When the 2013 season was over and the commissioner’s office had done all of the computations, the Yankees and the Dodgers were 1-2 in the ever popular payroll standings. It was the 12th successive season the Yankees were No. 1. That year, however, they edged the Dodgers by only $14,664.
This year it wasn’t close, and it wasn’t the Yankees who were No. 1. The Dodgers’ payroll was $257 million, a major league record, and the Yankees were second at $232 million.
The last time the Yankees were not No. 1 was 2001. They were third that year with a $109.4 million payroll behind Boston’s $109.5 million and the Dodgers’ $110.3 million.
The Dodgers’ resurgent spending has come under the team’s new ownership, led by chairman and controlling owner Mark Walter and president and CEO Stan Kasten. They paid $2 billion for the team and have spent multi-millions more in player payroll.
Earlier this off-season they added $35 million to their baseball bill, hiring Andrew Friedman as the president of baseball operations for five years.
The Yankees haven’t exactly embarked on an austerity plan, but they haven’t broken their bank in signing free agents. Hal Steinbrenner, who succeeded his father as controlling owner, seems intent on being the anti-Steinbrenner in his spending policy.
These have been the Yankees’ latest signings, all since the end of last season: Chris Young, 1 year, $2.5 million; Stephen Drew 1 year, $5 million; Chris Capuano, 1 year, $5 million; Esmil Rogers, 1 year, $1.48 million; Andrew Miller, 4 years, $36 million; Chase Headley, 4 years, $52 million.
Those contracts total $102 million. Previously signed Alex Rodriguez ($275 million), Mark Teixeira ($180 million), Masahiro Tanaka ($155 million), Jacoby Ellsbury ($153 million) and C.C. Sabathia ($122 million) all have contracts that are richer than all of those combined.
That the Yankees are cutting costs while the Dodgers have been on a spending spree is the opposite of what history would suggest.
The Yankees haven’t cut costs since the elder Steinbrenner bought the team in 1973. In previous jobs, the people running the Dodgers either couldn’t or refused to spend extravagantly.
Friedman was general manager of the Tampa Bay Rays, who have always had one of the majors’ lowest payrolls. Long one of the worst teams in the majors, they took advantage of their perennially high position in the annual draft, selected players well and developed them into productive major leaguers.
Friedman, who came to baseball from Wall Street with no previous baseball experience, was a critical member of the Rays’ front office.
Kasten had vast experience with the Atlanta Braves but practiced a very different financial philosophy than money has given him with the Dodgers. He’s not the first executive to change jobs and spending philosophies, but his experience has represented one of the fastest and most drastic.
As president and CEO of the Braves in the ‘90s, Kasten was heavily involved in labor matters, on the management side, of course. He was a hard-liner in the negotiations that produced the 234-day strike and Commissioner Bud Selig’s unprecedented cancellation of the World Series.
Kasten and his militant allies, most notably Selig and Jerry Reinsdorf, sought to blow up the union and win a payroll cap. Imagine where Kasten and the Dodgers would be in 2015 had the 1994 owners succeeded in their cap quest.
Entering the second week of January, the Dodgers had 15 players under contract for 2015 salaries totaling $201.9 million. The Yankees had signed 17 players for salaries totaling $200.6 million. Their 2015 expenditures aren’t as close as they appear.
In trading Matt Kemp to San Diego, the Dodgers agreed to give the Padres $18 million to offset the $107 million the outfielder is owed for the last four years of his contract. The Dodgers will also pay all of Dan Haren’s $10 million 2015 salary after his trade to Miami. They will receive $3.9 million from Boston and $1 million from Philadelphia.
That’s an additional $23.1 million on the debit side of the Dodgers’ payroll ledger. By comparison, the Yankees are responsible for only $3 million of Martin Prado’s $11 million salary with the Marlins each of the next two years.
