{"id":192396,"date":"2025-09-30T13:50:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T13:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/192396\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T13:50:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T13:50:07","slug":"mlb-spending-disparity-on-display-in-playoffs-as-509-million-dodgers-take-on-121-million-reds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/192396\/","title":{"rendered":"MLB spending disparity on display in playoffs as $509 million Dodgers take on $121 million Reds"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 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 \u2014 Baseball’s economic disparity will be on display in the playoffs, where the Los Angeles Dodgers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[28,1302,3811,88,939,3812,134,3729,363,3,3813,3814,99,1505,2987,3324,2986],"class_list":["post-192396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-business","tag-cars","tag-classifieds","tag-entertainment","tag-finance","tag-homes","tag-jobs","tag-local","tag-mlb","tag-news","tag-radio","tag-salt-lake","tag-sports","tag-television","tag-traffic","tag-utah","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}