Breaking Down the Pirates’ 2024 Year-End Payroll

With another year behind us, it’s another year of payroll in the books.

As always, I don’t care what the final number actually is. My goal is to be the most accurate, in-depth, and understandable source available for payroll tracking. It doesn’t matter to me how low or how high the number is, only that it’s right.

For anyone who doesn’t remember or may have missed it, I covered the opening day payroll using the same ideology when the season started. This will be the starting point for all the following comparisons—I will show where it started, where it ended, and make note of any relevant information regarding in season changes.

Major League Salary: The payroll decrease here can largely be attributed to one trade—that of JT Brubaker to start the year. While it’s obvious one can’t say for sure, it’s hard to think of a baseball reason to trade an injured player two days into the season after tendering them a contract in the offseason. Payroll went down $2,250,538 as a result, and the jettisoning of another starter is what represents the other biggest change in this section. Martín Pérez is technically counting as a $2,623,656 decrease here, but that’s only because of how I break the changes down into sections. Given that the team sent half of Pérez’s remaining salary with him, the total hit to the bottom line was actually a $1,311,828 drop.

As always, moves are made to replace players who are traded, injured, or demoted—with Joey Bart ($745,161), Kyle Nicolas ($626,734), Dennis Santana ($591,398), Nick Gonzales ($572,769), and Paul Skenes ($564,946) accounting for the largest increases—but those offsets just couldn’t keep pace with the amount of salary that was traded.

Major League Salary Starting Total: $94,792,043

Major League Salary Final Total: $93,640,926

Minor League Salary: As far as minor league salaries go, there was quite an increase here (60%), mostly due to players with higher minor league splits being demoted for a significant amount of time. Edward Olivares (who was being paid at his major league rate of $1.35 million [$239,516]), Ji Hwan Bae ($198,790), and Jason Delay ($187,704) were the largest changes, while the trade of Colin Selby ($119,639) and promotion of Nicolas ($101,797) were the biggest offsetting changes.

Minor League Salary Starting Total: $1,198,610

Minor League Salary Final Total: $1,923,180

Outright Assignments: Before the season started, the Pirates outrighted Canaan Smith-Njigba, Ali Sánchez, and Jackson Wolf after tendering and signing them to contracts, tying them at least to their minor league salaries; however, none of the players ended the season with the team.

Smith-Njigba was released ($72,331), Wolf traded ($116,710), and Sánchez elected free agency ($115,143), lowering the payroll in the process—even though Smith-Njigba’s balance just moved to the termination pay section.

Ten other players were outrighted throughout the season, with Olivares and his arbitration salary representing the largest portion of the increase ($362,903).

Outright Assignments Starting Total: $394,291

Outright Assignments Final Total: $812,434

Signing Bonuses: The calculation reported to the Labor Relations Department (LRD)—the payroll being calculated here—prorates signing bonuses over the guaranteed years of a long-term contract, so both Bryan Reynolds and Mitch Keller will be living here for the foreseeable future.

Signing Bonuses Starting Total: $661,500

Signing Bonuses Final Total: $661,500

Performance Bonuses: As of right now, there are only two players as part of the equation here. Reynolds earned an extra $50,000 for representing the Pirates in the All-Star Game, while Domingo Germán was paid $45,000 after being on the active roster for seven days.

There are still awards to be given, so while it’s unlikely, in theory, this could still go up if the right player won an award—Reynolds and a silver slugger, for example.

Performance Bonuses Starting Total: $0

Performance Bonuses Final Total: $95,000

Termination Pay: Four players ended up here, with Michael A. Taylor being the largest chunk ($86,022) despite the shortest number of prorated days.

Termination Pay Starting Total: $0

Termination Pay Final Total: $275,976

Cash Considerations: Marco Gonzales was obviously pulling the majority of the weight here, but four other trades were accounted for throughout the season.

Roansy Contreras and José Hernández both lowered payroll by $100,000—the most that can change hands in a trade that isn’t covering actual player salary—while the Blue Jays paid Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s salary down to the minimum, sending $2,216,989 the Pirates’ way, with the $1,311,828 going to the Padres for Pérez offsetting that. Remember, as I covered at the deadline, the amount for Kiner-Falefa is treated differently between LRD and Competitive Balance Tax (CBT), meaning a portion will still hit CBT in 2025 but not LRD.

Also, because no player ever ended up trading hands, the Pirates sent $100,000 back to Atlanta for Gonzales, meaning he netted out to $9,150,000 in cash transactions on the season.

Cash Considerations Starting Total: $(9,350,000)

Cash Considerations Final Total: $(10,355,161)

Assignment Bonuses: No changes here, as the $250,000 paid to Atlanta for Gonzales was the only bonus paid.

Credits Starting Total: $250,000

Credits Final Total: $250,000

2024 Opening Day Payroll: $87,946,444

Final 2024 Payroll: $87,303,855

As usual, for the record, I have the Collective Balance Tax figure at $122,900,526, which includes an estimated $17 plus million in benefits and $1,666,667 for the Pirates’ share of the pre-arbitration bonus pool. An almost $10 million difference between actual salary and average annual value for Mitch Keller is a big part of the difference here. It also includes a $14,285,714 figure for Reynolds’ contract extension—against a $10 million salary—which is $100 million divided by seven years, not $106.75 million by eight, as was originally reported. Last season’s final reported numbers made it clear that 2023 was not tied into the extension, despite reports to the contrary. As far as the official payroll tracking is concerned, it’s $100 million over seven years, despite all the confusion.

This is what I’ll use for comparison’s sake when the official figures are (hopefully) reported around December. If and when that happens, I’ll probably write something comparing my total to the official calculation, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

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