MLB Opening Day Payrolls Down from 2017
Now that real baseball has finally started, we are very likely going to spend a lot more time here at FanGraphs discussing the game on the field. That’s a very good thing for all of us who love the sport. Before wading too deeply into the new season, however, let’s take one more look at how this offseason affected payrolls.
This past winter was an unusual one, with a number of free agents receiving significantly less than expected, and players and teams holding out for contracts all the way until the season’s start. Most of our pieces contained a general caveat that we would need to wait until all players had signed to really determine the effects of this offseason. I even spent some time wondering if we would have to wait until after next offseason to determine the longer-term effects of this past winter.
As we have now reached Opening Day, we have the opportunity to look at current payrolls and compare them to the same point last year. Here’s where we sit on Opening Day, per Cot’s Contracts.
The Boston Red Sox are well out in front of all teams, followed by the San Francisco Giants, Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, and Washington Nationals. Notable by their omission, the New York Yankees don’t appear among the top five. This is notable for several reasons.
- The Yankees haven’t placed outside the top three in MLB payroll since 1992, the year Marlins owner Derek Jeter was drafted. Melido Perez and Danny Tartabull were the team’s top-two players.
- The Yankees haven’t been outside the top two in MLB payroll since 1994, the last time a baseball season ended without a World Series.
- The last time the franchise had an Opening Day payroll lower than $167 million before this season was 2003, before Alex Rodriguez had ever played a game for the club.
For the most part, we see all the big markets at the top and the small markets at the bottom. That looks fairly normal. Now, let’s compare these figures to those from the same point last year. Here are the gains and drops by percentage.
The graph above makes it appear as though payroll might be increasing this season. Appearances can be deceiving, and that is certainly the case here. The average of all the teams seen above shows an increase of 1.2%; however, payroll has not increased. It has actually decreased. The top-five teams with increases had an average payroll of $92 million last season. Meanwhile, the bottom-five teams had an average payroll of $157 million. An average percentage distorts the actual gains and losses. Here’s a graph showing the change in dollar numbers as opposed to a percentage.
This graph illustrates the impact of the payroll shed this offseason by big-market teams. The Detroit Tigers aren’t necessarily a big-market team, but they had large payrolls for many years. As they enter a rebuild, they have lowered salaries massively. The team’s $75 million drop is larger than the team’s entire payroll in 2005. It is larger than the current payrolls of both the White Sox and the A’s. To provide a little more nuance to the graphs presented here, let’s sort every club into one of three groups.
First, teams with increased payrolls.
| Team | Opening Day Payroll in 2017 ($/M) |
Opening Day Payroll in 2018 ($/M) |
Change in Payroll from 2017 ($/M) |
% Change in Payroll from 2017 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MIL | 63.1 | 90.1 | 27.1 | 42.9% |
| ARI | 93.1 | 131.5 | 38.3 | 41.2% |
| SDP | 69.6 | 94.6 | 24.9 | 35.8% |
| HOU | 124.3 | 159.8 | 35.5 | 28.6% |
| MIN | 108.1 | 128.7 | 20.6 | 19.1% |
| BOS | 197.0 | 232.4 | 35.4 | 18.0% |
| SFG | 180.8 | 200.0 | 19.1 | 10.6% |
| WAS | 164.3 | 180.8 | 16.5 | 10.0% |
All of these clubs — with the exception of the San Diego Padres — could be called win-now teams. The Astros, Brewers, Diamondbacks, and Twins all experienced varying degrees of success in 2017, from the almost-playoffs Brewers to the World Champion Houston Astros. These teams are clearly trying to capitalize on their success from last season and either to maintain that level or improve upon it.
The Brewers and Twins were two of the most aggressive teams this offseason, while the Astros and Diamondbacks had a lot of players receive raises. Houston, of course, also added Justin Verlander in the middle of last season. The Red Sox stayed under the competitive balance tax last season so had no problems going over this year to sign J.D. Martinez. The Giants and Nationals are perhaps the ultimate win-now clubs. The former has an aging core, while the latter has multiple pending free agents including superstar Bryce Harper.
