Red Sox, Matt Dermody Agree To Minor League Deal
The Red Sox are signing left-hander Matt Dermody to a minor league contract, reports Chris Cotillo of MassLive (Twitter link). He’ll get a crack in big league camp as a non-roster invitee.
Dermody, 32, has pitched in parts of four MLB campaigns. He got the briefest of looks last season, making one appearance for the Cubs in August. He’d also had a lone outing for Chicago back in 2020, with his only extended work 22 1/3 frames for the 2017 Blue Jays. The Iowa native has a 5.60 ERA over 27 1/3 big league innings.
A reliever for the majority of his career, Dermody picked up 13 starts in 20 outings for the Cubs’ top affiliate in Iowa last season. He threw 79 1/3 innings with a 3.74 ERA in a hitter-friendly league. His 20.3% strikeout percentage was modest, but Dermody picked up grounders on a bit more than half the balls in play. He also showed excellent control, only handing out free passes to 5.2% of batters faced.
Late in the 2022 campaign, Dermody landed with the NC Dinos of the Korea Baseball Organization. He made eight starts there but got hit to a 4.54 ERA over 39 2/3 frames. He struck out 20.7% of batters faced against a 7.3% walk rate. After a brief sojourn to South Korea, he’ll return to the affiliated ranks and look to pitch his way back to the big leagues in Boston.
Dermody can offer the Sox some depth for both the rotation or bullpen. He’s more likely to eventually crack the MLB roster in a relief capacity. The Sox watched Matt Strahm depart in free agency and have dealt away Darwinzon Hernández and Josh Taylor this offseason.
Joely Rodríguez is the only lock for left-handed relief work to start the season. Prospects Brandon Walter and Chris Murphy are each on the 40-man roster and have topped out at Triple-A Worcester. They’ve both worked as starters in the minors but could theoretically break into the big leagues as relief options. The Sox also added Ryan Sherriff as a non-roster Spring Training invitee over the weekend.
Red Sox Designate Matt Barnes For Assignment
The Red Sox announced that they have designated right-hander Matt Barnes for assignment. His roster spot will go to outfielder Adam Duvall, whose signing is now official.
Barnes, 33 in June, has spent his entire career with the Red Sox thus far. They selected him back in 2011, using the 19th overall pick to grab him. He transitioned from the rotation to the bullpen while in the minors and eventually established himself as a solid reliever in the Boston bullpen. From 2016 through 2020, he made 288 appearances with a 3.88 ERA. His 11.6% walk rate was certainly on the high side but he also struck out 31.9% of opponents and got grounders at a 48.1% clip.
In the first half of 2021, he seemed to take his game to a new level. Through July 10, he had already tossed 37 innings on the year with a 2.68 ERA, striking out an incredible 44.6% of opponents while walking just 7.2%. He also took over as the club’s closer, racking up 19 saves by that point in the season already, despite only having 15 in his career prior to that season. He was slated to hit the open market at the end of that year but the Sox decided they wanted to lock him up and agreed to a two-year, $18.75MM extension with a club option for 2024.
Unfortunately, things have gone downhill for Barnes since the ink dried on that deal. He posted a 6.11 ERA in the rest of the 2021 campaign and was initially left off the club’s postseason roster, though he later re-joined the club as an injury replacement. In 2022, he struggled badly out of the gate, posting a 7.94 ERA through the end of May, when he landed on the injured list due to inflammation in his throwing shoulder. He came back in August and posted a 1.59 ERA from then out, but that still left his season-long ERA at 4.31. Despite that strong finish, he has evidently been pushed off the roster in Boston, a remarkable turnaround for a guy who looked like one of the best relievers in baseball a year and a half ago.
The Sox will now have a week to trade Barnes or pass him through waivers. He will be making a $7.5MM salary this year and has a $2.25MM buyout on the $8MM club option for next year. Unless the Sox can find a trade partner, they will be on the hook for the $9.75MM still owed to Barnes. If he were to clear waivers, he has more than five years of MLB service time, meaning he can reject an outright assignment and become a free agent while retaining all of that money. Should he become a free agent and sign elsewhere, another club would only have to pay him the protated league minimum for any time spent on the roster, with that amount being subtracted from what the Sox pay.
iTalk Studios reported that Barnes would be designated for assignment before the official announcement.
