A look at the Phillies’ 2022 final payroll numbers

The Phillies ran the fourth-highest salary payroll in baseball in 2022 at $238,496,394, according to a report from the Associated Press’ Ronald Blum.

Only the Mets, Dodgers and Yankees had a higher salary payroll than Philadelphia. The $238.4 million figure represents the salaries paid out to players over the course of the season and not the final luxury tax payroll number, which uses a contract’s average annual value to determine whether or not a club is over or below that year’s luxury tax threshold.

The Phillies, according to Blum, owe $2.9 million in luxury tax penalties for exceeding the $230 million threshold in 2022. The bill is due Friday. Using that number, it’s presumed that the Phillies’ final 2022 luxury tax payroll number is around $244.5 million.

A little less than $3 million is a small price to pay for a pennant run, especially considering the Phillies broke the 24-hour League Championship merchandise sales records following their National League pennant-clinching win against the Padres.

The more costly penalty associated with exceeding the luxury tax comes in the form of draft picks and international bonus pool money lost for signing a qualified free agent. For example, the Phillies will forfeit their second and fifth-round picks in next year’s draft as well as $1 million in international bonus pool money for signing Trea Turner. If they weren’t over the tax, they would only have to forfeit their second-round pick and $500,000 in bonus pool money.

Of course, that’s the cost of doing business and those penalties did not (and should not) prevent the Phillies from acquiring someone of Turner’s caliber. The penalties did hurt them when they were in the market for another starting pitcher.

Signing a second qualified free agent this offseason would have cost them their third and sixth-round picks in the 2023 draft on top of the two selections they already lost. The penalty essentially took them out of the market for qualified starting pitching free agents such as Chris Bassitt and Nathan Eovaldi.

The Phillies signed Taijuan Walker, who did not receive a qualifying offer, to a four-year, $72 million contract.

As far as 2023 is concerned, the Phillies’ luxury tax payroll is currently around $250 million. They are well over this year’s $233 million threshold and are likely to go over the $253 million second tax tier.

Since the Phillies are two-time offenders, they will be taxed at 30% in 2023 for all overages up to the second threshold of $253 million. If the Phillies exceed that second threshold, they will be taxed at 42% on overages between $253 and $273 million.

Here’s an informative chart from Jon Becker of FanGraphs Roster Resource comparing all 30 club’s 2023 projected and 2022 salary payrolls:

Now that official 2022 payrolls are in, let's look at how 2023 payrolls compare. Note:

•This is "real" payroll, not luxury tax
•All pre-arb players are counted as the league min. ($720K) right now
•Arbitration cases are counted as the midpoint between the two filing numbers pic.twitter.com/zQjBX1l3Wz

— Jon Becker (@jonbecker_) January 19, 2023

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