Here are the teams that maintained the status quo from last season, staying within 10% of the prior year’s payroll.
| Team | Opening Day Payroll in 2017 ($/M) |
Opening Day Payroll in 2018 ($/M) |
Change in Payroll from 2017 ($/M) |
% Change in Payroll from 2017 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CLE | 124.1 | 134.3 | 10.2 | 8.2% |
| STL | 148.2 | 159.7 | 11.5 | 7.8% |
| TBR | 70.1 | 75.3 | 5.2 | 7.5% |
| CHC | 172.2 | 183.2 | 11.0 | 6.4% |
| COL | 127.9 | 135.9 | 8.0 | 6.2% |
| CIN | 95.4 | 98.5 | 3.1 | 3.2% |
| SEA | 154.3 | 157.4 | 3.0 | 2.0% |
| LAA | 166.4 | 166.6 | 0.3 | 0.2% |
| NYM | 154.4 | 150.0 | -4.4 | -2.9% |
| TOR | 163.4 | 158.5 | -4.9 | -3.0% |
| ATL | 122.6 | 118.3 | -4.3 | -3.5% |
| PHI | 100.0 | 94.7 | -5.3 | -5.3% |
| BAL | 164.3 | 148.6 | -15.8 | -9.6% |
| PIT | 95.8 | 86.3 | -9.5 | -9.9% |
Nearly half of teams have kept payroll within arm’s reach of last year’s Opening Day mark. The Cardinals were closer to the bottom of this list before adding Greg Holland. Teams like the Rockies and Phillies were pretty aggressive this offseason, but essentially added back payroll that just came off he books. The Mets were fairly aggressive, as well, and still managed to lower payroll. Even after the team added Alex Cobb, the Orioles still saw a decent drop-off form last year’s payroll. The Pirates made significant moves to reduce payroll this season in the hopes of contending in the future at the expense of this season. The Angels made a lot of moves this offseason, but Shohei Ohtani cost them almost nothing, while Zack Cozart and Ian Kinsler simply replace Josh Hamilton’s salary. The Blue Jays are trying to compete, but managed to avoid any large deal should they decide to rebuild starting next year.
Here are the teams with the biggest reductions in payroll.
| Team | Opening Day Payroll in 2017 ($/M) |
Opening Day Payroll in 2018 ($/M) |
Change in Payroll from 2017 ($/M) |
% Change in Payroll from 2017 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| KCR | 143.0 | 121.4 | -21.6 | -15.1% |
| NYY | 196.4 | 165.6 | -30.8 | -15.7% |
| MIA | 115.4 | 95.8 | -19.6 | -17.0% |
| OAK | 81.7 | 66.5 | -15.2 | -18.6% |
| TEX | 165.3 | 130.5 | -34.9 | -21.1% |
| LAD | 241.1 | 186.2 | -54.9 | -22.8% |
| CHW | 97.8 | 68.7 | -29.2 | -29.8% |
| DET | 199.8 | 124.6 | -75.1 | -37.6% |
The Marlins, Royals, Tigers, and White Sox are still in some phase of rebuilding. Oakland is doing Oakland-type things. The Dodgers’ and Yankees’ intent to avoid the competitive-balance tax is clear. The Rangers very quietly did little/nothing to improve their team over the winter.
Overall, we see a decrease from last season of roughly $56 million, a 1.3% drop. That amount is essentially equal to the Dodgers’ dip from last year. Even if only the Dodgers, Rangers, and Yankees spent what they did last year, we’d see an increase of about 1.5%. If we added in the Tigers to that group, we’d see an increase of close to 5%, basically what was expected.
There are a large number of factors slowing down payroll and causing the fall in free-agent pricing. If some teams in the middle were a bit more aggressive, we might have had a typical offseason in terms of spending. The qualifying offer might have had some effect on the offers to players. It’s pretty easy to point a finger at the competitive-balance tax when typical spending by the Dodgers and Yankees would have meant an increase in payroll over previous years. Maybe some of the gap will be made up next season.