Red Sox Sign Adam Duvall
The Red Sox announced agreement Tuesday with Adam Duvall on a one-year deal. It’s reportedly a $7MM guarantee that could max out at $10MM via incentives. The CAA Sports client will receive a $1MM signing bonus and a $6MM salary. He’d lock in an extra $500K for reaching 350, 400, 450 and 500 plate appearances and would tack on $1MM if he hits the 550-PA mark.
Duvall, 34, started his MLB career with the Giants in 2014 and has since bounced around the NL, playing for the Reds, Braves, and Marlins. The highlights of his career thus far were the 2016 season, when he earned an All-Star selection with the Reds, slashing .241/.297/.498 (104 wRC+) with 33 homers in 150 games, and the 2021 season, where he earned a Gold Glove award, slashed .226/.287/.513 (107 wRC+) down the stretch for the Braves following a midseason trade from the Marlins, and won the World Series with Atlanta. On the season, Duvall led the NL in RBI with 113 while swatting 38 home runs.
Duvall returned to Atlanta for the 2022 season, but his age-33 campaign wasn’t nearly as productive as that 2021 season. A left wrist strain — more specifically, a torn tendon sheath that required surgery — quite likely impacted Duvall’s overall performance, but the regression was still pronounced. Coming into the 2022 season, Duvall had a career .241 ISO (slugging minus batting average). The .263 ISO he turned in during his 38-homer performance in 2021 ranked him 14th among all qualified batters. That power wilted considerably, however, with Duvall’s ISO shrinking to .188 — ranking 74th among players with at least 300 plate appearances. The resulting .213/.276/.401 slash was 13% worse than league-average, by measure of wRC+.
The 2022 season saw Duvall’s average exit velocity dip from 89.8 mph to 88.3 mph, while his rate of barreled balls and hard-hit balls each dropped by more than three percentage points. Meanwhile, his strikeout rate jumped from a career-worst 31.4% in 2021 to an even higher 32.1% in 2022.
It’s impossible to say exactly how much that was due to his injured wrist and how much might be due to a general decline in skill. For a low-OBP slugger like Duvall, the loss in power is certainly concerning regarding his ability to play as an average or better bat on an everyday basis. That being said, Duvall still showed huge power against lefties in 2022 (.233/.282/.562, 129 wRC+) while posting a strong +5 OAA in just half a season split mainly between left and center field, showing he does still have value even if his power doesn’t return to its pre-2022 form.
With offseason acquisition Masataka Yoshida manning left and Alex Verdugo set to play right field, Duvall seems ticketed for time in center field — although he’d notably be a fine right-handed complement to either Yoshida or Verdugo, who each bat left-handed. Cotillo reported yesterday that the Red Sox believe Duvall to be capable of playing center field at age 34, despite the fact that he has just 593 Major League innings at the position.
Whether Duvall will play center on an everyday basis or be in more of a timeshare depends on the development of young Jarren Duran, whose meager .221/.283/.363 (78 wRC+) slash line in 2022 was held down by a massive platoon split; Duran slashed just .184/.238/.211 against lefties for Boston, translating to a virtually unplayable 22 wRC+. Against righties, however, he batted a more palatable .229/.293/.398 (91 wRC+). Duvall and Duran manning center would allow Enrique Hernandez to play the infield, helping to cover for the loss of Xander Bogaerts in free agency and Trevor Story to injury.
Even after an offseason that saw Boston extend Rafael Devers for $313.5MM and add Yoshida on a five-year, $90MM deal along with smaller pacts with Kenley Jansen, Justin Turner, Corey Kluber, and Chris Martin, Chaim Bloom’s front office still has more to do ahead of Opening Day, even after signing Duvall. The top priority going forward has to be addressing the middle infield, where Hernandez can capably play everyday, but the top option to be his double play partner is Christian Arroyo. Shortstop Elvis Andrus, in whome Boston reportedly has interest, is the best middle infielder left on the free agent market. That said, Josh Harrison and perhaps even Jurickson Profar remain as potential options at second base and the Red Sox have reportedly explored the trade market for infield help as well.
With Duvall on board, the Red Sox are projected for an Opening Day payroll of about $190MM, with roughly $216MM worth of luxury-tax obligations on the ledger. That cash payroll mark is well shy of the $221MM at which they ended the 2022 season, while the current luxury level leaves about $17MM worth of breathing room before they’d be at risk of paying the tax for a second consecutive season. It should leave Bloom and his staff with some leeway as they continue to search for ways to augment the roster.
