Baseball is truly unique among American sports in a variety of ways, not the least of which is its differing rules across its two leagues. But one of the most consequential ways baseball is unlike the other three major professional American sports leagues is the lack of a salary cap. The NFL, NBA and NHL have all opted to promote parity — and pare payrolls — by instituting a salary cap that prevents big market teams from simply outspending the competition. Not so in baseball, where the “luxury tax” has only appeared to have a marginal impact on the spending of the richest teams.
The league’s largest active payroll is — surprise, surprise — the New York Yankees at $219 million. That amount is almost five times more than the team with the lowest active payroll, the Baltimore Orioles at $50 million, and those two teams will play each other 18 times next season. For some perspective, the Yankees finished the 2019 season with 103 wins. The Orioles? Fifty-four, which was good for second-worst in the league. To put it lightly, if your favorite team isn’t spending the cash, the odds of them finishing the season with a World Series title are at least diminished.
Sure, any team can use good scouting and player development to build their prospects into budding young stars whether they have a truckload of cash or not. But, those stars will eventually hit free agency and demand the massive contract only big-market teams can afford — making it an uphill slog for smaller-market teams to compete.
That’s why GOBankingRates broke down this MLB offseason by the one metric that matters most: cash. By looking at which teams spent the most total money on free agents — and how much payroll they added for the upcoming year, based on the average annual rate in those contracts — you can get a better sense of which clubs helped position themselves to make a run at the pennant and which ones might be anticipating a season as cellar dwellers.
So, here’s a look at which teams haven’t added much — or any — free agent talent prior to the 2020 season and which ones appear to be in it to win it.
Last updated: Feb. 27, 2020