The Dodgers may not be finished with their welfare payments. Even though the Kemp trade helped clear up the logjam in their outfield, they still have an extra outfielder in Andre Ethier, whom they owe $53.5 million for the next three years and possibly $71 million for four years if his option vests based on plate appearances.
I can see the Dodgers offering to give the team that takes Ethier $18 million or so. After all, what’s another $18 million to those big spenders, Kasten and Friedman?
OUTFIELD LOGJAM CLEARED OR JAMMED AGAIN?
The Dodgers won the National League West title the last two seasons, but that wasn’t enough. It’s World Series or bust for the most expensive team in the major leagues.
First, Andrew Friedman replaced general manager Ned Colletti and then Friedman replaced second baseman Dee Gordon with Howie Kendrick, shortstop Hanley Ramirez with Jimmy Rollins, starting pitcher Dan Haren with Brandon McCarthy and outfielder Matt Kemp with Chris Heisley.
Don Mattingly, whose managing I have questioned, pronounced himself pleased with the changes, declaring that they have made the Dodgers “more of a team.”
“The club last year won 94 games. We were a little crazy, but that’s who we were,” Mattingly told Ken Gurnick of MLB.com. “Nothing wrong with that. But I think the pieces will fit together better.”
Mattingly’s most controversial move last season was replacing Matt Kemp in center field with Yasiel Puig. Kemp didn’t like the move, of course, but now he’s gone, having been traded to San Diego, and the Dodgers are making another outfield move.
Puig will move back to right, and the center fielder will be Joc Pederson if he can win the job in spring training. The team’s top prospect, Pederson is a 22-year-old left-handed hitter who has been very good in the minor leagues but struggled in a brief visit to the majors last season.
As a precautionary move, the Dodgers picked up Chris Heisey, a right-hand hitting center fielder, who could platoon with Pederson.
Pederson and Heisey are the Dodgers’ only outfielders who are legitimate center fielders. Despite Mattingly’s move of Puig to center, he is not a genuine center fielder and is better in right.
Gurnick offered me this assessment of the Dodgers’ outfielder situation:
“Kemp became the most likely trade piece by the process of elimination, as long as everybody agrees that Puig is untouchable. Kemp and Puig are natural right fielders, so there’s room for only one. Trading (Carl) Crawford wouldn’t have solved that.
“Kemp also moves the most payroll, is the most injury prone and would likely bring the greatest return of players. And it keeps Crawford in left, where he belongs, and Puig in right, where he belongs. I think this is all in keeping with Mattingly’s belief that it’s more of a (properly structured) team now, with players playing the positions they are best suited to play.
“So if it doesn’t completely resolve the outfield jam, trading Kemp loosens it as much as any single move could have. And they’re still trying to trade Ethier.”
BURNETT A WINNING LOSER AGAIN
Give A. J. Burnett credit for versatility. He won this website’s Sigh Young award as an American League pitcher in 2010, and now he wins it as a National League pitcher for 2014. The award is a little tardy this time, but it’s no less deserved.
Given by me to the pitcher deemed worst in the majors, the award goes to Burnett for the second time in its five-year history. We should probably consider it retired. Or maybe Burnett himself should retire, though he’s back in Pittsburgh, where he had two of the best seasons in his 15-year career.
It was when he went to Philadelphia last year that he had his worst season: an 8-18 won-lost record, a 4.59 earned run average, 1.42 baserunners per nine innings, .256 opponents’ batting average, 122 runs allowed, 109 earned runs.
His losses and runs and earned runs were the most among 88 qualifying pitchers, and his baserunners allowed were 84th. In other words, Burnett legitimately won the award.
He beat out Kevin Correia (Twins/Dodgers) 7-17, 5.44; Eric Stults (Padres) 8-17, 4.30 and Edwin Jackson (Cubs) 6-15, 6.33.
Burnett won the inaugural award with the Yankees and was followed by John Lackey (Red Sox), Ricky Romero (Blue Jays) and C.C. Sabathia (Yankees).