Chris Henrique of Beyond the Monster first reported the Red Sox and Duvall were nearing agreement. Craig Mish of SportsGrid reported it was a one-year, $7MM deal that could max out at $10MM. Chris Cotillo of MassLive was first with the incentive details.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Red Sox, Ryan Sherriff Agree To Minor League Deal
Left-hander Ryan Sherriff announced over the weekend that he’s signed with the Red Sox (Twitter link). Presumably, it’s a minor league deal for the southpaw that’ll give him a chance to compete for a job during spring training.
Sherriff, 32, has pitched in parts of four Major League seasons, most recently with the Rays in 2021. He sports a career 3.65 ERA with an 18.7% strikeout rate, 8.8% walk rate and 56% ground-ball rate in 44 1/3 innings at the MLB level. He originally reached the Majors with the 2017 Cardinals and pitched quite well during his debut (3.14 ERA, 15-to-4 K/BB ratio in 14 1/3 innings). However, Sherriff suffered an elbow injury in 2018 that required Tommy John surgery, which wiped out the remainder of his 2018 season.
The Cardinals released Sherriff after that surgery-shortened campaign, at which point he latched on with the Rays on a minor league contract. He made it back to a minor league mound for seven innings in 2019, remained with the organization into the shortened 2020 season, and was back in the big leagues that summer, when he tossed 9 2/3 shutout innings (albeit with only two strikeouts). Sherriff tossed two shutout innings for the Rays in that year’s World Series against the Dodgers.
Sherriff’s 2021 season, however, didn’t prove as fruitful. He pitched just 14 2/3 big league innings and was rocked for 11 runs (nine earned) on 14 hits and nine walks. He struck out 16 batters along the way but also plunked four hitters. He pitched well enough in Triple-A that the Phillies claimed him off waivers after the Rays designated him for assignment, but Sherriff spent the majority of his 2022 season with the Phillies on the injured list due to a shoulder strain.
Though injuries have slowed his career at various junctures, Sherriff boasts a 3.11 ERA in 170 2/3 Triple-A innings and a 3.65 mark in 44 1/3 MLB frames. He’s not a flamethrower (92.3 mph average sinker in 2021) and has below-average strikeout rates, but Sherriff has been a ground-ball machine who’s had success at every level when healthy enough to take the mound.
Joely Rodriguez and Josh Taylor are the Red Sox’ two primary lefty options in the bullpen. There’s not a great deal of depth beyond that pair, so Sherriff could be a viable option at some point if he’s back to full strength.
Triston Casas Open To Extension Talks With Red Sox
Triston Casas, viewed as a future cornerstone at first base in Boston, spoke to WEEI.com’s Rob Bradford this weekend and expressed an openness to discussing a long-term contract extension with the Red Sox. Alas, those talks have not actually gotten underway in any form …
“No. None whatsoever,” Casas told Bradford. “I haven’t thought about it. Nobody has approached me about it. And my representatives have never even mentioned it to [Red Sox GM Chaim Bloom] or anyone in the front office. I’m just focused on playing this year and we’ll see where it goes. It it happens, it happens. I would love to stay in Boston the rest of my life. I love the city in the little taste I’ve got of it. I don’t know anywhere else and I don’t want to. We’ll see what happens in a couple of years. Hopefully we get something done, but if we don’t we’ll go from there.”
The idea here would be to secure Casas through all of his pre-arbitration and arbitration-eligible years and to likely also buy out at least a couple seasons of free agency. Bradford makes note of the “flurry of deals of seven-or-more years” that the Braves have pulled off with the likes of Spencer Strider, Michael Harris, Austin Riley, Ozzie Albies, and Ronald Acuna Jr.
Many of those extensions were — and are — viewed as extremely team-friendly around the industry. And there’s not a natural comparison between any of them and what the Red Sox might be looking to do with Casas. He has appeared in only 27 major league games up to this point and will still carry rookie status into the 2023 campaign. Albies, for example, signed his bargain seven-year, $35MM pact with Atlanta in April 2019, having already logged more than 215 games at baseball’s highest level. Ke’Bryan Hayes, the Pirates’ long-term hope at third base, inked an eight-year, $70MM pact with Pittsburgh last April, exactly 120 games into his MLB career.
