Incredible playoff payroll fact shows Tigers could be team best built for future

Money can't buy everything, and that includes an American League Wild Card series sweep. Just ask the 2024 Detroit Tigers.

The "Gritty Tigs" are not a team full of big-name superstars, and they don't have what many would consider a "real" payroll. In fact, they rank among the bottom-five teams in baseball in that regard with a total payroll of $98,511,614 for the 2024 regular season.

The two Tigers players with the highest annual salaries – Kenta Maeda ($14 million) and Javy Báez ($25 million) – aren't even on their active playoff roster. As a result, the Tigers' October payroll shrank to just $24.7 million, which is less than Báez's salary alone.

As we learned on Wednesday, before the start of the games, there were 16 players in the postseason with a higher salary than the Tigers' active payroll. Two of those players – Houston Astros infielders Jose Altuve ($31.5 million) and Alex Bregman ($30.5 million) – have since been eliminated by the Tigers in the American League Wild Card Series.

Even amid current playoff success, Tigers could be team best built for future

The highest-paid player on the Tigers' playoff roster is Colt Keith at $2.8 million. He joins AL Cy Young frontrunner Tarik Skubal ($2.65 million) and catcher Jake Rogers ($1.7 million) as the only players on the team with seven-figure salaries.

These Tigers are a team of homegrown talent, in many cases, drafted and developed from unknown prospects into playoff series winners (but we can't forget about the trade acquisitions). Several of them either started or spent significant time this season in Triple-A Toledo. Now, they're part of one of the best stories in baseball this year.

The Tigers' late-season surge and unthinkable run to the ALDS hasn't merely been lightning in a bottle, either. Not a single one of Detroit's everyday playoff starters is over the age of 28, and all but four of them make less than $800,000 per year. Many of them won't even be arbitration-eligible once this magical season comes to an end (whenever that may be).

The Tigers' 2024 season and postseason have been nothing short of amazing. But if their team payroll and average age are any indication, the best is still yet to come.

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