Who is ready for some big-money baseball?
The most expensive series in MLB history begins Monday night when the New York Mets, carrying a $375 million-plus CBT payroll, visit the Los Angeles Dodgers, who have an MLB-high $413.5 million CBT payroll this season.
When you factor in the competitive balance tax both teams are paying this year, the total player expenditure for the 2026 season jumps to more than $1.07 billion.
As the two biggest spenders the sport has ever seen square off, we break down how their outsized payrolls compare to the rest of MLB and how their financial might will be on display this week. (Payroll numbers from Spotrac’s MLB salary database)
Astounding facts about the Dodgers’ and Mets’ payrolls
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The Dodgers’ 2026 CBT payroll is more than the bottom four spenders (White Sox, Rays, Guardians and Marlins) combined while the Mets total payroll is more than Chicago, Cleveland and Tampa Bay combined.
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The Dodgers’ 2026 estimated tax bill of $161.9 million is higher than 12 teams’ total tax payrolls this season while the Mets’ $120 million tax bill is higher than six teams’ tax payrolls.
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The combined 2026 salaries of the four players with the highest AAV (average annual value) on the Dodgers and Mets (Juan Soto, Shohei Ohtani, Kyle Tucker and Bo Bichette) is more than the total payroll of 14 teams and within $400,000 of the Seattle Mariners.
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The New York Yankees are the only team besides the Mets with a payroll within $100 million of the Dodgers this season. The Phillies rank fourth in the sport at $312.7 million, which is $100.8 million shy of L.A.
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Last year’s meeting between the Mets and Dodgers was the previous most expensive series at $764 million in combined payroll — $36 million in total payroll behind this year’s matchup. When you add in their tax bills, the total jumps to over $1.07 billion, surpassing last year’s record of $1.025 billion
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The Dodgers and Mets have ranked first and second (in some order) in total payroll four times since 2022. 2023, when the Mets ranked first and the Dodgers fourth, is the only exception during that stretch.
The highest paid players on the Dodgers and Mets
L.A’s most notable big contracts
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Shohei Ohtani, 10 years, $700 million: The oft-mentioned deferrals in Ohtani’s record-setting contract spread payments out through 2043 with a yearly luxury tax value of $46 million.
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Kyle Tucker, 4 years, $240 million: Tucker sent shockwaves through the sport with his four-year, $240 million contract with the Dodgers last offseason. Though shorter in length than many other big-money deals, after factoring in deferrals, the $57 million CBT AAV is the largest in MLB history.
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Yoshinobu Yamamoto, 12 years, $325 million: Weeks after Ohtani signed with the Dodgers during the 2023-24 offseason, Yamamoto signed a record contract of his own in joining L.A. on the largest starting pitcher contract in MLB history.
New York’s most notable big contracts
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Juan Soto, 15 years, $765 million: The owner of the largest total contract in MLB history won’t be on the field for this week’s series as Soto is on the injured list with a right calf strain.
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Francisco Lindor, 10 years, $341 million: Lindor signed what was then the largest contract ever given to a shortstop shortly after joining the Mets in a 2021 trade with Cleveland.
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Bo Bichette, 3 years, $126 million: The Mets pivoted to Bichette after missing out on Tucker in January, giving the former Blue Jays infielder a deal with the fourth-largest AAV in the sport (behind only Ohtani, Tucker and Soto).
Why are the Dodgers and Mets able to spend at a level so far above the rest of the league?
Brad Doolittle gets into some of the details in the next question but suffice it to say: Revenues in baseball are not equal. In the NFL, the national media rights deals are split evenly among the 32 teams — about $432 million per team. In MLB, national media rights are also shared — but local media revenue is not. So while the Dodgers’ local TV deal with SportsNet LA generates an estimated $334 million per year (based on an annual average for the deal, which runs through 2038), smaller-market teams may earn a tenth of that. The Milwaukee Brewers, for example, earned a reported $35 million from their FanDuel agreement last year and owner Mark Attanasio claimed earlier this year that number will decline $20 million in 2026 as the Brewers move over to MLB Advanced Media. Of course, the Brewers nonetheless won more games in 2025 than the Dodgers.
