Baseball headline of the week: Kyle Tucker, Dodgers agree to 4-year, $240M deal.
The Los Angeles Dodgers’ 2026 payroll is larger than the bottom five Major League Baseball teams’ payrolls combined.
The Dodgers’ payroll is so big that the gap between them and the New York Mets’ #2 payroll is larger than six teams’ entire payrolls.
The Dodgers and the Mets are the only two teams with projected payrolls over $325 million. Fifteen other teams—half the league—are under $160 million. You could put any two of those teams on the field and play ball for less than the Dodgers or Mets pay for one dugout.
The Dodgers’ use of deferred money means they have $298 million in commitments for 2028 already. Twenty of the other 29 teams have less than $100 million on the books, and three have $0 (really).
I don’t know how this ends, and I root for the original large-market juggernaut, but this game needs some degree of payroll parity in the next agreement, because leagues need fair competition to stay interesting.
(Source)