2015 American League Payroll Breakdown
We recently took a look at payroll by team as well as changes since the start of 2014. Interleague play, the advent of the Wild Card, and the addition of the second wild card has broadened the scope of competition in baseball. Multiple playoff spots in each league are fought for outside of the divisional format causing competition between teams in different divisions. However, the second wild card also increased the emphasis of winning the division and trying to avoid a 50/50 play-in game before making the divisional round. The current schedule format also increases the importance of the division with an unbalanced schedule. Teams play games within the division in close to 50% of their games.
The divisions are not on the same footing financially with the American League East outspending the rest of the divisions. The average payroll by division are below. The black line represents the Major League Baseball average of roughly $122 million.
Figures from Cots with minimum salaries added to create a 25-man roster.
The average payroll in the AL East is much greater than the rest of the league with more than a $20 million advantage over the other two divisions. Surprisingly, the AL West comes in lower than the AL Central despite big payrolls from the Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Angels. There is a great deal of disparity within the divisions.
American League East
The Rays’ payroll is roughly half of the division average. Baltimore and the Toronto Blue Jays are behind the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, but the O’s and Jays still have payrolls that are close to average and make them financially competitive.
| Team | Most Expensive Player (Amount) | 2015 Payroll ($M) | Money Committed to 2016 ($M) | Money Committed to 2017 ($M) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York Yankees | Mark Teixeira | 211.3 | 180.8 | 120.6 |
| Boston Red Sox | Hanley Ramirez | 181.5 | 92.9 | 87.5 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | Jose Reyes | 123.8 | 42.6 | 42.0 |
| Baltimore Orioles | Adam Jones | 117.6 | 44.5 | 43.8 |
| Tampa Bay Rays | Evan Longoria | 72.5 | 30.8 | 20.6 |
The competitive problems the Yankees have at present are unlikely dissipate in 2016 without a significant increase in payroll as they have committed almost as much to 2016 as the rest of the division combined ($180.8 million to $210.8 million). The Red Sox do have options on David Ortiz and Clay Buchholz that could increase their commitments in 2016, but they should have room to take on future payroll in a trade this season should the need arise. The Blue Jays future number looks lower than it likely will be as Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista have options that will probably be picked up. Matt Wieters and Chris Davis will be free agents at seasons end, but the Orioles do have the flexibility to retain them. Baltimore’s only long-term deals are with Adam Jones, J.J. Hardy, and Ubaldo Jimenez.
American League Central
The AL Central should be one of the more competitive divisions in baseball this year with defending Central champion Detroit Tigers, American League champion Kansas City Royals, offseason mover Chicago White Sox, and the young, pitching-rich Cleveland Indians. While the Tigers have a larger payroll than the rest of the division, the rest of the teams are not too far apart.
Cleveland may lag behind in payroll, but they are certainly not behind in talent. As Tony Blengino noted in his AL Central analysis, “If their defense even approaches MLB average, this club should win the Central.”
| Team | Most Expensive Player (Amount) | 2015 Payroll ($M) | Money Committed to 2016 ($M) | Money Committed to 2017 ($M) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Detroit Tigers | Justin Verlander | 170.8 | 111.8 | 107.8 |
| Chicago White Sox | John Danks | 114.1 | 87.0 | 63.7 |
| Kansas City Royals | Alex Gordon | 109.7 | 58.6 | 22.0 |
| Minnesota Twins | Joe Mauer | 105.9 | 70.0 | 68.2 |
| Cleveland Indians | Nick Swisher | 84.8 | 54.3 | 23.3 |
The Tigers already have more money guaranteed to players in 2018 than Cleveland will be paying this season. As Mike Petriello wrote, The Tigers Aren’t the Phillies Just Yet, but there are some similarities. For Cleveland, after Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn, the team’s highest paid player is Brandon Moss at $6.5 million. With extensions already given to Jason Kipnis, Michael Brantley, and Carlos Santana, they have a core locked in on the position player side. Locking in their young pitchers and making a few commitments from the outside should have this team competing for the Central for several years.
The Royals and White Sox have modest payrolls with no glaring long-term commitments to hold them back. Alex Gordon’s free agency looms for the Royals. The Twins have their commitment to Joe Mauer and a few shorter deals to Ervin Santana and Phil Hughes. If and when Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton are ready to contribute, Minnesota should have room to add. This division is wide open right now, and could remain that way over the next few seasons.
American League West
In the AL West, the division’s top payroll belongs to the Angels. Los Angeles ranks eighth overall, after ranking as high as fourth in 2012. They have not decreased spending, but have been passed as revenues continue to grow throughout the sport.
