Another year, another summer of Yankees vs Red Sox in the accounting ledger. Once again, these two teams top Major League Baseball payroll rankings. The Yankees actually dropped a few million in payroll while the Red Sox added a staggering $23M to catch up to the Bronx Bombers. ($195.2 vs $143.5) For perspective, the entire Devil Rays payroll is only $24M this year. Next time any Red Sox fans start talking about the Yankees being the Evil Empire, tell them Boston is just Evil Empire North.
Outside of the Red Sox, the Orioles added the most in payroll this year with an additional $22.5M. Their $95M 2007 payroll puts the Orioles at #10 on the list. Total payroll for baseball is $2.5B with the top 10 teams accounting for nearly half of that number. The Nationals are expected to be the worst team in the majors this year and they trimmed a cool $23M off their payroll from 2006. They still are above the Devil Rays and Marlins though, the perennial K-marts of MLB.
The entire 2007 MLB payrolls after the jump.
| Rank | Team | 2007 Payroll | 2006 Payroll | Change | |
| 1 | Yankees | $195,229,045 | $198,662,180 | $(3,433,135) | |
| 2 | Red Sox | $143,526,214 | $120,100,524 | $23,425,690 | |
| 3 | Mets | $117,915,819 | $100,901,085 | $17,014,734 | |
| 4 | White Sox | $109,680,167 | $102,875,667 | $6,804,500 | |
| 5 | Angels | $109,251,333 | $103,625,333 | $5,626,000 | |
| 6 | Dodgers | $108,704,524 | $99,176,950 | $9,527,574 | |
| 7 | Mariners | $106,516,833 | $88,324,500 | $18,192,333 | |
| 8 | Cubs | $99,937,000 | $94,841,167 | $5,095,833 | |
| 9 | Tigers | $95,180,369 | $82,302,069 | $12,878,300 | |
| 10 | Orioles | $95,107,807 | $72,585,713 | $22,522,094 | |
| 11 | Giants | $90,469,056 | $90,862,063 | $(393,007) | |
| 12 | Cardinals | $90,286,823 | $88,441,218 | $1,845,605 | |
| 13 | Braves | $89,492,685 | $92,461,852 | $(2,969,167) | |
| 14 | Phillies | $89,368,214 | $88,273,333 | $1,094,881 | |
| 15 | Astros | $87,759,500 | $92,551,503 | $(4,792,003) | |
| 16 | A’s | $79,938,369 | $62,322,054 | $17,616,315 | |
| 17 | Blue Jays | $79,925,600 | $71,915,000 | $8,010,600 | |
| 18 | Brewers | $71,986,500 | $56,790,000 | $15,196,500 | |
| 19 | Twins | $71,439,500 | $63,810,048 | $7,629,452 | |
| 20 | Reds | $69,154,980 | $59,489,015 | $9,665,965 | |
| 21 | Rangers | $68,818,675 | $65,468,130 | $3,350,545 | |
| 22 | Royals | $67,366,500 | $47,294,000 | $20,072,500 | |
| 23 | Indians | $61,673,267 | $56,795,867 | $4,877,400 | |
| 24 | Padres | $58,235,567 | $69,725,179 | $(11,489,612) | |
| 25 | Rockies | $54,424,000 | $41,133,000 | $13,291,000 | |
| 26 | D’backs | $52,067,546 | $59,221,226 | $(7,153,680) | |
| 27 | Pirates | $38,604,500 | $40,234,833 | $(1,630,333) | |
| 28 | Nationals | $37,347,500 | $63,267,500 | $(25,920,000) | |
| 29 | Marlins | $30,507,000 | $14,998,500 | $15,508,500 | |
| 30 | Devil Rays | $24,124,200 | $35,417,967 | $(11,293,767) |
17 replies on “2007 MLB Payrolls”
Red Sox being the Evil Empire North? — In response to your comments about how The Red Sox are another “Evil Empire”, I wonder if you have considered why Red Sox fans consider the Yankess “The Evil Empire”. Admittedly a lot of it does have to do with their huge payroll, which up to this year probably seemed insurmountable, and most fans may use this as their only basis, however other Red Sox fans who know the ins-and-outs of the game, and its business workings, I’m sure will cite a number of other reasons. The main reason why I have thought that Red Sox fans who do call the Yankees “The Evil Empire”, are justified in doing so, is because even with all the money The Yankees have, they do not have a farm system. Instead it appears that they prefer to use the rest of MLB as such. To claim to be the pride of baseball, when you don’t contribute back, is a disgusting and selfish act and a blemish on all of their recent World Series victories.