Casas flashed good power in his initial taste of big league action down the stretch in 2022, clubbing five home runs with a .766 OPS over 95 plate appearances. Granted, his batting average came in at just .197. Before his promotion on September 4, the 23-year-old consensus top-35 prospect registered a .273/.382/.481 batting line in 317 plate appearances at Triple-A Worcester.
Maybe something can get going on the extension front when Casas arrives at Red Sox camp in the spring. Or the wait could be quite a bit longer than that. But the goal is to ensure that he does not slip away from the organization like Xander Bogaerts did or build up the kind of negotiating power of a Rafael Devers, who commanded ten years, $313.5MM in new money from the Sox earlier this month.
AL East Notes: Guerrero, Sale, Rays
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the Blue Jays “haven’t had the conversations yet” this winter about a multi-year extension, the slugger tells Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi and other reporters. Guerrero didn’t sound overly concerned about the lack of talks, saying “I’m going to stay focused on working hard and let my team take care of that.” The idea of a long-term deal between Guerrero and the Jays has been a topic essentially since Guerrero arrived in the majors as baseball’s top prospect, and though the first baseman is heading into his fifth MLB season, the clock isn’t yet ticking too loudly on Guerrero’s team control. Toronto still has arbitration control over Guerrero through the 2025 season, and the two sides already worked out a contract for Guerrero for 2023, as he’ll earn $14.5MM for the coming year.
With Guerrero set to become a free agent prior to his age-27 season, this relatively early entry into the market likely means a particularly large payday is awaiting the first baseman — whether from another team, or in the form of an extension from the Blue Jays to lock Guerrero up as the face of the franchise. As Davidi notes, the massive longer-term contracts handed out this winter undoubtedly caught the attention of both the Jays and Guerrero’s representatives, and now both sides may have a better view of what it might cost the Blue Jays to retain Guerrero’s services. Since most extension talks usually don’t begin until deeper into Spring Training, it will be interesting to watch if Guerrero and the Jays have any substantive negotiations, or if any real progress is made towards an extension.
More from the AL East…
- After three injury-riddled seasons, Chris Sale told reporters (including The Boston Globe’s Peter Abraham) that he is “very, very excited” about being healthy and heading for his first normal Spring Training since 2019. Between a Tommy John surgery, a fractured rib, and fractures to his finger and wrist, Sale has pitched only 48 1/3 Major League innings since the start of the 2020 season, which was also the first season of a five-year, $145MM contract extension Sale had signed with the Red Sox the year prior. Given the lack of return on this extension, Sale feels “I owe my teammates the starting pitcher they thought they were going to get. I owe the front office the starting pitcher they paid for. I owe the fans performances they’re paying to come and see.” Looking for a silver lining to his injury woes, Sale noted “that’s three years of [pitching] that’s not on my arm” as he enters his age-34 season. “That’s not going on the odometer. I’ve kept myself in really good physical shape. My arm’s feeling good. I don’t have any hesitation going forward with pitching.”
- Seven Rays players are slated for arbitration hearings, which is (as per MLB.com) is the third-highest number of hearings for any team in the history of the arb process. President of baseball operations Erik Neander felt the lack of agreement in negotiations with the seven prior to the arbitration filing deadline were “much more about the uniqueness of several players’ career paths leading to a bit of a more challenging experience for both parties to find common ground,” the executive told Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. “But I very much believe that everyone worked to find it — we just didn’t quite get there.” As Topkin notes, the differences between the Rays’ submitted salary figures and the seven players’ figures work out to only $2.85MM in total. That said, it doesn’t seem likely that any deals will be worked out before the sides present their cases to an arbiter, unless a player signs a multi-year contract. [RELATED: the full list of the 33 players who are heading for arbitration hearings]
Trevor Story Confident He’ll Play In 2023
The Red Sox were dealt a major blow this month when it was revealed star infielder Trevor Story would require an internal brace procedure to repair the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. Chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom did not give a timeline, and indicated that having Story available in 2023 was not something that they “want to bank on.” Given the departure of Xander Bogaerts in free agency and Story’s expected move over to shortstop, that looked to be a brutal blow to Boston’s chances this season.
