Hard Decisions: The solution to the $18MM offseason puzzle

[MTK]

Some of these moves are no-brainers. When you get right down to it we don't have a ton of options.

I'm cutting Hall, Moss, Carriker, and Fletcher right off the bat. I'd try to bring Hall and Moss back with cap friendly deals but I'm not going to panic if I can't. If Fletcher wants to keep playing it will have to be with a much lower #. A 38 year old MLB isn't going to generate much interest in free agency so give him the time he wants to figure things out, just like last year.

I would probably give an extension to Josh Wilson and lower his cap # for 2013. The same could be done with Orakpo but his $3.5M figure doesn't bother me as much as Wilson's $5.3.

I'd look at some possible restructuring with Trent Williams, Cofield, Bowen, and Morgan. Though I get the idea our front office isn't thrilled with the idea of pushing off a lot of dough on future caps, so I can also see where they might choose to just play things tight against the cap this year and be frugal in free agency in order to preserve future cap space.