These are the highest salaries on the Detroit Tigers' 2025 payroll

The Tigers' projected payroll for 2025 lands somewhere around $80 million — one of the lowest in baseball next season — which tracks for a team that had the youngest roster in the game in 2024. This offseason, Detroit has nine players to reach agreements with in order to avoid arbitration, three are contracted, but the majority of the 26-man roster will all be making league minimum in 2025.

This is how the Tigers like it. They're young, their players are cheap, and they still made it to the postseason this year. Upgrades should be a complete no-brainer, given how little money the Tigers owe to their already rostered players, even with a couple of all-time busts mixed in.

Zach McKinstry and Andy Ibáñez have already reached agreements on their 2025 salaries; McKinstry will be making $1.65 million, and Ibáñez will get $1.4 million. Tarik Skubal, Jason Foley, and Matt Vierling are expected to be the three most expensive arb-eligible players, with predictions from Skubal ranging between $8 million-$11 million, provided the Tigers don't wise up and give him a competitive extension offer this offseason.

Javier Báez, Kenta Maeda, and Colt Keith are the only three players whose money was absolutely assured before McKinstry and Ibáñez settled, and Báez and Maeda represent almost 44% of the Tigers' projected payroll all by themselves.

Javy Báez, Kenta Maeda will be the Tigers' most expensive players in 2025

Báez is owed $25 million next season and Maeda is owed $10 million. Keith's salary is still relatively low at $3.83 million, but it'll escalate to $15 million by 2032, the last year of his extension. There is a chance that Skubal could eclipse Maeda this season if he does end up making up to $11 million, but as of right now, Báez and Maeda are the top earners.

It's incredibly unfortunate that the Tigers' two most expensive contracts belong to players who have been complete busts and were total non-contributors to Detroit's miracle late-season run this year. It's even more unfortunate that the way both Báez and Maeda have fared has seemingly put the Tigers off completely from taking big risks in free agency this year.

However, we're still early into the offseason and there's still time for the Tigers to be a little daring. Even if they're going to stick to short-term deals while they let their younger players develop, there are options out there (Paul Goldschmidt? Walker Buehler?) who could help the Tigers back to October in 2025.