Dodgers 2023 opening day payroll is $210.6 million

I think we’ve talked about payroll more than any recent offseason, so none of this should come as any surprise. But now that the 2023 season has started and with the roster set, the Dodgers’ opening day payroll is roughly $210.6 million.

That’s in actual money paid this year by the team, and represents a 20-percent decrease from last year’s $263.5-million payroll to open the season.

$210.6 million is the Dodgers’ lowest opening-day payroll since 2019, when they began the season at $206 million. The Dodgers did not pay the competitive balance tax that season.

For competitive balance tax purposes, which counts average annual value of multi-year contracts, the Dodgers open the season with an estimated payroll of $246.8 million. That’s above the first threshold of $233 million. Should the Dodgers end the season over that threshold, this would be the third consecutive year they pay the competitive balance tax, and would bring with it higher tax rates, including 50 percent for the first $20 million over.

An instructive example of the differences between actual payroll and competitive balance tax payroll is Mookie Betts, who is in the third year of his 12-year, $365-million contract signed before the 2020 season. That deal includes $65 million of deferred money to be paid between 2033-2044. Factoring in the deferred money reduced the net present value of his contract to just over $306.66 million. For competitive balance tax purposes, his average annual value is roughly $25.55 million instead of $30.42 million had the contract contained no deferred money.

But in actual 2023 payments, Betts earns $20 million in salary season, of which $8 million is deferred. That leaves $12 million in salary to be paid this year, plus $5 million of his signing bonus on November 1, for a total of $17 million paid in 2023.

The Associated Press, for instance, has the Dodgers opening day payroll at $221,759,500, but among other things, they pro-rate a signing bonus over the life of the contract. My calculations include the money that is actually paid this year.

The highest-paid Dodger this season is Trevor Bauer, who was released on January 12 after serving a 194-game suspension, the largest penalty in the eight-year history of MLB’s joint domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse policy. He signed a contract in March to play with the Yokohama BayStars in Japan.

The Dodgers’ injured list to open the season has nine players, including Walker Buehler (making $8.025 million this season), Blake Treinen ($8 million), Daniel Hudson ($6.5 million), and Tony Gonsolin ($3.25 million). The $30.2 million in total salary on the injured list is the team’s most since 2020.

The bulk of these salaries have been reported over time, with links to previous stories about specific players in the table below. For some of the pre-arbitration players with between zero to three years of service time, figures from the Associated Press were used.