MLB Team Salaries Need A Cap — Red Sox fan here. This spending war isn’t NYY’s fault. They are doing what they can do to put the best team on the field given their available resources. Just like every other team.
The reason they spend so much is because they can; Baseball is one of the few sports that lets its Player’s Union rule the roost. What is needed is a salary cap, but the owners tried and failed to implement one in ’94.
The “compromise” solution, (payroll-based revenue sharing) helps, but it doesn’t really level the playing field. All it does is increase the cost of tipping the field in your favor. So the Yanks get a bad rep. because they are one of the few teams able to bear the prohibitive cost of an above-threshold payroll. And also, because they generally make the highest offer to any available top talent.
I hate to use a cliche, but don’t hate the player; hate the game. NYY are merely taking advantage of perfectly legitimate facets of the game’s economics. MLB is broken in this respect, and it’s up to the owners and commissioner to fix it.
MLB needs to grow a spine and cap team salaries before it becomes any more insane. Even if this means we have to suffer through lockout, player attrition, and scab labels on otherwise-great players, all over again, that end result would be worth it.
The players are the only winners under the current system.
Do the Yanks now have to win by more than 1 run? — Now that the Yankee payroll is more than 7x that of the Rays, do the Yanks have to start laying runs? I mean how is that fair to give them a W if the “only” beat the Rays by one run? That is definitely a win for Tampa!
The Yanks are ruining the sport. I can’t take it anymore.
Sox Yanks — The Red Sox and their fans are just jealous of the Yankees dominance.
P.S. – Im from a neutral city.
shut up. — you’re an idiot and you need to shut up. the yankees are not ruining baseball. i’m fed up with the yankee-hater bandwagon. it’s too easy these days. 6 years ago, half the people who watched baseball LOVE the yankees. but then the sox won in 2004, and now everyone is a red sox fan. the fact is, there’s safety in numbers, and right now people are jumping on the yankees because everyone else is. i’m tired of you fairweather fans and your gripes based on nothing at all. stop watching if it’s so frustrating.
Don’t blame the teams… — Being a Braves fan, I definitely wouldn’t be the first one to stand up for the Yankees, but I don’t think people can blame baseball’s inequality on them. They’re spending the money they are because they can. Steinbrenner could spend half the money he is & keep the other half, but he’s choosing to outspend his competition to win. I get that teams like Oakland, who keep losing homegrown talent on their walking years because of the big money thrown around by other teams, have to be frustrated by this, but the fact remains that the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, and others do this because MLB doesn’t have a salary cap. They aren’t “cheating”, because it’s not against the rules. The blame for this falls with MLB itself, not the teams, so don’t blame George Steinbrenner, blame Bud Selig.
Re: Shut Up — Please kid you obviously don’t know anything about baseball. It’s a little ridiculous that the Red Sox and Yankees have payrolls so high. I am a national league guy and i will admit that the Mets are right up there. However, there is no reason for the Red Sox to pay twice as much money to TALK to Daisuke Matzuzaka and then that much more of a contract. 52 million dollars just to talk to the guy and he’s not even having an all-star caliber year. The Yankees are the same way. They are basically just spending money wherever they want. They are paying Jason Giambi more thatn A-Rod. Oh ya..is he even playing right now? Bottom line is that the first person was right. All these top market teams should never lose to the lower markets like Tampa Bay, Washington, Colorado, and Kansas City. Nevermind get swept…
yankees turning the corner — In response to the recent comment, I think that even though Stenbrenner has gained a reputation of signing big deal contracts with overpaid free agents, the yankees are starting to change. It is absolutely not true that the yankees don’t have farmhand talent. I will give you a list of former and current yankee farmhand prospects
1: Alfonso Soriano
2: Ted Lilly
3: Robinson Cano
4: Chien-Ming Wang
5: Joba Chamberlain
6: Orlando Cabrera
7: Phil Hughes
8: Ian Kennedy
Also, no one can’t say that the red sox organization isn’t like the yankees. In my eye’s, they’re turning into the 2nd evil empire.
what about Clemens? — based on the date of the original blog, I assume Clemens signing was not included in the posted Yanks’ 2007 total — which would add something like another $28,000,022
payroll and wins, etc — I think that when testing the hypothesis that larger payrolls produce more wins, championships, etc, one must use long term, multi-year data. Other variation- due to poor player choice, luck, etc, etc. would blur the data much less over time.
