In Part One of this series, published yesterday, I ranked the projected 2014 Opening Day payrolls, estimated the number of pre-arbitration players on each Opening Day roster, and calculated the percentage of each team’s payroll attributed to the highest paid player. Today, in Part Two, I break down the payrolls even further, into four component parts: the starting rotation, the starting lineup, the bullpen and the bench.

Spring training is in full gear. Opening Day — Australia style — is 26 days away. Several free agents still hoping for major-league deals remain unsigned, most notably Stephen Drew, Kendrys Morales and Ervin Santana. They each received a qualifying offer from their last team, turned it down, and now sit waiting for a new team to pay them and agree to give up a draft pick.

Major League Baseball may still enjoy immunity from federal antitrust laws, but that immunity doesn’t mean the league or its teams can ignore federal and state laws that require employees be paid a minimum wage. So say several lawsuits and other legal actions filed against MLB and several teams in the last year.

Comcast will broadcast Philadelphia Phillies games for the next 27 years at a cost exceeding $2.5 billion, according to reports late last week. The Phillies’ prior deal with Comcast SportNet is set to expire after the 2015 season. The new deal will start in 2016 and run for 25 years. According to reports, Comcast will pay the Phillies $2.5 billion over the course of 25 years for the broadcast rights, plus turn over a percentage of advertising revenue earned during game broadcasts.

Major League Baseball is awash in money. Lots and lots of money. Forbesreported last week that gross revenue for the league and its 30 teams will top $8 billion this year. And that’s before the new national TV contracts kick in. Next year, revenue could reach as high as $8.5 billion. As Forbes noted, total baseball revenue in 1995 was $1.4 billion.

In a court filing late Friday night, Major League Baseball told the federal judge hearing San Jose’s lawsuit against the league that MLB rejected the Oakland A’s proposal to move to San Jose in June. Specifically, MLB wrote on page 6 of the Joint Case Management Conference Statement: In fact, MLB denied the Athletics’ relocation request on June 17, 2013, one day before this lawsuit was filed.

Colorado Rockies owner Dick Monfort recently told Troy Renck of the Denver Post that the Rockies’ earned $170 million revenue in 2013. Monfort shared the information as part of a larger discussion with Renck about the Rockies’ finances as the team looks to upgrade for the 2014 season. As Renck reports, Rockies fans were in an uproar in October after learning that the team was building a party deck in the upper right-field seats.

Comcast SportsNet Houston went live Oct. 1, 2012, and has been in trouble ever since. Actually, the trouble may have started before the first broadcast signal beamed to homes in the Houston area. Now the network and its various constituent owners are fighting in federal bankruptcy court and in Texas state court.

Right around Opening Day, Forbes publishes its annual report on MLB team valuations. There is information on team revenues, debt, net income, and overall franchise value. The 2013 valuations, published in March, relied on 2012 numbers, plus a bit of forecasting about teams likely to land new, lucrative local TV contracts soon.

Goodbye, 2013 season. Hello, Hot Stove. Stop sobbing. Really, stop. We’re going to get through this. There will be qualifying offers, declined options, over-the-top free agent signings and rumors galore. Before you know it, we’ll be complaining about beat writers’ spring training play-by-play tweets.

Super agent Scott Boras is known to boast about his clients’ market value, particularly as each player nears or enters free agency. Oh, Boras doesn’t come right out and give a number. Sometimes he gives a range. Sometimes he talks on background and allows a reporter to claim “Sources say Boras is looking for 5 years/$100 million for Johnny So-in-So.”.

This week started with some hullabaloo when a Forbes contributor published a column claiming that the Houston Astros were the most profitable team in MLB history. Contributor Dan Alexander did some pretty simple math in concluding that the Astros would clear $99 million in “operating revenue.”. “They have become so profitable thanks to slashed payroll expenses and soaring television revenues,” Alexander wrote.

It seems everyone is writing about the sports programming bubble, wondering whether it’s here and when it will burst. Just Google “sports TV bubble” and you’ll find this story from the New York Times in January, and these from FOX and ESPN in March. But it’s not just this year. Forbes warned of a sports TV bubble in late 2011 and followed up in early 2013 declaring that the bubble existed and was about to pop.

After months of threats and saber-rattling, the City of San Jose sued Major League Baseball and its 30 constituent teams on Tuesday over MLB’s refusal to allow the Oakland A’s to move to San Jose. The lawsuit, filed in federal district court in San Jose, is a direct challenge to MLB’s federal antitrust exemption.

In a deal announced on Tuesday, the Seattle Mariners will become the majority stakeholder in ROOT Sports Northwest, the regional sports network (RSN) owned by DirecTV. ROOT Sports NW currently broadcasts Mariners games under a 1o-year rights fee contract that pays the Mariners $45 million per year.

Bill James headlined the second annual SABR Analytics Conference in Phoenix last weekend. Brian Kenny from MLB Network’s Clubhouse Confidential acted as a roving emcee of sorts. Joe Posnanski was there. Rob Neyer was there. And our own Dave Cameron and David Appelman were there. The three days of sessions led to lively discussions about WAR and knuckleball academies and the mythical analytics-scouting divide.