Things have taken a slightly more positive turn today though, with Story telling reporters (including Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe) that he believes he’ll play this season. To what extent Story can get himself involved remains to be seen, and there’s still no timeline in place for his recovery, but at the very least it’s a more upbeat outlook than Bloom’s.
Story experienced discomfort last month when he was ramping up his off-season program. That was after feeling fine for all of November and a good chunk of December. Abraham relays that Story was able to avoid Tommy John surgery on the elbow, as it’s just a partial tear.
The Red Sox will likely turn to Enrique Hernandez to handle Story’s reps at shortstop until he can return, particularly after boosting their outfield stocks with the signing of Adam Duvall. Bloom indicated recently that the team could still pursue a middle infield addition, and the Sox have been loosely tied to remaining free agents Josh Harrison and Elvis Andrus recently, but it seems the internal option of Hernandez and Christian Arroyo up the middle is the favorite.
Red Sox Notes: Middle Infield, Hernandez, Arroyo, Sale, Whitlock, Houck
Red Sox’s brass met with reporters and fans at their Winter Weekend convention this evening. Manager Alex Cora and chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom each addressed the roster status with roughly two months remaining in the offseason.
The middle infield is among the biggest questions. With Xander Bogaerts in San Diego and Trevor Story set to miss at least a notable portion of the upcoming season, Boston has very little certainty up the middle. Adam Duvall agreed to a one-year deal earlier this week to man center field, likely kicking Enrique Hernández back to the infield.
Manager Alex Cora suggested that was currently the team’s plan, implying that Hernández was the in-house favorite to play shortstop (via Ian Browne of MLB.com). That leaves Christian Arroyo as the likeliest option to man second base. Bloom indicated the team remained open to adding help from outside the organization (relayed by Julian McWilliams of the Boston Globe) but the Hernández – Arroyo pairing seemingly has the inside track among internal candidates.
Hernández has experience at every non-catching position on the diamond. He’s primarily played center field or second base, logging just 618 shortstop innings through parts of nine MLB seasons. Defensive Runs Saved has looked favorably upon his limited work there, rating him as nine runs better than average overall. Hernández has typically graded out as a solid or better second baseman and a particularly strong center fielder, where he spent the bulk of his time in 2022.
Arroyo has been in the Boston second base mix for the past couple seasons. He’s hit at a roughly league average level in both years, making plenty of contact to compensate for low walk rates. Arroyo has logged just under 900 major league innings at the keystone. Defensive Runs Saved has pegged him an excellent 10 runs better than the average defender there, while Statcast has rated him as an exactly average gloveman.
There aren’t many middle infield options remaining in free agency. Elvis Andrus and Josh Harrison are probably the top players still available. The Sox have been loosely tied to both in recent days. Donovan Solano, César Hernández and José Iglesias are among the depth types remaining as well.
There’s also a fair amount of uncertainty on the pitching side of things in Fenway, largely thanks to injury. Chris Sale, Tanner Houck and Garrett Whitlock each ended the 2022 season on the injured list. Whitlock is returning from hip surgery, while Houck underwent a back procedure. Sale had myriad health concerns that culminated in surgery to repair a fracture in his right wrist sustained in a bicycle accident.
Cora said this evening that all three pitchers have been throwing off a mound (relayed by Jen McCaffrey of the Athletic). All three could factor into the rotation. Sale’s a lock for the starting five if healthy. The Sox have already announced they plan to give Whitlock a rotation opportunity. Houck’s role seems more fluid, as he could crack the starting five or remain in a high-leverage relief capacity. The former first-round pick has been the subject of some recent trade speculation, though there’s no indication a deal is on the horizon or especially likely to transpire.
Red Sox, Raimel Tapia Agree To Minor League Deal
The Red Sox are in agreement with Raimel Tapia, as the free agent outfielder himself first indicated on Instagram. It’s a minor league deal for Tapia, tweets Jon Heyman of the New York Post. He’ll be invited to the major league side of Sox camp and can make $2 million with some additional performance bonuses if he cracks the MLB roster, per Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com. Tapia is repped by Dream One Sports Group.
Tapia, 29 next month, joins the third organization of his professional career. The speedster first signed with the Rockies as an amateur from the Dominican Republic over the 2010-11 international period. A few years later, Tapia emerged as one of the sport’s more promising prospects. Evaluators praised his athleticism and bat-to-ball skills and suggested he could develop into a prototypical top-of-the-lineup sparkplug for Colorado.
