According to MLBTR, the Braves have mentioned that the payroll will increase in ‘09 and the team will have roughly around $45 million to spend this off season with that amount coming off the books. Most of the money freed up looks to be going toward starting pitching, as it should after this season of injury-ridden pitchers falling off one-by-one. Some names mentioned as possibilities for the rotation next year are as follows: Derek Lowe, A.J. Burnett, Matt Cain, Brad Penny, and Ryan Dempster. All of these are better than the fill-ins we used this past season, but some of those guys could possibly be re-signed to their respective teams. The Braves would also like to try to re-sign Smoltz, Glavine, and Hampton. I don’t see them signing all three, though, unless their contracts were incentive-based or decreased a bit (mainly Hampton for the latter).