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Dodgers payroll: 2015 final numbers

Dodgers CEO Stan Kasten, chairman Mark Walter, and partner Todd Boehly watch a game at Dodger Stadium.
Dodgers CEO Stan Kasten, chairman Mark Walter, and partner Todd Boehly watch a game at Dodger Stadium.
Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

With Wednesday's National Cy Young Award voting results, both Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw earned performance bonuses in their contracts. Each received $500,000 for finishing second and third, respectively.

That is essentially the final piece of the Dodgers' 2015 payroll puzzle, pushing the Dodgers' total this year to just over $316 million. You can find full details on our payroll worksheet, which is updated throughout the season.

There are a few discrepancies with my payroll worksheet and how either MLB or the Associated Press calculates their numbers, with the biggest difference that I count money in the year it is paid out rather than spreading things evenly throughout the contract. This is most relevant with someone like Hector Olivera, to whom the Dodgers paid a $28 million signing bonus in 2015 as part of his six-year contract. That puts my accounting of his 2015 salary paid by the Dodgers at roughly $29.2 million (including the pro-rated portion of his $2 million salary paid by the Dodgers before his July 30 trade to Atlanta).

I count things during the year they are paid, with the exception of option buyouts, which are counted toward the next year's numbers.

But as I mentioned, our payroll worksheet is a living post. It will be updated quite often this postseason, so I wanted to give a snapshot of where the Dodgers are a the end of the season. We already keep track of opening day payroll on an annual basis — the opening day payroll was $266 million in 2015, for instance — so why not something at the end of the year too?

Below is a list of 2015 Dodgers and their salaries. There are some estimates built-in but nothing that would affect the final total in a significant fashion. For further details on each player, you can click on our payroll worksheet.

This list allows me to remove 2015 from the payroll worksheet table, and add 2018 and 2019, giving us a nice four-year window looking forward for the team.

But don't worry, in early December MLB will send out bills for the competitive balance tax, so we'll get one last look at the 2015 payroll again this year.