Yankees Pay $26 Million in Luxury Tax for 2015

It’s that time of the year folks, time to do your patriotic duties and pay your taxes. I never understood why companies want to wait until Christmas time to collect taxes, I mean my property taxes were due the day after Thanksgiving. How’s that for bringing in the Christmas spirit, but anyway I digress. I’m not the only one paying a significant tax bill right before Christmas, the New York Yankees and the rest of Major League Baseball is as well. The luxury tax and revenue sharing numbers are in and for four teams, they aren’t pretty.

The good news for the Yankees is they didn’t have to pay the highest luxury tax bill but the second highest. New York ended up paying $26 million in luxury tax penalties in 2015 while the Los Angeles Dodgers blew everyone out of the water with a $43.7 million luxury tax hit. Los Angeles did finish the season with a $298.3 million payroll so that had to be expected.

The other two teams in the league to pay luxury tax penalties were the Boston Red Sox (1.87 million) and the San Francisco Giants ($1.33 million). None of the four teams that paid in luxury tax dollars made it to the World Series or even won a playoff series while two of the teams didn’t even make the postseason, Boston finished in last place in the AL East. Simply outspending everyone isn’t working anymore ladies and gentleman, Bud Selig got his way.