You also have vast differences in ballpark revenue. The Dodgers easily led MLB in attendance in 2025, averaging over 49,500 fans per game. The Mets ranked fifth, averaging over 39,000 per game. Meanwhile, five teams averaged under 20,000 fans per game while four others were under 25,000. The advantages of playing in a bigger market extend beyond local media revenue.
In the Dodgers’ case, don’t underestimate the impact that Shohei Ohtani alone has on the bottom line. When they won the 2020 World Series, the Dodgers were fifth in competitive balance tax payroll. In 2023, the year before they signed Ohtani, they were fourth. That number climbed from $268 million in 2023 to $417 million in 2025. Put it this way: With the revenue Ohtani generates, any team could have afforded to sign, although the Dodgers have certainly leveraged his value better than any other team could have.
In the Mets’ case, you have an owner in Steve Cohen who wants to win — and has been willing to spend big in an attempt to do that. Cohen bought the team after the 2020 season from the Wilpon family. Under the Wilpons, the Mets never cracked the top 10 in payroll from 2012 to 2019, ranking as low as 27th in 2014 — and made the playoffs just twice in those years. Under Cohen, the Mets have ranked first or second in payroll each year since 2022. The big contract for Juan Soto last year paid immediate dividends at the gate: Attendance jumped to 3.18 million, up from 2.33 million in 2024. Like the Dodgers, the Mets are willing to spend money to make money — which many other teams are reluctant to do, even if they can afford such risks. — David Schoenfield
How did the Dodgers’ payroll get to this level?
Not to oversimplify things, but first and foremost the Dodgers spend at this level because they can afford it. According to analysis of baseball’s economic landscape by Forbes and CNBC, L.A. has swamped the rest of the majors with massive revenue streams that seem to keep swelling each season. During a moment of upheaval in the local broadcast revenues column of most teams’ balance sheets, the Dodgers’ deal continues to be a cash cow. It seems like there’s a weekly announcement about some massive new sponsorship deal, many of them partnerships with Japan-based companies looking to cash in on the Ohtani phenomenon. They continue to pack Dodger Stadium and the galaxy of parking lots around it despite the game’s highest ticket prices. If you average the data from Forbes and CNBC, we’re talking about $900 million in revenue last season, $168 million more than the second-place Yankees and nearly four times that of the last-place White Sox.
I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but the Dodgers could spend even more on payroll if they wanted to. That may or may not take them into the red at the operating income level, but with franchise valuations now pushing to around $8 billion, what’s a few million bucks here or there? Taking a rough cut at it, using the Forbes/CNBC figures for estimated revenue and last season’s final CBT payrolls, as estimated by Baseball Prospectus’ Cot’s Contracts, the Dodgers allotted about 46% of their 2025 revenue to their CBT payroll. That’s actually below the MLB average of 47.7%. For all those decrying the Dodgers’ spending, it’s pretty easy to make the argument that the problem here isn’t spending disparity, it’s revenue disparity.
Even so, the Dodgers have spent rationally. They often wield baseball’s highest payroll, but not always. The last few seasons, they’ve targeted the top of whatever market they were interested in and won more than their share of those pursuits. Want the best available free agent starter? Well, here’s Blake Snell. Want the best overseas pitcher? How about Yoshinobu Yamamoto one year and Roki Sasaki the next. Best available hitter? Hello, Kyle Tucker. Best closer? Sorry, Mets, Edwin Diaz is with us now. And, of course, if you want the best player now and perhaps ever and one of the most famous and marketable athletes on the planet? Shohei Ohtani looks right at home in Dodger Blue. But if the Dodgers had not completed these pursuits successfully, they probably would have a lower payroll. Nothing in their behavior over the last decade-plus suggests they’d simply throw the money at somebody else.