Before looking at any data, I would hypothesize that the NYY would come out on top, and that correlation would be reasonably high. Anyone have that sort of data in a spreadsheet?
yankees Vs Red sox — Although I am a red sox fan I do agree the paid too much for Dice-K and for drew. They still have very good team cemastry and have a good time unlike the yankees who take every thing so damn seriously. Even though the red sox have the 2nd biggest payroll the yankees have an all star at almost every pos and a bench player who gets paid as much as tampas whole payroll and they get knocked out in the first round i think is kidda crazy w/ a team that they had on paper they should have gone alot further then that.This shows that its no the players its there aproach to the game!
no farm system? — The Yanks don’t have a farm system? Bummer. Cano, Cabrera, Hughs, Joba, Duncan, Kennedy, Rivera, Jeter, Posada, Pettitte and Wang will be disappointed to hear that.
mlb payroll — I am a life long Red Sox fan. I am truly disappointed with the way MLB is structured such that it allows teams to spend as much as they do. Football seems to have the fairest system. However, in baseball, I point out that there are significant differences between Boston and NY.
first – the only reason Red Sox must pay so much in payroll (they are just above the luxury tax level fyi, so they are essentially maxing out on what the rules allow) is because they are in the same division with guess who? Red Sox fans (sox nation) demand a quality team. How can a team compete for the division with such huge disparity. Look at the rest of the teams in the division to see what it takes to compete in the AL East. Boston won the division by two games with $50 million (33%) LESS than the Yankees. It’s a stupid system, but it’s reality until they change the rules.
second – baseball is a business. Steinbrenner paid some ridiculously small amount of money to buy the yankees (I’m sure someone will have the exact figure but for some reason I’m thinking it was $12M. So every dime he spends in his big market, is NOTHING to him. He has no debt. The Red Sox ownership had to pony up $750M for their team. Their financial moves have real and lasting impact.
Third – i believe we will start to see a correction in salaries and the age of $250M deals is over. I HOPE!
Fourth – Expansion is also causing much of the disparity. There are teams now that simply cannot support a team and therefore the payroll disparity is much bigger than if the league sponsored teams in fewer cities that can support the team. Arizona was literally giving away NLCS tickets for home games. Tampa is not a place to have a baseball team when the home team has fewer fans in their own stadium than the away team.
I still agree that it is overall an unfair system and that we need the parity of football. But in the end, over the span of the first century of baseball, it’s the Yanks and then everyone else. Base it on World Series rings. Yanks 26, Cards 7, Sox 6… But I don’t blame the Yankees – they have a big market and money to play with and they are working within the rules of the game…it’s not their fault. It’s MLB that must agree to change the rules.
Peace out – it’s just baseball folks…
EVIL EMPIRE II — come on. the sox spend the money because they have to. they yankees spend it, they’re in the same division, they have to spend the money. it’s that simple. they’re keeping pace, or trying, they’re still 50 million behind. the sox aren’t gonna offer mike lowell 60 million to play next season,so its probably going to stay that way for the foreseable (?) future. i hear the yankees are poised to offer a-rod about 30 million to hit 20 home runs in april, with another 5 million in incentives if he sells enough hot dogs in fenway next october. i’ll be here all week, folks.
yankee fan is not loyal yet — yeah, you’re a REAL fan because you’ve stuck with your team for seven years. wow, seven years without a world series, how do you manage? i agree that there are bandwagon red sox fans, fans who can’t name any player before 2004, and i agree-that’s weak. but for you to think that you are so loyal, for having stuck with your team for seven years, think again. the sox went 86 years between 1918 and 2004, and the cubs haven’t won in about 100 years. you’ve got a few years to go before i consider you loyal.
and about the money issue, the payroll of the red sox is still closer to the tenth highest team than it is to the yankees. that being said, there’s more to the “evil empire” argument than just money. like the fact that they didn’t meet the demands of their manager, who had taken them to the playoffs for twelve years in a row. he asked for two years and then gave him one. and they cut his pay. talk all you want about incentives, but the man has earned enough credibility in that organization to not have to put up with incentives. or at least he should have. except the organization is the evil empire.
Yankees No Farm System? — Your completely right, no farm system. No idea where Jeter, Pettite, Bernie, Posada, Rivera, Chamberlain, Kennedy, Hughes, Steven White, Gold…
mets — the mets have the third highest payroll in baseball and where does it get them? not even in the postseason