As Major League Baseball teams continue their Spring Training preparations in Florida and Arizona much of the media and fan buzz continues to be centered on the sign-stealing cheating shenanigans of the Houston Astros in seasons past. For how long and how severe the negative reaction will last is anyone’s guess, but with the regular season beginning at the end of the month the big-wigs of the game must be hoping the day-to-day normalcy of a baseball season will return attention to the players on the field and the won/lost records of the teams themselves.

The revelations of the Astros cheating has taken some attention away from the financial structure of the game that saw some teams dishing out record salaries, while others were retrenching to put their clubs in a better monetary position for future seasons. The Gerrit Cole (9-years 324 million), Steven Strasburg (7-years 245 million) and Anthony Rendon (7-years 245 million) free-agent signings highlighted the former, while the Boston Red Sox action is dealing away Mookie Betts and David Price grabbed the headlines for the latter.

It is not news that MLB is big business, but just how big can become a bit mind-boggling. Fans root for their teams to do well and naturally want their favorite team to grab the star players. After all, they are not the ones footing the bill. But even the deepest wells have a bottom that must be reached sooner or later.

MLB does not impose a ‘salary cap’ on its 30 member teams. However, in an attempt to create some type of competitive balance MLB has established a ‘luxury tax’ that includes financial penalties for those teams exceeding a spending limit in any one given season. In 2020 the luxury tax ceiling has been established at $208 million. Should a team’s total salary structure exceed that limit, the teams will pay a financial penalty that includes an escalating scale depending on how much over the 208-million threshold a team may be.

Entering the 2020 season the top ten MLB spending teams include:

– New York Yankees – $246,154,171
– Los Angeles Dodgers – $218,903,187
– Houston Astros – $205,783,333
– Chicago Cubs – $183,970,000
– Boston Red Sox – $180,408,928
– Philadelphia Phillies – $172,148,462
– Los Angles Angels – $169,883,094
– New York Mets – $160,529,166
– Washington Nationals – $159,258,711
– St. Louis Cardinals – $158,416,666

The Baltimore Orioles have the lowest salary expenditures with a payroll of $45,508,782. In case you’re wondering the Pittsburgh Pirates stand at 28th of MLB’s 30 teams with a 2020 payroll of $51,148,500.

While it is interesting to see what teams are paying their players, it is more out-of-the ordinary to look behind the scenes at what teams are paying ‘dead money’ to players who are no longer on their 40-man rosters.

“Dead money’ refers to money paid to players who have been released, money paid to other teams as compensation for players who have been traded, or money paid to players who are still in the organization but who have been removed from the 40-man roster.

The Red Sox top this dubious list paying out 30-million, most of which to Rusney Castillo, an outfielder playing at AAA, and to David Price traded to the Dodgers but paying half ($16 m) of his 2020 salary. Surprisingly, Seattle comes in at number 2, paying our $28-million, with the Arizona Diamondbacks number 3 at $27-million.

Baseball fans are always intrigued by player trades and the games winter ‘Hot Stove League’ is fueled with trades either made or rumored during the cold days of the off-season. Just for fun, listed below are some of the 2020 financial commitments individual teams are paying to players no longer with their organization.

– New York Yankees – $21.2 M to Jacoby Ellsbury – now a free agent
– Toronto Blue Jays – $14 M to Troy Tulowitzki – now retired
– San Francisco Giants – $12.7 M to Zack Cozart – now a free agent
– Seattle Mariners – $11.6 M to Jay Bruce – now with the Phillies
– Los Angeles Dodgers – $10.4 M to Kenta Maeda – now with the Twins
– Arizona Diamondbacks – $10.3 M to Zack Grienke – now with the Astros
– New York Mets – $9 M to David Wright – now retired
– Seattle Mariners – $3.8 M to Edwin Encarnacion – now with the White Sox
– Seattle Mariners – $3.8 M to Robinson Cano – now with the Mets
– Miami Marlines – $3 M to Giancarlo Stanton – now with the Yankees
– Tampa Bay Rays – $2.2 M to Evan Longoria – now with the Giants
– Pittsburgh Pirates – $1.5 M to Starling Marte – now with Diamondbacks

No matter what the game, it is always more fun spending someone else’s money. Stay warm, root hard, more daylight arrives this Sunday!