IN THE MONEY Dollar signs: Larry Walker's base salary is $12.833 million a year. Who's the next highest paid player? Here's a look at the current salaries for the Colorado Rockies. Click here. Cutting corners: The Rockies' 2002 payroll has diminished significantly from last year and is at its lowest level since 1998. Click here.

TUCSON -- The expectation has become a reality for the Colorado Rockies.

Regardless of the final roster decisions this spring, the Rockies will enter the regular season with a lower payroll than the previous year for the first time in franchise history. They also will carry the team's lowest payroll since 1998.

With two official roster decisions remaining -- the seventh reliever and the second catcher -- the Rockies are expected to open the season with a payroll of $57,573,500, according to an annual salary survey by the Rocky Mountain News. That includes the salaries of pitchers Pete Harnisch and Scott Elarton, who will open the season on the disabled list, plus a projected 25-player roster with Mike James in the bullpen and Ben Petrick and Gary Bennett as the catchers.

Various methods are used to calculate payrolls, but in each of the Rockies' 10 years of existence, the News has used base salaries plus prorated portions of signing bonuses and buyouts for option years in player contracts, the method traditionally used by the Major League Baseball Players Association to compare team payrolls.

For the first time since their second year, the Rockies figure to rank among the bottom third of major league teams in payroll.

Major league club owners have altered the formula they use for determining payrolls during the past few years based on other factors, including several years when a payroll tax was assessed on teams with the largest payrolls.

For the sixth consecutive year, and the seventh time in the past eight years, outfielder Larry Walker will be the highest-paid member of the Rockies. He is listed with a $12,833,333 salary this year, including $333,333 prorated from a $1 million signing bonus and a $1 million buyout on an option for 2007.

With James and Brian Fuentes still in the running for the final spot in the bullpen, and Petrick and Carlos Hernandez technically still under consideration for a catching position, the Rockies payroll could vary from a low of $57,278,500 (with Petrick and Fuentes) to $57,808,500 (with James and Hernandez).

With six days remaining before the roster must be completed for Monday's season opener in St. Louis, all indications are that James and Petrick will claim the final roster spots and the payroll of $57,573,500 will be the team's lowest since it opened the 1998 season, Don Baylor's last as manager, at $47,967,000.

The Rockies payroll, according to the News' calculation, was $77,484,000 on Opening Day a year ago.

The $19,910,500 reduction represents a 25.7 percent decrease.

The major reductions came with the departures of right-handed pitcher Pedro Astacio ($7.1 million in 2001), left-handed pitcher Brian Bohanon ($4 million), catcher Brent Mayne ($2.125 million), shortstop Neifi Perez ($3.5 million), second baseman Todd Walker ($1.05 million) and third baseman Jeff Cirillo ($4.5 million).

The salaries of their replacements work out to a total of $3.685 million -- right-handed pitchers Shawn Chacon ($235,000) and Jason Jennings ($206,000), catcher Gary Bennett ($290,000), shortstop Juan Uribe ($222,000), second baseman Jose Ortiz ($232,000) and third baseman Todd Zeile ($2.5 million).

The Rockies' approach to their 2002 payroll was dictated in part by a $7 million reduction in national television revenue for each team, as well as the prospect of three significant pay increases next year. Mike Hampton, whose salary rose $2.5 million from 2001 to 20002, will receive another $2.5 million increase in 2003. Todd Helton, whose salary rose by only $50,000 this season, will get a $5.6 million raise next year. Denny Neagle, who will earn the same salary this year as last, will receive a $2 million raise in 2003.

The Rockies' actual expense for the 2002 payroll, though, will be substantially less than the projected $57,573,500. That figure includes $6,576,000 in prorated portions of signing bonuses, which already had been paid in previous years, and option buyouts, which are not due until after the current calendar year. It also does not take into consideration the $6 million Larry Walker deferred from his salary, at 5.14 percent compounded interest, to help in the signing of Hampton before last season.

Discounting the signing bonuses, buyout options and deferred salary for Walker, the Rockies' base salary payroll for 2002 falls to $44,997,500.

The Rockies are expected to use at least $4 million from this year's budget to fund the $18 million Walker is deferring during a three-year period, and the $19 million that was deferred from Hampton's $21 million signing bonus in his eight-year, $121 million contract, the richest ever given a pitcher. The collective bargaining agreement with the players union requires that any deferred money in player salaries be funded within four years of the year in which it was earned.

Rockies' opening day payrolls