The 2026 MLB playoffs have turned into a sharp reminder that the biggest payroll doesn’t guarantee the cleanest path, even if the Los Angeles Dodgers are making it look that way.
Los Angeles has already advanced to a third straight NLCS and is now chasing a historic three-peat. The Dodgers, who carry the majors’ highest payroll, will meet the Milwaukee Brewers next. And on the other side of the bracket, the American League representative will come from a far leaner group: the Tampa Bay Rays, Chicago White Sox, or Cleveland Guardians.
The gap in spending is hard to miss. The Dodgers have 10 players on contracts with a $20-million average annual value before deferrals. That list includes Shohei Ohtani ($70 million), Kyle Tucker ($55 million), Blake Snell ($36.4 million), Tyler Glasnow ($32.5 million), Yoshinobu Yamamoto ($34.3 million), Mookie Betts ($30 million), Freddie Freeman ($27 million), and Edwin Díaz ($26 million).
Milwaukee, by contrast, has just one player in that range: Christian Yelich at $23.3 million.
Even with seven top-10 payroll teams in the field, the postseason has already knocked out plenty of heavy hitters. The Yankees ($336 million), Phillies ($324 million), Cubs ($262 million), Padres ($262 million), Braves ($255 million), and Astros ($236 million) are all gone. The Mets ($358 million), Blue Jays ($315 million), and Tigers ($230 million) never made it in at all.
The American League side tells the same story from a different angle. Tampa Bay’s highest-paid player this season is Nick Martinez at $13 million, while Junior Caminero, the club’s biggest star and an AL MVP contender, is making just under $795,000 because he’s still in his pre-arbitration years.
Chicago, meanwhile, is one win away from the ALCS for the first time since 2005 after three straight 100-plus-loss seasons from 2023-25. Rookie Munetaka Murakami was the White Sox’s highest-paid player at $17 million before they added Luis Castillo at the trade deadline for $23.5 million.
Cleveland fits the same mold. The Guardians have only one major leaguer making $20 million or more, and that’s José Ramírez at $20.8 million.
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White Sox Enter Crucial Game 4 With One Big Decision Looming
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Munetaka Murakami enters the night as the favorite to leave the yard, helped by the kind of postseason power that can tilt a game in a hurry. For the White Sox, the bigger question may be less about who starts and more about how quickly they can match Clevelands urgency if the Guardians finally start driving the ball with authority. [Read more 🡒]
White Sox Suddenly Have A Big-Inning Problem At The Worst Time
The White Sox had the kind of night that can flip a Division Series in an instant, building leads of 2-0 and 4-3 before watching the game slip away against the Guardians. Early pitching trouble from Hagen Smith and Jordan Hicks put pressure on Chicago right away, and even after the offense did enough to keep the game close, the pitching staff could not hold the line long enough to protect the advantage.
The pivotal stretch came in the sixth, when Cleveland pushed across multiple runs against Anthony Kay and Grant Taylor and turned a one-run game into a much steeper climb for Chicago. A late White Sox push kept things from getting completely out of hand, but the comeback effort never quite got there, leaving the club to regroup as the series shifts to Cleveland. [Read more 🡒]
White Sox Let A Closeout Game Turn Into A Brutal Reset
A chance to take a commanding step in the American League Division Series slipped away as the White Sox were beaten 9-3 by the Guardians in Game 3, trimming Chicagos series lead to 2-1. What had looked like a closeout opportunity instead turned into a night in which Clevelands pitching dictated the pace, piling up 19 strikeouts in nine innings and setting a major league postseason record in the process.
Chicago also had to watch Clevelands lineup come alive at key moments, with Jos Ramrez collecting two hits that included a two-run triple. Jo Adell added to the damage with a bases-clearing triple, turning what had been a tight postseason game into a stern reset for a White Sox club that now has a shorter runway than it did before first pitch. [Read more 🡒]