Ben Rice, and his $850K salary, hit two home runs and drove in six as he helped the New York Yankees sweep the Boston Red Sox in the American League Wild Card Series. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)
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According to Spotrac, the New York Yankees had an adjusted total payroll of just under $295 million this season, and project a luxury tax payroll of approximately $339 million. That is third in MLB, behind the Los Angeles Dodgers and their cross-town rivals, the New York Mets.
The Yankees’ highest-paid player is either Cody Bellinger at $44.75 million (from a luxury tax perspective) or Aaron Judge at $40 million (from a pure cash salary perspective). Coming in third, regardless, is pitcher Gerrit Cole, at $36 million.
The Bronx Bombers just blitzed the Boston Red Sox in the Wild Card round, winning two games by the scores of 9-0 and 9-2. And of the names listed above, only Bellinger played. And while Bellinger contributed – he hit a three-run homer in Game 2 to extend the Yankees lead from 5-1 to 8-1 – he was not a decisive factor in the series.
There will be a lockout in December once the current collective bargaining agreement expires. MLB owners want to impose a salary cap to create cost certainty and to increase their teams’ values and to foster competitive balance.
But the players who led the Yankees to the American League Division Series win over Boston are players that each and every team can afford and have cost control for years to come. Their skills and performance on the post-season stage – at least thus far – belie the idea that money alone wins championships.
Ben Rice
Ben Rice is a Boston native who grew up a Yankees fan. He was selected by New York in the 12th round of the 2021 draft. He worked his way through their system, and became a regular player last season. In the Wild Card series against the Red Sox, he went 5-for-9 with two home runs, six RBI, and 12 total bases. All while earning less than $850,000 this year.
George Lombard Jr.
New York called up rookie shortstop George Lombard Jr. on August 4th to get his feet wet. His split contract between Triple-A and the big leagues netted him less than $230,000 this year. And yet, against Boston, he went 4-for-8 with three runs scored.
Catcher Austin Wells proved he could hit lefties and righties and helped the Yankees defeat the Red Sox in the Wild Card round. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)
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Austin Wells
Wells has been with the club for four seasons, although he played in only 19 games as a rookie in 2023. The left-handed swinging catcher hit 14 home runs this year, while getting nearly three times as many at-bats against right-handed pitchers as lefties. But Aaron Boone had him in the lineup in Game 1 against the hard-throwing lefty, Payton Tolle. Wells rewarded that confidence with singles off both Tolle and left-handed reliver Alec Gamboa. Over the two games, he went 3-for-6 with four runs scored and four RBI. Wells is making just over the major league minimum this year, with a salary of $866,000.
Spencer Jones
The 6’7” outfielder made his major league debut in May, and made himself an important piece of New York’s lineup with Giancarlo Stanton out for much of the year, and Judge also missing considerable time. In his first post-season experience, we went 2-for-8 with three runs scored. Because he spent part of the season in the minors, Jones made a mere $477,350 this year.
Dating back to last year, Cam Schlittler has been essentially unhittable against the Red Sox in the Wild Card series. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)
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Cam Schlittler
Last, but most certainly not least, is pitcher Cam Schlittler. It would be downright shocking if Schlittler, the Massachusetts native, doesn’t win the Cy Young Award this season with his league-leading 1.95 ERA, .919 WHIP, 239 strikeouts against just 49 walks, and a league-best 215 ERA+. And when he toed the rubber against the Red Sox in Game 1, he picked up where he left off last season. After going eight innings with twelve strikeouts to send Boston home in the Wild Card series in 2025, he threw 6-1/3 innings, allowing just two hits, while striking out ten with one walk. He joined Bob Gibson as the only pitchers to have two 10-strikeout games against the Red Sox in the post-season. For Schlittler’s troubles this year, for his 7.0 bWAR, for his eventual award(s), he will make $801,425.
Max Fried
Left-handed pitcher Max Fried shut down Boston in Game 2. In the second year of an eight-year, $218 million contract, which paid him $29 million this season, Fried is the fourth highest paid player on the club. However, to be fair, considering how the young Yankees were hitting, and how the over-matched Red Sox were hitting, it did not really matter who was throwing – the Red Sox were not going to beat their rivals in this series.
Totals
When all was said and done, New York scored 18 runs on 26 hits over the two Wild Card games. The low-paid players referenced above scored 15 of those runs and had 17 of those hits. And Schlittler took the life and the season out of the Red Sox on the mound.
Money does a lot of things – it can provide a safety net for bad free agent contracts, it can provide depth (although it most certainly did not for the Philadelphia Phillies), and it can get you the best players on the open market. But in October (or even September), money isn’t what matters most or is even required, as the Yankees proved over two nights in the Bronx this week.
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