The AL West does have two of the lower payrolls in baseball. The Houston Astros and Oakland Athletics are both in the bottom four in terms of payroll. Seattle sits comfortably in the middle, perhaps poised for a run as the Angels and Rangers struggle.
| Team | Most Expensive Player (Amount) | 2015 Payroll ($M) | Money Committed to 2016 ($M) | Money Committed to 2017 ($M) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles Angels | Josh Hamilton | 144.7 | 128.2 | 78.5 |
| Texas Rangers | Prince Fielder | 139.3 | 107.7 | 83.6 |
| Seattle Mariners | Felix Hernandez | 121.5 | 78.9 | 76.4 |
| Oakland Athletics | Scott Kazmir | 80.8 | 24.3 | 15.1 |
| Houston Astros | Scott Feldman | 68.2 | 34.2 | 20.0 |
Despite both players signing deals worth $240 million, neither Albert Pujols nor Robinson Cano figure to be their team’s highest paid player in the next five seasons. Felix Hernandez holds the title in Seattle while Josh Hamilton and then Mike Trout figure to earn more than Pujols in Los Angeles. Houston continues its rebuilding process with minimal long-term commitments, but Oakland has even less money guaranteed after 2015. With Texas and Los Angeles tied up with many big deals into the future, Seattle might have the most buying power in the division if Houston does not step up soon.
In the AL, the East still reigns supreme financially. They might have the edge on the field as well with four teams projected to finish above .500 and Baltimore not too far behind. Despite some monetary disparities, the divisions look to be wide open with the Wild Card race shaping up to be an interesting one as well. The current projected standings have nine of the fifteen teams with 83-89 wins. Seattle and Boston look to have the edge in their respective divisions as Spring Training begins, but they should face plenty of competition for the title.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
Two questions:
1) has pujols ever been the highest paid player on his team?
2) for 2016 and 2017 to you also use ‘minimum salaries added to create a 25-man roster’ when computing the money committed values?
Future years only include guaranteed money so minimum salaries have not been added.
It seems like you should include the min sal for future years – these are commitments that will need to be made to roster a team – if a team has 20 such players that will add $10mil to commitments vs a team with one a few such players. not a huge deal but it may close the gap a little on some of the future year commitments – maybe not.
Pujols was number 1 for the Cardinals in 2009, and I’m pretty sure from 06-08 as well.
yes you are correct, 2010 and 11 with Holliday and I was thinking Carpenter/Rolen or Edmonds were being paid more earlier, but Pujols did top them by a little bit.
http://mrphilroth.com/mlbpayrolls/
Saw that going around sometime last year, it’s a pretty neat interactive tool for looking at team/player salaries from 1998-whatever current contracts exist. I know your question was answered already, but for that kind of info at a glance that’s what I use.
$181.5 mil payroll for the red sox and the best they can throw out there is rick porcello and wade miley and an aging, rapidly declining core of hanley, pedroia, and ortiz
guess $180 million doesn’t get you what it used to because they’re clearly headed for another last place finish
just a friendly reminder,
red sox rotation 2014 war: 7.9 (and that’s including buchholz’s ludicrous 2.2 war with a 5.34 era)
blue jays rotation 2014 war: 12.1
yankees rotation 2014 war: 8.1 (that’s with an injured tanaka and sabathia)
rays rotation 2014 war: 10.1 (with an injured matt moore)
orioles rotation 2014 war: 9.7
with offense declining league wide, performance among hitters is being equalized and variance is getting smaller, making differences in hitter less important. pitching is king now and the only way to build a successful team is to invest there. the red sox apparently couldn’t find any good starting pitchers with their $181 million
Wow, man. You really hate Boston.
I can’t wait until you call them lucky throughout the season!
“with offense declining league wide, performance among hitters is being equalized and variance is getting smaller, making differences in hitter less important. ”
i am so ready for that reds playoff run
not the real everdiso, of course.
red sox fans’ insecurities know no bounds, apparently.
To be honest, it fooled me.
he’s one of the better ones, no doubt. dead giveaways though are his 1) using simple 2014 war 2) adding anti-bos and pro-other teams in brackets, and c) attaching ERA to war.
he got that from my response to a projected team WAR thread where I pointed out that steamer projected a 13gm swing between tor and bos from last year’s accumulated war from current roster players to this year’s projected war, and that that might be a bit optimistic.
hey I get it – red sox had the worst $/war performance in baseball last year, and then ran out and guaranteed $350m to non-elite performers this offseason – so I understand that red sox fans would rather attack anyone who pointed that out rather than examine it more closely.
