The Payroll
Every Major League club’s 2026 payroll, twice over: the cash it actually pays out, and the competitive-balance figure the tax is assessed on. They are two different rulebooks and they disagree by design — a deferral-heavy contract makes the news twice with two different numbers, so this board never subtracts one from the other. On the right is the one judgment the page makes: MP/MW, what a club pays for a win it did not get for free.
30 clubs · sheets as of (the OLDEST of the thirty; the newest is 2026-09-27)
The line, and the two that are not lines yet
One of the three figures below is the competitive balance tax threshold — a rule clubs are paying against right now. The other two are numbers reported out of a negotiation that has not happened yet, and the CBA they would replace expires 11:59pm ET on 1 December 2026, 59 days from today. We keep them apart on this page because a reader who confuses them has been misinformed by us, not by the negotiation.
IN FORCE
$244.0M
The tax line
In force now. The first competitive-balance-tax threshold: a club over it pays a surcharge on the excess. Printed on most of the club sheets themselves.
2022 CBA
PROPOSED
$245.3M
Proposed cap
A proposal, not a rule. Reported 2026-07-21 from CBA negotiations; it appears in no sheet and binds nobody. The reporting does not say which payroll definition it would be measured against.
owners · reported 2026-07-21
PROPOSED
$171.2M
Proposed floor
The other half of the same proposal — a minimum a club would have to spend. Same standing as the cap: reported, undefined as to payroll basis, and in no sheet.
owners · reported 2026-07-21
9 clubs over the tax line
9 would be over the proposed cap
12 would be under the proposed floor
Those last two counts are measured against CBT payroll, because it is the only payroll definition the league has ever agreed on — but the reporting does not say which payroll a cap would actually ride on, and that choice moves the answer. On cash instead, it is 7 over the cap and 15 under the floor. We print both rather than pick one quietly.
| # | Club | Cash | CBT▾ | vs the line | MP/MW | If proposed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LAD Los Angeles Dodgers100–62 · sheet 2026-09-22 | $339.6M | $432.8M | −$188.8Mover | $5.99M18 of 30 · C | OVER CAP |
| 2 | NYM New York Mets74–88 · sheet 2026-09-25 | $346.1M | $359.5M | −$115.5Mover | $11.20M30 of 30 · F | OVER CAP |
| 3 | NYY New York Yankees93–68 · sheet 2026-09-18 | $308.2M | $341.9M | −$97.9Mover | $6.06M19 of 30 · C | OVER CAP |
| 4 | PHI Philadelphia Phillies88–74 · sheet 2026-09-27 | $292.1M | $322.2M | −$78.2Mover | $8.00M28 of 30 · F | OVER CAP |
| 5 | TOR Toronto Blue Jays79–83 · sheet 2026-09-21 | $276.1M | $317.2M | −$73.2Mover § | $9.36M29 of 30 · F | OVER CAP |
| 6 | BOS Boston Red Sox87–75 · sheet 2026-09-03 | $206.9M | $273.6M | −$29.6Mover | $4.52M10 of 30 · C | OVER CAP |
| 7 | CHC Chicago Cubs89–73 · sheet 2026-09-26 | $248.8M | $268.0M | −$24.0Mover ‡ | $4.93M13 of 30 · C | OVER CAP |
| 8 | SD San Diego Padres91–71 · sheet 2026-09-26 | $226.2M | $265.3M | −$21.3Mover § | $5.61M16 of 30 · C | OVER CAP |
| 9 | ATL Atlanta Braves94–68 · sheet 2026-09-16 | $263.7M | $257.5M | −$13.5Mover | $5.42M15 of 30 · C | OVER CAP |
| 10 | HOU Houston Astros81–81 · sheet 2026-09-27 | $239.8M | $234.7M | +$9.3Munder | $7.51M27 of 30 · D | — |
| 11 | DET Detroit Tigers76–86 · sheet 2026-09-02 | $202.1M | $234.2M | +$9.8Munder | $4.54M11 of 30 · C | — |
| 12 | AZ Arizona Diamondbacks86–76 · sheet 2026-09-26 | $188.4M | $230.3M | +$13.7Munder § | $5.05M14 of 30 · C | — |
| 13 | SF San Francisco Giants65–97 · sheet 2026-09-23 | $189.8M | $224.2M | +$19.8Munder § | $7.37M26 of 30 · D | — |
| 14 | BAL Baltimore Orioles79–82 · sheet 2026-09-03 | $166.7M | $218.4M | +$25.6Munder § | $4.84M12 of 30 · C | — |
| 15 | TEX Texas Rangers80–82 · sheet 2026-08-25 | $191.8M | $215.4M | +$28.6Munder | $6.23M20 of 30 · C | — |
| 16 | SEA Seattle Mariners76–86 · sheet 2026-09-11 | $168.9M | $205.3M | +$38.7Munder § | $5.67M17 of 30 · C | — |
| 17 | LAA Los Angeles Angels62–100 · sheet 2026-09-02 | $181.4M | $193.7M | +$50.3Munder | $7.25M25 of 30 · D | — |
| 18 | KC Kansas City Royals69–93 · sheet 2026-09-04 | $150.0M | $188.2M | +$55.8Munder | $6.30M21 of 30 · C | — |
| 19 | MIL Milwaukee Brewers103–59 · sheet 2026-09-25 | $144.5M | $154.7M | +$89.3Munder | $2.31M6 of 30 · B | UNDER FLOOR |
| 20 | CIN Cincinnati Reds75–87 · sheet 2026-09-26 | $129.0M | $151.4M | +$92.6Munder | $6.53M23 of 30 · D | UNDER FLOOR |
