Dodgers payroll for 2013 already $100 million more than this season
Ah, the price of success. Or at least hoped-for success.
The Dodgers’ new owners are reinventing the rules, and it ain’t a cheap policy change.
That additional $260 million in salary commitments the Dodgers took on with their stunning trade with the Red Sox on Friday is going to have significant, almost mindboggling, payroll impact as quickly as next season.
The bankrupt Dodgers under Frank McCourt started the season with an opening day payroll of approximately $91 million. Add $100 million to that, and you would still be shy of what they’ve already committed to next season’s salary.
According to Cot’s Baseball contracts, the Dodgers are already committed to a payroll of $192.6 million next season. Which would give them a higher payroll than every team this season not named the New York Yankees.
Newbies Adrian Gonzalez ($21.9 million), Carl Crawford ($20.4 million), Josh Beckett ($17.0 million) and Hanley Ramirez ($15.5 million) will have to be paid a combined $74.8 million next season. Those four alone will be paid more than the Diamondbacks’ entire 2012 opening-day payroll.
I have a suspicion these rules being invented by the Dodgers are not going to go over really big with the rest of National League West, if not all baseball. As The Times’ Bill Shaikin noted in his column on the Dodgers becoming the new team for the rest of baseball to hate:
The money spent by the new owners since they took over the team in May -- contract extension for Andre Ethier, signing of Cuban prospect Yasiel Puig, trades for Ramirez, Shane Victorino, Joe Blanton, Brandon League and Randy Choate, and the blockbuster trade for Gonzalez, Crawford, Beckett and Nick Punto – totals $432 million, or more than McCourt paid for the team ($421 million) in 2004.
All that in less than four months of owning the team. I’m not even sure that McCourt dreamed of this world.
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