i should add that their “non-elite” performers that I earlier alluded to are the players that are causing everyone to overrate the red sox but in reality will be the reason for their demise in 2015
2015 projected war:
Hanley Ramirez: 3.6 war / $22 mil salary
Pablo sandoval: 3.9 war $19 mil salary
Justin Masterson: 2.1 war / $9.5 mil salary
Wade Miley: 2.1 war / $6.5 mil salary
Rick Porcello: 3.2 war / $12.5 mil salary
Ryan Hanigan: 1.1 war / $3.6 mil salary
these non-elite additions are projected to only generate 16 war between them for a combined salary of $73.1 mil. the result is a whopping $4.6 mil/war, well above league standard. additionally my research has shown that projection systems have a clear and consistent red sox bias, so we need to discount the red sox war projection by 20% to account for this, doing that we see that the red sox players will really only combine for 12.8 war this year, making their additions worth a ludicrous $5.7mil/war
yeah this last guy ain’t me.
and its not a matter of projections being biased in favor of red sox, but of them being biased in favor of bounceback payers.
panda is projected to be a win better thsn his pace from the last 3yrs based on what he did 4 and 6 yrs ago. Miley is projected to improve over the last 2yrs based on his big rookie year. Craig, Victorino, and masterson are projected for big bouncebacks based on the assumption that last year was just a normal statistical variation, without any idea that there were specific reasons gor their performsnce which may not allow for recovery.
overall, the projections say that most of the sox will improve next year, and none will drop off. I’d just say be a bit cautious taking that at face vslue, because that pretty much never actually happens.
steamer has the same group of guys projected for about 10 wins more than they were worth last year, even though there are significant age and injury issues in the core of the roster. that’s optimistic.
to elaborate further, i’ve proven time and time again to have better ability to determine which historical performances are relevant to the upcoming years than the projections systems
also everdiso @ 3:19 is one of my flattering imposters
just think of what it means that a red sox fan would go that far in imitating me. telling.
Or maybe it’s because you keep issuing detailed responses, making you sooooper easy and enjoyable to troll. Probably that, rather than an entire fanbase deciding that the rapidfire truths you’re spitting are an existential threat. But, I mean, your idea is good too.
and I enjoy correcting the trolls, and am flattered by their trollery. (though I wonder if they realize their need to exaggerate and misrepresent my arguments only makes them stronger?)
so we’re all happy, right?
…right?
everdiso @ 4:49 isn’t me
i don’t know what compels red sox fans to imitate me but i’m guessing it’s because i frequently reveal truths they dont want to confront
Great to see division average spending broken down this way! With the unbalanced schedule, spending within your division has been the way to succeed. If you aren’t first or second in division spending, or damn close, you are usually on the outside looking in. Even the Royals last year were right there with the division average, and had a top-two (or very close) final payroll related to their division. Only a few clubs – Tampa a few years ago stands out – of the last 100 LCS teams were outliers. Thanks, Craig!
More embarrassing “Most Expensive Player”: Nick Swisher or Scott Feldman?
I’d throw John Danks’ hat into the ring too. Mostly because I like to bully John Danks.
Scott Feldman
In an era of pitching dominance Scott Feldman stands out like a barn on fire.
The future payroll obligations for the Indians are really deceptive. Yes, they only have 52 million or so in guaranteed cash, but the reality is, a number of guys will see pretty hefty raises through arbitration and they will be likely to begin the 2016 offseason with very little money to spend.
We will have about 17.5 million coming off the books for 2016, and if you subtract that from the 2014 payroll, we will stand at about 67.5 million. However, with the raises that Brantley, Kipnis, Bourn, Santana, and Gomes are going to see via their contracts, we will be right around 75 million, and that number is without the number of substantial arbitration raises that will need to be given. Allen, Hagadone, Kluber and McAllister will all be eligible for the first time, while Carrasco, Chisenhall, and Shaw will be Arb 2, and Moss, Rzepczynski, and Tomlin are Arb 3. I am not an arbitration expert, but these deals alone will probably bring the 2016 payroll over the 2015 number of 85 million.
The Indians appear to have a lot of payroll flexibility according to the chart, but the reality is, they really wont be able to sign any notable FA’s until maybe the 2017 offseason unless they are willing to substantially increase their current payroll, which I tend to believe won’t happen. Even in 2017 when they rid themselves of 30 million obligations between Bourn and Swisher, they will still be a little tight considering the raises to the guys they already have locked up, and the massive increase that guys like Kluber, Carrasco, Allen, and maybe even Chisenhall will see via Arbitration. The point is, the Indians block of time to compete is right now, and they need the players on the roster to perform because they really don’t have the payroll flexibility to make major additions.
Holy crap am I sick of everdiso’s shtick…