{"id":266958,"date":"2025-09-30T16:37:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T16:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/266958\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T16:37:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T16:37:09","slug":"mlb-spending-disparity-on-display-in-playoffs-as-509-million-dodgers-take-on-121-million-reds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/266958\/","title":{"rendered":"MLB spending disparity on display in playoffs as $509 million Dodgers take on $121 million Reds"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK — Baseball’s economic disparity will be on display in the playoffs, where the Los Angeles Dodgers have committed more than $500 million in salaries and luxury tax this season as they take on a Cincinnati Reds<\/a> team with a $121 million payroll.<\/p>\n

Six of the 12 postseason teams have payrolls of $200 million or more, with the Boston Red Sox<\/a> about $500,000 short of the mark. The World Series champion Dodgers overtook the New York Mets with in-season moves that boosted their payroll to $341.5 million, according to Major League Baseball’s latest tabulation.<\/p>\n

Despite deferring over $1 billion<\/a> in payments for eight players, including Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles is projected to pay nearly $168 million in luxury tax. That shatters the prior mark of $103 million it paid for the 2024 season for a record total spend of $509.5 million.<\/p>\n

The second-biggest spender, the Mets<\/a>, didn’t even make the 12-team postseason despite spending $428.8 million \u2014 which represents a decrease of about $1.5 million from 2024. The Mets payroll after in-season moves is $339.7 million and they project to pay $89.1 million in tax.<\/p>\n

Final payrolls and tax figures won’t be calculated until award bonuses are determined following the World Series.<\/p>\n

Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement expires in December 2026 and some owners are advocating that management push for a salary cap. Baseball players have always resisted a cap, and the sport’s 10th work stoppage since 1972 is possible.<\/p>\n

The Yankees have the third-highest spend at $363.3 million with $301.5 million in payroll and $61.8 million in tax. Their Wild Card Series opponent is the Red Sox, who committed just under $199.6 million with a $198 million payroll a little over $1.5 million in tax.<\/p>\n

Cleveland at $103.9 million has the lowest payroll of the playoff teams. The Guardians play Detroit<\/a>, which is at $162.6 million.<\/p>\n

San Diego ($224.1 million in spending) meets the Chicago Cubs ($211.8 million) in the other NL first-round series<\/a>. The Padres have a $217.3 million payroll and are projected to pay a $6.9 million tax.<\/p>\n

Two teams with first-round byes didn’t reach this year’s luxury tax threshold, Milwaukee at $124.8 million and Seattle at $167.2 million.<\/p>\n

Philadelphia has the fourth-highest spend at $347.7 million with a $291.7 million payroll and $55.9 million in forecast tax.<\/p>\n

Toronto is at $266 million with a $252.7 million payroll and $13.4 million in projected tax.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK — Baseball’s economic disparity will be on display in the playoffs, where the Los Angeles Dodgers…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":266959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[139169,347,591,1266,1822,61637,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-266958","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-139169","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-mlb-baseball","13":"tag-mlb-playoffs","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115294230781663093","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}