Right now the payroll is around 80 mill, which isn't terrible. Something around 90 million could work, or even at 85 million so I don't see the need to add $20-$30 mill more. Just 5 or 10 would be fine.
Not to mention that the team was apparently willing to give Beltran $10+ million a year, and Willingham something around there for 2 years, so they would have been around the 90 mill mark this year had one of those deals come to fruition. The problem the team has now is that nearly half of their payroll is being spent on dead weight (Hafner, Sizemore, Lowe, Ubaldo, Carmona). Now, lucky for them Hafner, Sizemore and Lowe are all coming off the books this year and they actually have a chance to add a significant piece in free agency. The question now is if they will actually do it, or just use the money in arbitration and sit on the rest.
You're right, they'll never sell out like they did before. The only way the attendance is going to come back is if they string together consecutive years of success (A couple of high 80 win seasons or more). Whether that's fair or not is an entirely different question, but that seems like the only way for it to happen.
