Sprotrac is a pretty great resource IMO and they show our committed salary for 10 guys to be ~$71M. If you allocate all of Abreu’s signing bonus to 2020 we’d be sitting at $74M plus we owe $1M for Alonso’s theoretic buy-our. All in, that puts us right at $75M. Assuming we add two starters, one reliever, a RF, and a bench piece, that means we need to include 10 pre-arb guys as well. At $650k per, that puts us at right about $82M with five roster spots to fill.
My guess is we have a payroll ceiling ~$135M next year. Adding Wheeler at $20M per would put at $102M, leaving a good $30M to work with. Give me either Wood or Gonzalez for the rotation (1/$8M or 1/$6M respectively), a guy like McHugh for the bullpen (1/$5M), & Gennett for the bench (1/$5M) and we still have $15M to $17M left for RF. That would likely be enough for any free agent OF (including Castellanos) and way more than what would be required for any realistic trade target (i.e. not Mookie).
To me, it’s absolutely critical we land Wheeler, as otherwise we’ll struggle to take advantage our remaining financial flexibility effectively.