There’s been considerable discussion over the player share of MLB revenues. If we give MLB the benefit of the doubt and assume the numbers provided to Ben Lindbergh are correct — numbers which, notably, don’t include money from the billion-dollar BAMTech or ownership interests in the television stations that play MLB games — players received around 50% of revenue last season. If MLB revenues increase about 5% to $9.5 billion and player salaries do not go up, the player share of revenue is going to drop down to 47%, a significant drop for the players. Even if we are generous with the MLB figures, the player share of revenue is going to be at its lowest in several decades. Okay. Back to Baseball.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
Numbers provided to Ben by MLB and -verified by the MLBPA as accurate-.
I’m as big a supporter of more fair player compensation as anyone, but to just handwave the numbers Ben received as suspect because they came from MLB without noting that MLBPA verified their accuracy is misleading at best.
It isn’t that they are suspect. They just don’t include figures that we know MLB owners receive, even if MLBPA agrees it isn’t “baseball revenue”. Mentioning the post and author where I got the information and linking to said post is hardly misleading. None of that changes that players are in for a significant downturn this season.
The phrase ‘benefit of the doubt’ implies you view the numbers as suspect; rather, it would make more sense to point out that MLBPA agrees that this is the distribution, and has surely screwed up catastrophically by not getting any BAMTech or RSN revenue included in ‘baseball revenues’.
The opposing party has verified the numbers are accurate; there’s no benefit of the doubt required. What is required is better advocacy by the players association to tap into the revenues not included in those figures.
The entire phrasing of that paragraph carries the implication that MLB is potentially withholding information or presenting misleading information about the players’ share of revenues.
How can you construe BAMTech as baseball revenue if the MLBPA doesn’t? Craig it sounds like you are veering into the realm of Mega Agents talking points.
I think the focus should be more on the several billion dollars extra owners receive for owning a baseball team rather than how we classify that revenue . Arguing over how to classify it also distracts from the fact that simply using MLBs numbers means players are going to fall about $300 millino short of a 50/50 split even before arguing about BAMTech and owning sports networks.
Yes but were also using the MLBPAs numbers because they agreed to exclude that revenue via very bad collective bargaining.
This isnt a case of the owners sneaking some loophole in the rule to screw their players. It’s a case of the players agreeing to be screwed.
A journalistic writing of that paragraph is “numbers provided by MLB to Ben Lindbergh, and verified by the MLBPA, show that players are receiving barely 50% of agreed baseball revenues, which do not include the $1.5 billion BAMtech sale or any revenue related to team-owned regional sports networks, which MLBPA egregiously failed to include in bargaining. If those funds were included it becomes clear that the players share of revenues generated by their performance is at an all time low.”
MLBPA is partially culpable for their own predicament. You absolve them of this responsibility by excluding it.
Why should MLBPA be entitled to a share of BAMTech profits? MLB took the risk of investing in it and building it into a sellable asset including broadcasting non-baseball events through this over-the-top medium. It probably lost money its first few years. If MLBPA had invested alongside and lost money with MLB, they’d have a claim. Otherwise not, since none of the previous CBA’s would have stipulated a claim on revenue sources not yet imagined let alone created.
I mean, I’m sure that argument is why they didn’t.
But you could make that same argument about team television contracts, and that money is baseball revenue.
And the reason for that is that BAMtech doesn’t exist, and doesn’t become a profitable/sellable asset, without baseball players playing games that people want to watch.
You’re looking at it through the prism of normal employment, where your employer pays you $X because you have a skillset and makes any amount of profit you provide above that, and if you think you’re underpaid, you can get promoted or move to a competitor.
Baseball players A: have no competitor B: ARE the product and C: have a union to represent them.
The other professional leagues have long since established a strong precedent for including all profit made from broadcasting the league as league revenues; there’s no reason MLBPA could not have pushed the same thing.
