Major League Baseball - payroll (opening day) by team 2021

The opening day payroll of teams in the MLB is calculated by combining the base salary, incentives, and any signing bonuses. At the beginning of the 2021 season, the Los Angeles Dodgers had the highest combined payroll in the league, amounting to over 241 million U.S. dollars. At the other end of the scale, the Pittsburgh Pirates had an opening day payroll of under 46 million U.S. dollars.

Pitchers take home the money

The MLB has a minimum player salary in place to ensure that its professionals are rewarded for the work that they do. In 2021, the minimum salary for an MLB player was 570.5 thousand U.S. dollars per year, a significant increase from the minimum of 414 thousand U.S. dollars ten years earlier. However, the average player salary in the league in 2021 stood at 4.17 million U.S. dollars, more than seven times the value of the minimum salary. This figure is skewed by the fact that the top earners in baseball take home significant amounts of money. Typically, it is the pitchers within a baseball team that earn the biggest wages due to their integral role. Indeed, pitchers dominated the list of highest earning players in the MLB, although it was a center fielder, Mike Trout, who topped the list. The nine-time MLB All-Star, who plays for the Los Angeles Angels, took home a salary of over 37 million U.S. dollars in 2021.

MLB Luxury Tax

In order to avoid such wealth disparity amongst the teams, Major League Baseball implements a luxury tax (or competitive balance tax). This tax is paid by any teams whose annual payroll exceeds the league limit which, in 2019, stood at 210 million U.S. dollars. In the 2020 season, a combined total of 34.27 million U.S. dollars was paid in Competitive Balance Tax by the teams of the MLB.