Deferred money
$2,109,525,000 of major-league salary has been pushed past the end of the contract that earned it, across 47 deals and 16 clubs. The last cheque is due in 2051.
The thing to hold on to is a matter of timing rather than arithmetic: deferred money is charged to a club in the season the player earns it and paid in the season it comes due. It does not reduce what a club owes — it moves when the money leaves. What it does reduce is the contract’s tax AAV, because the CBA discounts a promise to pay decades out, which is why Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million counts as $46.1 million a year against the tax.
This season stands on its own because the sheet states a year and never a date — we cannot say from it whether a 2026 payment has already been made.
Deferred sheet as of · 47 contracts · 40 linked to a player here · 7 not
When it comes due
Every dollar on this board, by the year it is paid — not the year it was earned. Seasons before 2026 are money already gone.
By club
The club that signed the deal, which is the club that owes the money — not the club the player is with today. LAD carries 52% of everything on this board. This is never added to a payroll: a payroll is one season, and this spans 31 of them.
| Club | Deals | Deferred | Due after 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LAD | 11 | $1,089,500,000 | $1,089,500,000 | |
| BOS | 2 | $140,000,000 | $140,000,000 | |
| WSH | 3 | $134,000,000 | $84,000,001 | |
| NYM | 6 | $130,250,000 | $129,250,000 | |
| TOR | 2 | $125,750,000 | $125,750,000 | |
| AZ | 3 | $124,025,000 | $124,025,000 | |
| CHC | 3 | $85,000,000 | $82,500,000 | |
| CLE | 1 | $70,000,000 | $70,000,000 | |
| STL | 2 | $55,000,000 | $35,000,000 | |
| SF | 2 | $35,000,000 | $18,000,000 | |
| MIL | 2 | $32,000,000 | $31,000,000 | |
| DET | 2 | $31,000,000 | $31,000,000 | |
| PHI | 2 | $30,000,000 | $25,000,000 | |
| KC | 2 | $14,000,000 | $14,000,000 | |
| TEX | 3 | $13,000,000 | $13,000,000 | |
| CWS | 1 | $1,000,000 | $0 |
The two money columns are his two statements of the same money — the total he states per contract, and the sum of the yearly payments he schedules. Across the whole board they are $1 apart, which is his own rounding of a payment that does not divide evenly. We print both as he states them rather than adjusting one to close on the other.
The contracts
Every deferral on the sheet, largest first. A man may appear twice — a deferral belongs to a contract, not to a player, and five men here have deferred money out of two different deals.
| Player | Owed by | Signed | Deferred | Paid out |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shohei Ohtani‡ | LAD | 2023-12-11 | $680,000,000 | 2034–2043 |
| Stephen Strasburg* | WSH | — | $120,000,000 | 2021–2029 |
| Mookie Betts | LAD | 2020-07-23 | $115,000,000 | 2033–2044 |
| Rafael Devers | BOS | 2023-01-11 | $75,000,000 | 2034–2043 |
| Alex Bregman | CHC | 2026-01-14 | $70,000,000 | 2034–2041 |
| José Ramírez | CLE | 2026-01-24 | $70,000,000 | 2036–2051 |
| Blake Snell | LAD | 2024-11-27 | $66,000,000 | 2035–2046 |
| Alex Bregman | BOS | 2025-02-12 | $65,000,000 | 2028–2046 |
| Corbin Burnes | AZ | 2024-12-27 | $64,000,000 | 2031–2036 |
| Dylan Cease | TOR | 2025-11-26 | $64,000,000 | 2033–2046 |
| Anthony Santander | TOR | 2025-01-20 | $61,750,000 | 2031–2043 |
| Freddie Freeman | LAD | 2022-03-19 | $57,000,000 | 2028–2040 |
| Nolan Arenado | STL | 2021-02-01 | $50,000,000 | 2022–2041 |
| Francisco Lindor | NYM | 2021-03-31 | $50,000,000 | 2032–2041 |
| Will Smith* | LAD | 2024-03-27 | $50,000,000 | 2034–2043 |
| Ketel Marte | AZ | 2025-04-02 | $46,000,000 | 2035–2040 |
