Yankees tighten their belt

NEW YORK - The New York Yankees, who dropped their season-opener 7-3 to the Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday, are not one of Major League Baseball's top two payrolls for the first time in nearly a quarter-century.

The Los Angeles Dodgers topped MLB for the fourth straight opening day but dropped to $225 million, according to a study by Associated Press.

That's the Dodgers' lowest payroll since 2013.

The Detroit Tigers are second at $199.75 million while the Yankees, in the midst of a turn toward youth, are third at $195 million.

The Yankees had not been outside the top two since 1993, and their opening-day payroll has not dropped this low since 2007.

New York topped opening-day payrolls from 1999-2013 before falling behind the Dodgers each year since 2014.

"It's kind of a different feel than when I came up. It's got a lot more younger look to it," said Yankees catcher Austin Romine, a member of the organization since he was drafted in 2007.

"It's interesting. It's refreshing. It's nice to see young guys getting chances."

After setting the MLB record at $270 million two years ago, the Dodgers declined to $234 million last year.

The $4.51 million average salary for major leaguers on opening day was up 1.6 percent from last year's average of $4.38 million.

That follows an offseason with a relatively weak free-agent class in which just one player topped $100 million - New York Mets outfielder Yoenis Cespedes.

"There are indeed many factors that feed into the numbers every year, and therefore conclusions should not be drawn against any one particular offseason," players union head Tony Clark said on Sunday.

Faced with an increase in the luxury tax, some high-revenue teams pared payroll. The Boston Red Sox slashed spending from $190 million to $179 million.

"The total percentage of MLB revenue that clubs pay to players has remained relatively stable," said Dan Halem, MLB's chief legal officer.

"Reducing the amount of payroll disparity is certainly the goal of many provisions of the collective bargaining agreement, but we evaluate the system based on multiyear trends rather than a single year's experience."

Many teams in the middle or near the bottom of last year's list had big boosts.

The usually frugal Miami Marlins jumped from $77 million to $120 million, and AL champion Cleveland from $90 million to $126 million.

Others with sizeable steps up include Texas ($149 million to $173 million), Washington ($147 million to $165 million), Baltimore ($146 million to $164 million), the New York Mets ($138 million to $156 million), Colorado ($113 million to $128 million), Atlanta ($99 million to $126 million) and Houston ($95 million to $122 million).

Following their first World Series title since 1908, the Chicago Cubs hiked spending by $7 million to $177 million.

Cutting teams included the Chicago White Sox (from $115 million to $100 million) and San Diego ($101 million to $61 million).

Milwaukee was last for the second straight season, at $60.8 million.

MLB's median salary, the point where an equal number of players earn above and below, remained at $1.5 million, down from $1.65 million at the start of the 2015 season.

Associated Press