It's that time of the year. Time to unveil MLB's opening day payrolls, and laugh at the teams spending like drunkards (Yankees, $229 million) and the ones fielding quadruple-A rosters (Astros, $24 million). Let's dive in.
As it does every year, the Associated Press has compiled the salaries of every player on every 25-man active roster. Since this information isn't public, it requires a little estimation, but these figures are the absolute best you're going to get.
Click on the cities in the map above for each roster's individual player salaries. (If you have trouble finding the annotation, just search this page for the team name, and you'll find it in the discussion section below. You can also search for individual players' names.)
Here's the list of total team payrolls (the figure is the adjusted payroll, which takes into account cash received in trades, prorated signing bonuses, and other tweaks):
- New York Yankees $228,995,945
- Los Angeles Dodgers $216,302,909
- Philadelphia $159,578,214
- Boston $158,967,286
- Detroit $149,046,844
- San Francisco $142,180,333
- Los Angeles Angels $142,165,250
- Texas $127,197,575
- Chicago White Sox $124,065,277
- Toronto $118,244,039
- St. Louis $116,702,085
- Washington $112,431,770
- Cincinnati $110,565,728
- Chicago Cubs $104,150,726
- Baltimore $91,793,333
- Milwaukee $91,003,366
- Arizona $90,158,500
- Atlanta $89,288,193
- New York Mets $88,877,033
- Seattle $84,295,952
- Cleveland $82,517,300
- Kansas City $80,491,725
- Minnesota $75,562,500
- Colorado $75,449,071
- San Diego $71,689,900
- Oakland $68,577,000
- Pittsburgh $66,289,524
- Tampa Bay $57,030,272
- Miami $39,621,900
- Houston $24,328,538
Takeaways: A-Rod will make more than the Astros. The Dodgers will likely pass the Yankees for the top spot next year. Miami cut its payroll from last season by more than 60 percent. The Blue Jays will field $37 million worth of Marlins. Arizona's highest-paid player is a setup guy. Among the NL favorites, the Braves, Nationals, and Reds all show the importance of home-grown pitching—while the Giants have reached the phase where they've had to pay top-dollar to keep their aces.
Astros manager Bo Porter had this to say:
"When we get on the baseball field with whomever the opponent is, they are not sitting there saying: `Well, their players make more money than us so therefore you're deemed a winner and we're deemed a loser.'"
This is true. It's also true that Houston could lose 110 games this year.