargaining agreement)."

Besides arbitration-eligible players, the Reds have eight players under multiyear contracts for 2003 - Ken Griffey Jr. ($12.5 million), Barry Larkin ($9 million), Sean Casey ($5.6 million), Todd Walker ($3.4 million) Gabe White ($3.25 million), Scott Sullivan ($2.8 million), Kelly Stinnett ($1.3 million) and Juan Castro ($800,000).

With Griffey, $6 million is deferred, and with Larkin, $3 million is deferred. How the Reds account for those figures will affect the final number.

Besides arbitration-eligible players and players on multiyear deals, the Reds will be made up of many young players earning near the minimum. The Reds will see some inflation there, too, because the major league minimum salary went from $200,000 to $300,000. Last year's Opening Day roster had 10 players making less than $200,000.

E-mail: jfay@enquirer.com