A's will have to worry about paying a reasonable amount of money any time soon to are Jack Cust and
Justin Duchscherer who will be 30 and 31 next season. Cust will be eligible for arbitration for the first time this season. I think a reasonable guess at his salary will be for the next three years, will be around $3 million for '09, $4 million for '10 and $5 million for 2011. (This is based mostly on the salaries of Joe Crede and Casey Blake when they had the same amount of service time.) Duchscherer will be a free agent after this season and assuming he has a decent season will likely be able to earn at least $11 - $14 million a year (AKA Meche Money). For a team that traded away Hudson, Mulder, Zito, Harden, and Blanton before they got expensive, it's very unlikely that the A's will keep Duchscherer around at that rate.
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