Perhaps the split of BAMTech profits is not 50/50 since the owenrs bore some (fairly minor) initial risk, but the MLBPA certainly should have pushed for inclusion, because that product has no value without its members.
BAMTech powers HBONow, WWE, NHL, Riot Games’ “League of Legends,” and now Disney and ESPN’s streaming services. Good of you to allow MLB a bit more than 50/50. BAMTech pays NHL $600M/yr over 6 years to power their web sites, streaming, etc. Its deal with MLB is structured similarly, I’m sure and is included in the $9.5B revenue line.
Meanwhile, the average salary for an MLB player has gone up from $3.39M in 2014 to $3.84M in 2015, $4.38M in 2016, and $4.47M in 2017. The huge jumps from 2014 to 2015 and 2015 to 2016 likely a result of the additional licensing revenue from BAMTech.
Oh, if only Tony Clark would stop making these “egregious mistakes” on behalf of these exploited workers! I guess he should de-incentivize the owners from making any innovations, one that even another professional sports league, the NHL, relies upon and has probably led to more money to NHL players too.
@Mike:
It reads like you are conflating all of MLB Advanced Media with BAMTech.
BAMTech specifically is MLBAM’s digital media arm that works with non-baseball clients/partners, mainly in providing streaming technology as Shalesh mentions (HBONow, WatchESPN, NHL, WWE, PGA Tour, etc.) After Disney’s latest acquisition of a stake in BAMTech, it’s 75% owned by Disney, 15% owned by MLBAM (i.e., MLB teams as a group) and about 10% owned by the NHL.
The baseball-specific parts of MLBAM – MLB.tv, team websites, development of R.B.I. Baseball – are outside of BAMTech and still owned by MLB teams as a group. Those aren’t part of the operations of which Disney now owns a majority.
The numbers used by Lindbergh are described as including “MLBAM Net Income”, so his revenue numbers should be picking up profits from the baseball-related MLBAM operations, and probably ongoing profits from MLBAM’s minority ownership stake in BAMTech. It’s almost certainly not picking up the one-time realized capital gains as Disney has purchased its controlling stake in BAMTech in two separate transactions in 2016 and 2017, as otherwise we wouldn’t see such smooth trends in the revenue numbers used by Lindbergh.
So, yes, it’s eminently reasonable that net income from MLBAM’s operations related to baseball content are viewed as baseball-related revenue for teams, just like TV rights fees or the teams’ collective profits from the MLB Network. It’s tougher to make that argument for BAMTech specifically, however, as it’s more akin to a venture capital investment that worked out well and happened to be made by MLB team owners as a group. The really big numbers thrown around for BAMTech ($50 million per team) are also one-time gains as Disney has bought a majority stake in it, not recurring revenue for teams.
How about a focus on how Arbitration fails to pay good young players equitably? Or recognizing that the youngest cohorts are producing more relative WAR in 2017 than during most of the period you are discussing?
He answered your question thoroughly, and while you may not agree with the answer, changing the subject from a discussion about who deserves BAMtech revenue to arbitration exposes you as argumentative and potentially biased, rather than curious and open minded. Fine, that’s you. But why you’re getting upvoted for this, I have no idea.
I think we should focus on the franchise’s revenue rather than the owners revenue. Once you start focusing on owners revenue you start running into what i classify as crummy arguments like you get with Bob Nutting’s ski resorts and news papers. Should Bob be using more of his profits from those businesses to fund more in the pirates? Should Bill Mahr be putting his HBO money to fund the Mets? (assuming he’s still an owner) where do you draw the line?
I assume MLB’s numbers are right, considering even MLB’s opposition verified them and they probably used similar data in the past(?).. In which case there is no reason at all to doubt the information as near 50/50 keeping in line with previous years.
Really sounds like a witch hunt with no witch.
Giving the MLB the benefit of the doubt just means acknowledging that they have an incentive to juke the numbers, but we are going to trust their numbers anyways because we have no specific reason not to.
Ben verified the numbers with MLBPA, the opposing party.