The left-handed hitter got to the majors in 2016 but saw sporadic action for his first three seasons. He finally landed everyday playing time during the 2019 campaign and was a lineup regular for the next three years. Tapia indeed showed quality contact skills and speed at the MLB level, though he never consistently produced offensively. He owns a very aggressive approach and doesn’t have significant power, leading to an overall profile that’s heavily reliant on singles falling into play.
Tapia hit .280/.325/.395 in a little more than 1400 trips to the plate through the end of the 2021 season. Last spring, Colorado dealt Tapia to the Blue Jays for Randal Grichuk. The move balanced each club’s respective lineup, but neither player performed at a high level in 2022. Tapia posted a .265/.292/.380 line with seven home runs through 433 plate appearances, keeping his strikeouts at a modest 18.7% clip but drawing free passes less than 4% of the time he came to the plate. At season’s end, the Jays non-tendered him rather than retain him via arbitration on a salary that was projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz at $5.2MM.
Over the course of his career, Tapia has suited up at all three outfield positions. The vast majority of his work has come in left field, where public metrics have pegged him as a roughly average defender. Tapia has rated reasonably well in a little over 400 career innings in center but never got much run there in deference to Charlie Blackmon and George Springer, respectively.
The Red Sox have looked to stockpile up-the-middle options in the wake of Xander Bogaerts‘ free agent departure and Trevor Story‘s injury. The free agent center field market is extremely thin at this stage of the offseason, leaving teams to sort through imperfect defensive fits or glove-first depth players. Boston agreed to a one-year deal with Adam Duvall yesterday, adding a right-handed bat to the mix. Tapia joins Jarren Duran as a left-handed option in the center field mix, though he’ll need to earn his way onto the roster with a strong spring showing.
Details On 2022 Team Payrolls
The Mets had the sport’s highest competitive balance tax payroll in 2022, reports Ronald Blum of the Associated Press. For CBT purposes, New York’s final tally checked in at $299.8MM. According to the report, that was around $2MM higher than the 2015 Dodgers’ $297.9MM mark that had stood as the previous spending record.
New York is responsible for a $30.8MM tax bill, the second-largest tally in the majors, after paying the tax for the first time in franchise history. The Dodgers will foot the highest tax payment at $32.4MM, Blum writes. While Los Angeles’ $293.3MM CBT payroll trailed that of the Mets, the Dodgers were subject to higher penalties as a payor for a second consecutive season.
The Mets are sure to shatter their own record this coming season, as they’re currently projected for a tax number north of $368MM. The Dodgers have trimmed spending, reportedly in hopes of resetting their tax status this year in preparation for a more active offseason next winter. They’re narrowly above the lowest CBT threshold at the moment. Roster Resource forecasts the Dodgers at approximately $238MM, around $5MM north of this year’s $233MM base threshold.
As the Associated Press first reported last September, six teams went over the CBT mark in 2022. Blum reports today the specifics of the payments owed by the Yankees ($9.7MM), Phillies ($2.9MM), Padres ($1.5MM as a second-time payor) and Red Sox ($1.2MM). The final three figures, in particular, are very modest expenditures relative to club payrolls. Nevertheless, the decision to narrowly surpass the threshold is significant in that it raises penalties for payments in future seasons and alters teams’ compensation for signing or losing qualified free agents. The Padres and Phillies surely don’t have regrets after each posted one of the best years in recent franchise history, but the decision didn’t translate to success in the Red Sox’s case. Blum writes that the tax money will be paid to MLB by the end of this week.
A team’s CBT number is determined by the average annual value of a club’s commitments plus player benefits and their contributions to the new bonus pool for pre-arbitration players. The CBT figure isn’t a match for an organization’s actual player payroll in a given season. Blum reports each club’s final raw payroll figure as well, with the Mets again fronting the pack at roughly $274.9MM. The Dodgers, Yankees, Phillies, Padres, Red Sox, White Sox, Braves, Astros and Blue Jays filled out the top ten.
On the other side, the A’s had the lowest payroll at approximately $49MM. The bottom 10 was rounded out by the Orioles, Pirates, Guardians, Marlins, Royals, Rays, D-Backs, Reds and Mariners. Full team data is available at the AP link.