| Blake Snell | SF | 2024-03-18 | $32,000,000 | 2026–2027 |
| Christian Yelich | MIL | 2020-03-09 | $30,000,000 | 2031–2042 |
| Kyle Tucker | LAD | 2026-01-15 | $30,000,000 | 2036–2045 |
| Edwin Díaz | NYM | 2022-11-09 | $26,500,000 | 2033–2042 |
| Tommy Edman | LAD | 2024-11-29 | $25,000,000 | 2035–2044 |
| Teoscar Hernández | LAD | 2024-12-27 | $23,500,000 | 2030–2039 |
| Sean Manaea | NYM | 2024-12-23 | $23,250,000 | 2035–2044 |
| Tanner Scott | LAD | 2025-01-19 | $21,000,000 | 2035–2046 |
| Framber Valdez | DET | 2026-02-10 | $20,000,000 | 2030–2039 |
| Cristopher Sánchez | PHI | 2026-03-24 | $20,000,000 | 2035–2044 |
| Devin Williams | NYM | 2025-12-01 | $15,000,000 | 2036–2045 |
| Zac Gallen | AZ | 2026-02-13 | $14,025,000 | 2032–2034 |
| Edwin Díaz | LAD | 2025-12-09 | $13,500,000 | 2036–2047 |
| Salvador Perez | KC | 2025-11-04 | $12,000,000 | 2030–2034 |
| Justin Verlander | DET | 2026-02-10 | $11,000,000 | 2030–2039 |
| Patrick Corbin | WSH | 2018-12-04 | $10,000,000 | 2026 |
| J.T. Realmuto | PHI | 2021-01-26 | $10,000,000 | 2026–2027 |
| Nico Hoerner | CHC | 2026-03-27 | $10,000,000 | 2040–2047 |
| Teoscar Hernández | LAD | 2024-01-12 | $8,500,000 | 2030–2039 |
| Adam Ottavino* | NYM | 2023-01-11 | $8,000,000 | 2025–2035 |
| J.D. Martinez* | NYM | 2024-03-23 | $7,500,000 | 2034–2038 |
| Nathan Eovaldi | TEX | 2024-12-10 | $6,000,000 | 2028 |
| Sonny Gray† | STL | 2023-11-28 | $5,000,000 | 2027–2031 |
| David Robertson* | TEX | 2024-01-29 | $5,000,000 | 2027–2031 |
| Cody Bellinger† | CHC | 2024-02-27 | $5,000,000 | 2026–2027 |
| Kyle Finnegan | WSH | 2025-02-27 | $4,000,000 | 2027–2028 |
| Tyler Mahle | SF | 2025-12-31 | $3,000,000 | 2027 |
| Salvador Perez | KC | 2021-03-21 | $2,000,000 | 2027 |
| Jose Quintana | MIL | 2025-03-04 | $2,000,000 | 2026–2027 |
| Chris Martin* | TEX | 2025-12-20 | $2,000,000 | 2028–2029 |
| Mike Clevenger* | CWS | 2024-04-01 | $1,000,000 | 2026 |
* we have no player page for this man — mostly retired — so the name is the sheet’s own and links nowhere. $193,500,000 of the board sits on these rows, and it is counted in every total above.
‡ the sheet misspells this name and we corrected it by hand to join him — hover for its spelling. We do not fuzzy-match names: a correction here is a written, one-at-a-time decision, and a misspelling nobody has looked at stays unlinked.
† the sheet carries a note in one of this row’s year columns rather than a figure. It is kept as written and counted as nothing, because it is not money.
What is deliberately not on this board
- Any subtraction from a contract’s total. A deferral is not a discount. Ohtani’s $680 million of deferred money out of $700 million does not make it a $20 million contract; the Dodgers owe all of it, later. There is no function on this site that differences the two.
- Any comparison with a payroll. Deferred money is charged to a club in the season it is earned, so it is already inside the payroll figures on the Payroll. Adding this to those would count it twice.
- The interest rate, and therefore the present value. What a 2043 payment is worth today depends on a discount rate we are not given and would have to assume. The schedule is stated; the present value is not, and we do not manufacture one.
- The sheet’s own grand total. Under the last contract it states $1,551,025,000; the rows above it add up to $2,109,525,000. We print the sum of the rows and make no claim about the cause. It is recorded rather than corrected, and a test here fails the day it changes — including the day it is fixed.
Second source: MLB Spreadsheets · Ethan Hullihen (@EthanHullihen, MLBSpreadsheets) · mlbspreadsheets.substack.com