Originally posted this morning at Phillies Nation:

Many of the questions submitted for the PN Mailbag focused primarily on the likelihood or the ability of the Phillies to sign Josh Hamilton. Often times, it’s easier just to explain something like that with pictures. Keep in mind, this is not a ringing endorsement or anything of the like, just a nice flowchart showing that yes, the Phillies do have $21.5 million in AAV available for 2013. Thanks to my colleague Corey Seidman for crunching these numbers in his fantastic article from Thursday, which has even further explanation as to how the Phillies are this far under the luxury tax threshold. Click on the flowchart to make it larger.