| 21 | ATH Athletics64–98 · sheet 2026-09-13 | $98.1M | $144.9M | +$99.1Munder § | $6.96M24 of 30 · D | UNDER FLOOR |
| 22 | PIT Pittsburgh Pirates82–80 · sheet 2026-09-24 | $106.6M | $139.8M | +$104.2Munder § | $2.46M7 of 30 · B | UNDER FLOOR |
| 23 | COL Colorado Rockies58–104 · sheet 2026-09-19 | $121.6M | $139.3M | +$104.7Munder | $6.42M22 of 30 · D | UNDER FLOOR |
| 24 | MIN Minnesota Twins77–85 · sheet 2026-09-23 | $116.1M | $138.0M | +$106.0Munder | $3.57M9 of 30 · B | UNDER FLOOR |
| 25 | CWS Chicago White Sox84–78 · sheet 2026-09-17 | $102.1M | $117.9M | +$126.1Munder | $2.16M5 of 30 · B | UNDER FLOOR |
| 26 | TB Tampa Bay Rays98–64 · sheet 2026-09-25 | $96.0M | $113.0M | +$131.0Munder | $1.82M3 of 30 · A | UNDER FLOOR |
| 27 | STL St. Louis Cardinals77–85 · sheet 2026-09-18 | $94.3M | $109.2M | +$134.8Munder | $2.51M8 of 30 · B | UNDER FLOOR |
| 28 | CLE Cleveland Guardians85–77 · sheet 2026-09-23 | $74.9M | $93.1M | +$150.9Munder | $1.62M2 of 30 · A | UNDER FLOOR |
| 29 | MIA Miami Marlins80–82 · sheet 2026-09-05 | $83.2M | $84.2M | +$159.8Munder | $1.92M4 of 30 · B | UNDER FLOOR |
| 30 | WSH Washington Nationals77–85 | $48.3M | $76.1M | +$170.9Munder | $0.85M1 of 30 · A | UNDER FLOOR |
Cash is what the club pays out this season; CBT is what it costs against the tax. They are two different rulebooks and we never subtract one from the other. vs the line is signed — negative and oxide means OVER, and the word is printed too. MP/MW is inverted: the rank under it is 1 for the cheapest marginal win in the league, so lower dollars is a better front office. The letter beside the rank is the Payroll Grade, and it runs the normal way — an A is the cheapest, which is the smallest number in the column above it.
The grade’s bands are published rather than discovered: A 10% · B 20% · C 40% · D 20% · F 10% of the ranked clubs. In a thirty-club league that is 3 A, 6 B, 12 C, 6 D, 3 F. An A most clubs could get would not be a grade.
‡ The club’s own sheet contradicts itself here — it prints the amount without the accounting parentheses that say the club is over rather than under. We publish the subtraction of its own two numbers and keep its figure in the data.
§ Worked out by us rather than read off the sheet: eight clubs are under the line and their sheets print no threshold row, and one prints no room. The threshold is the $244M CBA figure; the room is that minus the club’s CBT payroll.
How MP/MW is computed, in full
(cash payroll − 26 × $780,000) ──────────────────────────────────────────── (pythagorean win pct − 0.300) × 162
The industry standard is payroll divided by wins, which charges a club for the roughly $20.3M of minimum salaries it could not avoid and for the roughly 49 wins a minimum roster gets for free. Both baselines are netted out here and both are declared constants, because every dollar on this board depends on them.
The denominator is pythagorean rather than actual wins, exponent 1.83 — so a club is not rewarded for a lucky one-run record it did not buy. And marginal wins are a season RATE: the club’s current pace across a full 162, so that it can sit under a full-season payroll. In August it is therefore not the club’s record.
The numerator is cash, declared — MP/MW asks what a club spent, and a tax basis is not a payment. Every row in the JSON carries mp_mw_basis saying so, or saying why there is no number.
The Payroll Grade, and every change ever made to it
The letter is a band over the MP/MW rank and contains nothing else — no WAR, and no adding up what individual players are worth, which would reward a club for the shape of its roster rather than for what it spends. A is the cheapest marginal win, which is the smallest number in that column, because the metric underneath is inverted.
The bands are published above and skewed on purpose. Straight quintiles would grade six clubs of thirty an A; these grade 3. A club with no MP/MW gets no grade rather than a bad one.
- 2026-08-04
First published. A-F over the MP/MW rank, target distribution 10/20/40/20/10. The grade rides the metric the section already computes and declares — marginal payroll over marginal wins, which nets out the ~$21M of league-minimum payroll and the ~49 wins a club gets for free. It contains no WAR and no cross-cohort arithmetic. The skew is deliberate: flat quintiles would grade six of thirty clubs an A.
Contract and payroll figures from Cot's Baseball Contracts (Baseball Prospectus), read off each club’s own sheet and re-derived here. Records and runs from MLB’s own standings, as of 2026-10-02. Two sources, two clocks, and we never merge them into one date.