Aiding this gradual climb of revenue and payroll has been the Dodgers’ comprehensive domination of baseball processes. Through all of their success and the lower draft picks that come with it, they continue to feature a fecund farm system that allows them to plug in-season holes and pull off trades for players like Mookie Betts. The expectation of winning and the culture the Dodgers have created is a magnet for top talent. All of these things iterate with each season, making each factor tilt even more in the Dodgers’ favor. This is how dynasties come to be. — Bradford Doolittle
How did the Mets’ payroll get to this point?
It starts and ends with Steve Cohen. The hedge fund billionaire became the wealthiest owner in Major League Baseball when he bought the Mets from the Wilpons for $2.4 billion in November 2020. He is worth over $20 billion according to recent estimates and he has not hesitated to invest piles of cash into the organization. The Mets’ payroll jumped from $158.7 million in 2019, the 12th-highest in the majors, to $330.7 million by 2023, the highest in baseball. The Mets have operated at a loss for most of Cohen’s stewardship, but that hasn’t stopped him from spending even though the Mets have yet to win an NL East title and have reached the postseason only twice in his first five seasons. Cohen desperately wants to win the franchise’s first World Series since 1986 and he’s spending whatever he believes is necessary — not just on payroll but on infrastructure and employees — to make it happen.
Unlike the Dodgers, the Mets don’t own their television network (the Wilpons remain majority owners of SNY), they don’t boast a robust revenue stream from another country, and they don’t sell out every night. But Cohen’s plan for a casino and resort next to Citi Field appears likely after a yearslong battle, potentially giving the billionaire a lucrative moneymaker. Cohen will likely keep spending on his baseball team. Whether on-field success ever follows remains to be seen. — Jorge Castillo
What is the one at-bat we could see in this series that would most signify the big-spending ways of both teams?
Here’s the one that jumps out (with Soto sidelined): Kyle Tucker versus Sean Manaea. Tucker’s four-year, $240 million contract with the Dodgers created an uproar in the baseball world, with many predicting that contract will be the one everyone cites when there is a likely lockout after the season. Not that Tucker isn’t a good player; he is. But how many teams could afford this kind of deal? He’s not a marquee player like Ohtani, Yamamoto, Freddie Freeman or Mookie Betts. But the Dodgers saw it as signing an All-Star player for minimal risk, since the deal is only four years, even if the average annual salary makes Tucker the highest-paid player in 2026. Other teams saw it as a sign of the apocalypse to make him the highest-paid player.
Manaea’s contract, meanwhile, symbolizes the Mets’ gluttonous payroll that hasn’t produced the same level of success. Manaea had been a below-replacement-level pitcher in 2022 and 2023 but then had a good season for the Mets in 2024, helping them reach the NLCS. The Mets re-signed him to a three-year, $75 million contract as a free agent. He then had a bad 2025, going 2-4 with a 5.64 ERA, and is pitching out of the bullpen so far in 2026, making him the most expensive middle reliever in the game.
The Dodgers spend and win. The Mets spend and hope to make the playoffs. — Schoenfield
Despite carrying similar payrolls over the past five seasons, why have the Dodgers had more on-field success than the Mets?
Since Andrew Friedman took over baseball operations in October 2014, the Dodgers have built an infrastructure that is the envy of teams around the league. It’s not just the size of their staff that overwhelms opponents. It’s the quality. They scout exceptionally well, domestically and internationally. Their player-development system consistently churns out high-quality major league talent. Their analytics and player-performance departments identify areas of improvement and craft well-considered plans.
The Mets are getting better in all of these areas, but true organizational excellence takes time and consistency. Check back in a couple of years, when David Stearns has had time to unfurl a full organizational overhaul, and the gap is bound to be smaller. — Jeff Passan
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