Any such incentive to fudge the numbers is irrelevant when the union says “yup that’s right”
What we don’t know for certain yet is whether this is a secular change in the market for players, or if there’s something unusual about this (past) offseason’s mix of free agents. It does look like the market is remaking itself–but we might have a better idea of that next offseason to see if similar type players have the same experiences. Good piece.
I would argue it is a secular trend in the mix of free agents, with fewer good players hitting free agency in their late 20s.
I would not be surprised to see this reverse in a couple years. The class in 2 years is likely going to have Boegarts, Wacha, Arenado, Ozuna, Schoop, Rendon, and Gerrit Cole and they’re all going to be under 30. For comparison purposes, the notable players under 30 this year were Hosmer, Chatwood, and Moustakas. That’s it.
Maybe some of them will sign an extension like Altuve did, but it will still likely be better than the list under 30 this year. And the list over 30 isn’t too shabby either: Bumgarner, Sonny Gray, and Didi Gregorious will be 30; Rick Porcello and Chris Sale will be 31, and Paul Goldschmidt will be 32. Again, some will sign extensions and some will decline (look at what happened to Arrieta and Darvish), but it’s a good list two years out.
Plus there will be a lot of decent but not star-level position players under 30 (Aaron Hicks, Avisail Garcia, Wilmer Flores, Nick Castellanos, Chris Owings, Billy Hamilton). Plus Alex Wood and Shelby Miller, who could be anything.
I really think that as players hit free agency in their late 20s instead of early 30s, you’re going to see teams pay up.
I would make the case that the overall payroll trend of this offseason is cyclical (not secular), if we expect some meaningful factors to reverse over the next couple years as we see free agent classes that include better and younger players.
I’d also say there’s something of a confluence of factors with the Dodgers and Yankees both being high-revenue, high-spending teams that currently have a lot of very good pre-arb players earning the minimum salary (Judge, Sanchez, Severino, Seager, Bellinger) followed by several additional top-level prospects. That’s the underlying reason that both of those teams were in a position to drop under the luxury tax in 2018, re-setting their respective tax levels, while still fielding very good teams. It would have been much more challenging for both teams even if those young superstars were earning arb year salaries.
Since both the Dodgers and Yankees appear like they’ll stick to the strategy of trying to be at least borderline contenders entering each season, I think that’s lined up especially poorly for free agents as a group. Hypothetically move a player such as Judge or Seager to a team like the Rangers or Phillies, for example, and I think you’d see that the overall result would be higher spending by both the hypothetical team losing him (Yankees or Dodgers still trying to keep a high win projection) and the hypothetical team that instead has that young star (since the Rangers or Phillies would be in a better spot on the win curve). Again, I think that there are some cyclical elements here – not just so-called “super teams”, but some of those super teams being high-revenue teams (normally over the luxury tax line) with multiple minimum salary star players – that aren’t likely to persist.
I think the secular part is that the days of 3-ish Win FA’s getting 4+ year contracts ended with Hosmer & JDM. Only perennial All-Stars will get rich, longer term contracts now. Teams don’t want to be stupid anymore.
I’m always dubious of broad claims that anything has “ended” based on a limited set of data points.
Looking at Dave Cameron’s Top 50 free agent post from last fall, I’m seeing 8 free agents who rounded to a 3 WAR projection at the time: Martinez, Arrieta, Santana, Hosmer, Cain, Moustakas, Cozart, and Walker. Three of them got 5 year or longer contracts (Martinez, Hosmer, and Cain), three of them got 3 year contracts (Santana, Cozart, and Arrieta, with Arrieta’s three year deal having a notably high AAV and front-loading with a player opt-out after 2 years), and two ended up with 1-year deals (Moustakas and Walker).
I do agree that there’s been something of a secular shift of essentially all front offices seeming to have a similar understanding of aging curves, and I think also feeling like they have better insight into what player profiles age particularly well or poorly.
