Baseball’s average salary dropped for an unprecedented second consecutive year on opening day, falling about $36,000 to approximately $4,375,000. But the drop was due to signing bonuses in new contracts for Trout, Clayton Kershaw, Bryce Harper, Manny Machado and a few others. Baseball’s accounting rules allocate signing bonuses in equal portions over each guaranteed year of a contract, and the signing bonuses of nine players caused an $82,000 drop in the opening-day average. The Chicago Cubs were second at $209 million, followed by the New York Yankees at $207 million, the Los Angeles Dodgers at $191 million, Washington at $185 million and San Francisco at $176 million. Just four teams are under $90 million: Baltimore ($78 million), Pittsburgh ($77 million), Miami ($71 million) and Tampa Bay ($61 million).

Source: thestar March 29, 2019 22:52 UTC