azcentral sports Sun Feb 9, 2014 7:48 PM

Sometime this week, after right-hander Bronson Arroyo's two-year, $23.5 million deal becomes official, the 2014 Diamondbacks will gain an historic distinction. They will be the most expensive collection of players in franchise history.

Their exact payroll figure varies depending on the source, but regardless they are in line to surpass the roughly $103 million spent in 2002, the year after the Diamondbacks won their only World Series title.

Granted, that doesn't make this year's the most star-studded group. And the club still will rank just third among the five teams in the National League West. But as revenues have climbed and debts have been erased, the Diamondbacks have reinvested in their roster, as they say they always have.

So, this means the pressure's on, right? Well, yeah, but that could have been said before the Arroyo deal. After consecutive .500 finishes, the Diamondbacks are hoping for better, meaning both General Manager Kevin Towers and manager Kirk Gibson might still be on the hot seat despite the unspecified contract extensions they received last week.

But the club's payroll does put the organization in a tight spot. If the team doesn't contend, it likely will lose money.

"Talking to our ticketing and marketing folks, we feel comfortable," CEO Derrick Hall said. "I think we can get there (in revenues), but we're challenging ourselves if we don't play well. If we perform the way we think we can, we'll be fine. If we hit our attendance numbers of last year (2.1 million), we'll be right where we need to be."

Five years ago, Hall said, the club's annual revenues were around $150 million. They were in the $175 million range the past couple of years. This year, he said they are projected to exceed $200 million.

"But we've always said that as we increase revenues we'll increase our payrolls," he said. "Ideally, we'd like to keep (our payroll at) about 50 percent of our revenues. That's usually our goal. We just try to break even. It's going to be tough to break even."

Going by contract information reported in the media, the Diamondbacks' payroll comes out to around $108 million. Hall said internal projections are around $115 million.

According to the compensation data on Baseball Prospectus' web site, the Diamondbacks are at $104.7 million, the 11th-highest payroll in the majors, though that doesn't count pre-arbitration players who are not yet under contract. That's a 15.9 percent increase from last year's $90.3 million payroll, good for baseball's fourth-largest bump. In 2002, the club's payroll ranked fourth in the majors.

Ten years ago, the franchise owed about $170 million in deferred salary payments to players. Most of that has been paid down.

Hall said the club is on target to come in above projections with sponsorship revenue, and like every team in baseball the Diamondbacks will bring in more money thanks to MLB's new national TV contracts.

But the biggest windfall is still a couple of years away. The Diamondbacks are in the middle of negotiations for a new local TV deal. Their old deal, which expires after the 2015 season, reportedly netted them $31 million a year. They are likely to at least triple that in the next deal, be it with Fox Sports or someone else.

"That's going to be a game-changer," Hall said. "We can bite the bullet a little bit the next couple of years to get there. I think (the increased payroll) says a lot about (Managing General Partner) Ken (Kendrick) and ownership. They're committed to winning and willing to invest. It's a huge commitment and it's not in response to what anyone else in our division is doing, it's filling holes and trying to address the needs that we have, doing it in a responsible way as we do."

The Diamondbacks are still projected to have a payroll half the size of the division-rival Los Angeles Dodgers, who are at $224 million, per Prospectus.

The Diamondbacks' highest-paid players are second baseman Aaron Hill and third baseman Martin Prado, both due $11 million this year. Outfielder Cody Ross, right-hander Brandon McCarthy and Arroyo will each make at least $9 million this season.

With a well-rounded roster, the Diamondbacks are built to contend, but as Towers noted there's not much room to maneuver if things don't go according to plan.

"It's a critical probably two or three years here just because you've got guys that are kind of in their early 30s with long-term contracts, and it's not a lot of flexibility, if it's not the right recipe, to change it up," he said. "Hopefully, this is the type of club that, if we keep our core players healthy, can win a division and go deep into postseason and do it again (next year)."