Putting into context how embarrassing Tigers' 2025 payroll is as free agents come off the board

After a magical run to the ALDS in 2024, many Detroit Tigers fans dared to hope that the Detroit Tigers would stop acting like a small-market club and be aggressive in free agency this offseason. Those same fans have been met with disappointment, as president of baseball operations Scott Harris and the Tigers front office have spent a modest total of $37.75 million on a trio of one-year contracts for Alex Cobb, Gleyber Torres and Tommy Kahnle.

None of these signings moves the needle significantly for Detroit. The Tigers could have made an impact signing in Alex Bregman, but their maddening refusal to spend is causing them to get in their own way.

Baseball is unique among the major North American sports in that it does not have a salary cap. In the aftermath of the 1994 players' strike, MLB players and owners agreed to compromise with a soft spending limit known as the Competitive Balance Tax.

The Competitive Balance Tax is the "luxury tax" assessed to MLB teams whose payrolls are above a predetermined threshold established in the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Teams are taxed on each dollar above the threshold at a tax rate that increases based on the number of years a club has exceeded said threshold.

Putting into context how embarrassing Tigers' 2025 payroll is as free agents come off the board

According to Major League Baseball, a club's Competitive Balance Tax figure is determined using the average annual value of each player's contract on the 40-man roster, plus any additional player benefits. Each team's final tax figure is calculated at the end of each season.

The threshold for the 2024 season was set at $237 million. Nine teams exceeded it, including the Dodgers, who were responsible for more than $103 million of the $311 million in total taxes assessed. Meanwhile, the Tigers' total payroll at the end of the 2024 season sat just under $97 million. That's right – the Dodgers spent more on Competitive Balance Taxes than the Tigers spent on their entire team payroll.

Looking ahead to 2025, the threshold goes up slightly to $241 million. After their offseason spending spree, the Dodgers are positioned to exceed that threshold by nearly $63 million. The Tigers, meanwhile, aren't even halfway to the threshold itself with a current total payroll of $103 million. In other words, even if they offered Bregman the six-year, $200 million contract he was reportedly seeking, the Tigers wouldn't even come close to exceeding the Competitive Balance Tax threshold for 2025.

The Tigers currently have just five players on their roster who aren't eligible for salary arbitration – Cobb, Torres, Kahnle, Javier Báez and Kenta Maeda. The rest of their roster is under team control, either via salary arbitration or classified as pre-arb, making close to the league minimum. That roster got them to the ALDS in 2024; if ever there was a time to spend big on some impact pieces in free agency, this is it.

With just a few weeks until spring training begins, the free agency market has been picked over. Bregman remains unsigned, but the Tigers signing him seems less likely by the day. Their refusal to spend isn't necessarily a new phenomenon, but it does sting a little more this year.

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