The 121st Major League Baseball World Series got underway on Friday night, pitting two of the biggest-spending teams of 2025 against each other. But even though the Los Angeles Dodgers are the highest-payroll team in MLB and the Toronto Blue Jays are fifth, the disparity in payroll is significant.
According to the sports business site Spotrac, the Blue Jays’ payroll in 2025 is about $95 million less than what their National League opponents spend. To put that difference in perspective, five of the 30 MLB teams in 2025 had entire team payrolls that came in under $95 million.
The Dodgers’ payroll, per Spotrac, was $350,024,106, topping the New York Mets ($341,803,011) by approximately $8 million. The Blue Jays put together a payroll allocations total of $255,230,405. The New York Yankees spent the fourth most at $304,091,683, followed by the Philadelphia Phillies at $290,240,191.
High Payroll Does Not Guarantee Playoffs
Of those top five payroll teams, only the Mets failed to make the playoffs. But of the top 10 payroll teams this year, four failed to qualify for postseason play. The Houston Astros, Texas Rangers and Atlanta Braves all missed out despite spending the sixth seventh, and eighth-most money on player salaries in MLB.
Last season, three of the top 10 payroll teams missed the playoffs.
How did the Dodgers and Blue Jays spend their money?
Blue Jays Players Who Make Biggest Bucks
At the start of this season, the Blue Jays signed their five-time All-Star first baseman to a contract extension worth $500 million over 14 years â an average annual value of about $35.7 million per year.
But none of that money is counted against this year’s payroll. The extension kicks in next year. Guerrero was nonetheless this season’s highest-paid Blue Jay with a salary of $28.55 million.
George Springer, the 36-year-old designated hitter and outfielder who signed with the Blue Jays from the Houston Astros in 2021 as a free agent, is next with a salary of $24.2 million. Starting pitcher Kevin Gausman comes in third with a $23 million salary.
Glasnow Tops Payroll List For Dodgers
For the Dodgers, it is no secret that Shohei Ohtani signed what was then a record setting, 10-year, $70 million contract as a free agent with the Dodgers in 2023. But the two-way superstar was not paid $70 million this year, which would be the average annual value of his deal.
According to Spotrac, Ohtani’s payroll number was credited as $28,216,944, but his actual cash payment was just $2 million. That is because when he signed the massive contract, Ohtani agreed to defer $680 million of his $700 million paycheck, meaning that rather than $70 million per year he collects just $2 million from the Dodgers.
But before anyone starts feeling sorry for Ohtani, it should be noted that his endorsement income dwarfs his baseball salary. According to Sportico, another site covering the business of sports, Ohtani was set to earn $100 million in non-baseball cash in 2025, “a threshold reached by only three athletes ever in Tiger Woods, Roger Federer and Stephen Curry, who each did it one time.”
The actual highest-paid player on the Dodgers, in terms of baseball salary, in 2025 was pitcher Tyler Glasnow who earned $32.5 million. Another starting hurler, Blake Snell, collected a paycheck of $27.9 million, followed by shortstop/outfielder Mookie Betts at $25.2 million.
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