One Billion Dollars

With the signing of NPB super-ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto (12 yrs, $325M) the LA Dodgers have purchased the services of the two best Japanese ballplayers on the planet. One of them is arguably already the best player in MLB. Shohei Ohtani’s $700M takes the total outlay to over one billion dollars. If you laid one billion dollar bills end-to-end (a bill is about six inches in length) they would stretch 500,000,000 feet or about 95,000 miles or nearly four trips around the earth.

That’s a lot of scratch!

MLB annual revenue is about $10B, and the total value of all 30 franchises is about $70B. TV rights for MLB games come in at a little under $2B annually. According to Forbes the Giants are in the top tier of wealthy clubs, rating fifth with a $3.7B valuation. The Yankees top the list ($7.1B), followed by the Dodgers( $4.8B), Red Sox ($4.5B), and Cubs ($4.1B). The hapless and unfortunate A’s rate 29th ($1.1B) and the Marlins get the honor of the bottom spot ($1B).

The Giants have a lot of payroll flexibility if you assume that ownership is indeed willing to spend money. Only Logan Webb and Jung Hoo Lee have long-term deals. Mitch Haniger, Wilmer Flores, and Taylor Rogers are signed through 2025 and are free agents after that. FNG catcher Tom Murphy is signed through 2025 with a club option for 2026. The Giants have a club option on reliever Luke Jackson for 2025. That’s it. Everyone else is either a free agent after the 2024 season or is still under team control (or in their arb-years).

This year’s payroll is about $160M meaning they have about $47M to spend without topping the luxury tax threshold ($237M).

The Giants need a starter. I’m hoping they will still pursue Shoto Imagana. Also both Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery are available. The Giants will need a shortstop. They’ll have to work the trade market to upgrade at that position. I think they will have to trade some of their young pitching talent to make a meaningful improvement.

I really like the Lee signing but it won’t be enough to compete for the Western Division title. They’ve still got some work to do if they want to win 90+ games.

Merry Christmas, everyone! Thanks for reading. I hope we’ll have some fun news to talk about before January rolls around.

–M.C.