We probably also need to think more about particular positional need for some position player free agents. I didn’t expect Moustakas’ market to fall as far as it did, for example, but I think it was fairly predictable that the projections of his contract based on straight free agent dollar per WAR pricing were optimistic when we see Fangraphs’ power rankings showing 25 teams with 1.7 WAR or better projections from 3B in 2018 – https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2018-positional-power-rankings-third-base/
Need matters.
To dish out the kind of deal Moustakas was expected to get he needed to be a clear and measurable improvement over the inhouse solutions.
He wasn’t.
What exactly is the total amount less?
Cause looking at those charts I rather suspect that the bulk of the change can be traced straight back to Detroit. Plus NY betting on tbe baby bombers and the Dodgers coming back to earth.
If we look at the teams, case by case, and look at what was available, how many cases can be made that the team passed on a chance of meaningful improvement?
Taking just one obvious case, Cleveland, right at near peak competitiveness: what player did they pass on that would have helped? They are at a historically high payroll for their market and still added $10M in “chump change”. Would Martinez be enough of a boost over Alonso to justify the cash? They already have two of the better relievers around and one of the deeper rotations, so how much would they gain by replacing Tomlin? How much better would Cain be than Chisenhall? They already project to win 90+…
I look at other teams and the only ones that might benefit on the field from the available players are teams that can arguably be better off finding out how good their farm products are.
I’m not really convinced that there’s any long term effect at play. Just a one year confluence of uninspiring players and a lack of actual on field need. Much ado about very little, methinks.
Total opening day payroll went from $4100M to $4045 M, so $55M less.
In other words, 1.4% drop.
I said this before and I’ll say it again.
When Cozart is projected to be the second best player among the free agents, it is a really really weak class.
In other words, Detroit. Or Detroit and LAD. The rest of the league went up.
That was supposed to be in response to tung-twists, obviously I was agreeing with fjtorres
Detroit looks to be all that ‘s going on.
Doubly so.
Especially when you consider that by moving Kinsler to the Angels they forced Cozart to 3B. (We now know he was intended to play 2B.)
If Detroit kept Kinsler, Cozart plays 2B and Moustakas (maybe) gets a shot with the Angels.
The other thing about Detroit is that even if the team weren’t aging out of competitiveness, triggering the reboot, they were by all accounts way over extended trying to get Mr Illitch a title before… well, before what happened. They were effectively being run as a billionaire’s vanity project. That was never going to endure. If he had gotten his ring we might have been treated to a Huizenga-like fire sale of epic proportions anyway.o
Under the new status quo it is most likely the Tigers will run payrolls closer to Cleveland’s or KC. Maybe even Pittsburg, instead of crowding the luxury tax border. So that $75M drop isn’t going to be made up in Detroit any time soon.
And it’s worth noting that if Cleveland’s competitive window should close after 2019 they would be a good candidate for a big payroll drop in the $75M range, too.
MLB is having a supply shock of good young players making it easy for Teams to displace old expensive players. This is on the MLBPA for aligning itself w/ Agents to create Free Agency payoffs and arbitration cost certainty.
So things will resolve itself in 2 ways: the MLBPA will negotiate better payouts for arbitration and, at some point, the excess supply of good young players will stabilize and there will be more WAR generated by 30+ year old players.
The union has been working on a seniority based model. It worked under the PEDS-supported aging curves. It won’t work as well now t hat they have constrained signing bonuses for draftees and young international free agents.
This has a side effect: more good young players are incentivized to sign long term deals, selling out a year or two of free agency.
Its not just the basic 6/7 year term of control that needs rebalancing. The union needs to understand that throwing pre-signing and minor league players under the bus has ripple effects that favor management.
The focus on maximizing free agent remuneration needs rethinking.
The $20M+ contracts that came off the books after 2017 were A-Rod, Hamilton, Crawford and Reyes, plus Jayson Werth, for a total of $114M. CC Sabathia and Carlos Gonzalez signed significant contracts so they didn’t count. I honestly have no idea how to treat the Prince Fielder contract.
The truly dead $20M+ contracts set to come off the books after 2018 are A-Gon, Hanley and James Shields (Cole Hamels and Mauer may have something left in the tank). The three combine for about $71M. Pablo Sandoval just missed the cutoff; his salary is $19.6M if you want to add it.
Dead contracts set to come off the books in 2019 are Kemp and Alex Gordon (total $41.5M). Russell Martin, Homer Bailey, Rick Porcello, Felix and Verlander’s contract also expire, but at this point they look like they could still sign another lesser MLB contract. If you think Russell Martin and Homer Bailey are done, that adds up to $82.5M.
So the amount in albatross contracts that came off the books in 2017 is probably $20-30M more than one might expect in a typical year (and future years are less likely to have such contracts as well). There are also others in the $10M-20M range who don’t have major league offers, like Anibal Sanchez and Jose Bautista. It doesn’t account for everything, but it accounts for about half of the recorded drop in total payroll, and there is good reason to believe that it will return to normal levels in the next two years. (What happens in 2020 and beyond is hard to tell)
Good point about the dead money contracts.
That was payroll money that wasn’t contributing to on-field performance so it didn’t exactly cry to be replaced. Especially if the player who filled the hole corresponding to the dead money is a young cheap player.
Sandoval is a good example: the Red Sox are filling the 3B hole with Devers who will be playing well (and cheaply) for years after the contract expires.
There are always going to be dead money contracts, though. Maybe there won’t be quite as many (or quite as bad on average on an individual basis) in the future with the front offices getting smarter about long-term contracts to aging stars, but they will still happen on a fairly regular basis.
That’s the point. There were more dead contracts coming off the books in 2017 than in a typical year.
I suppose the number of opt-outs given has gone up
i cant stand the owners pulling in millions, but it has worked for them. team also have to save now so they can afford to get free agents and keep up with the wave of arb-eligible players that come with a rebuild like the cubs or astros
For all the crazy fire sale activity in Miami, it’s amazing that 5 teams have dropped more salary as a percent of last year’s. (6 have dropped more salary nominally).
Still not sure which is more annoying, the amazon popup ad that makes me re-open this deteriorating site or the constant whining from the extreme leftists that have nothing to do with the game actually being played. Pathetic on both counts and significantly fewer clicks from me these last few months – I am sure though that I am not alone on that count.
Good job, Amazon popup.
The last time numbers dripped YOY was 2003 and MLBPA filed a collusion grievance. MLB settled w/o admission paying out 4 million (or maybe it was 12 million).
They should file another grievance even if they cant win. Might earn players some dividends next offseason as MLB will have to be more careful.
Jeff Passan article in November quoting GM’s as planning to delay signings to obtain better leverage is evidence of collusion IMO. A single GM can not pursue such a strategy unless he knows other teams will be on board.
Actually, it’s just like visiting your bakery or supermarket near closing time to get discounts. If you aren’t desperate to upgrade, you can easily wait to see what’s available at the end and not be too troubled about losing out.
Based strictly on payrolls, players clearly are being compensated less this year. However, we have been seeing more player options, no-trade clauses, and deferred money in contracts these past few years. These things have significant financial value to the players, but they do not count as part of the payroll. Because of this, the overall value players are getting is not dropping as much as one would think from the declining payrolls.
I can’t quantify the values of these clauses myself, but I’m sure others can. I’d be interested to see the results.
Thanks, Craig! I also get the feeling there is less long-term money on the books now across MLB. What with Miami and Detroit shifting contracts to other teams, there seems to be less guaranteed money out there. From the start of last year to the end of this year, those two teams will combine to shed about a billion dollars in salary commitments over 18 months. Is that accurate? Any way to tell where we stand, inflation adjusted, in comparison to the last 30-50 years?
Are you expecting the Tigers to find a taker for the Cabrera contract?
As a proud serf, I am so glad for our owners and look forward this trickling down!
Hiiiiiire a laaaaawyer to run the MLBPA, please! This is so ridiculous to watch, from the ass kicking the MLBPA has been getting to the support for the owners by the fans.