The Thursday Thorns column series tells it like it is, in the fashion and tradition of Howard Cosell. Yes, we know his career ended in progressive shame, although for close to two decades he was the premier sports journalist in print, on radio, and everywhere on television. Today, in Cosell style, we’re here to bare the honest truth about MLB payroll and its impact upon the standings, midway through the 2025 MLB season.

Most teams have played around 80 games of the 162-game gauntlet, and we’re going to look at every playoff-berth contending team (i.e., any team winning more than losing, basically)—and align it all with their present-day payroll numbers, supplied by Spotrac. We have shown the correlations before, but they always need updates, and so that’s our task today. Some teams are a surprise; others definitely are not.

American League

No. 1 seed: Detroit Tigers—$145M (18th highest payroll)
No. 2 seed: Houston Astros—$221M (6th)
No. 3 seed: New York Yankees—$289M (3rd)
No. 4 seed: Tampa Bay Rays—$88M (27th)
No. 5 seed: Toronto Blue Jays—$245M (5th)
No. 6 seed: Seattle Mariners—$148M (16th)

We see some of the usual suspects here lined up for the playoffs, and we also see one of the more efficient franchises competing. The one surprise is the Tigers, of course, with a lower-half payroll playing in the 14th-biggest television market. Remember, every Top 10 TV market has a had a World Series winner since 2018, and oddly, the Tampa/St. Petersburg/Sarasota market is the 11th-largest audience in the country.

That’s right: the Rays are that close to playing in a Top 10 market. No wonder the league doesn’t want to move that team. But we digress … next up in the queue for a playoff spot are Cleveland ($100M, 25th) and Los Angeles ($195M, 11th). No other AL teams are over .500 right now, so we won’t discuss them as postseason contenders until they can prove they can earn a spot. Money talks here, more often than not.

National League

No. 1 seed: Los Angeles Dodgers—$338M, 1st
No. 2 seed: Chicago Cubs—$193M, 12th
No. 3 seed: Philadelphia Phillies—$280M, 4th
No. 4 seed: New York Mets—$325M, 2nd
No. 5 seed: Milwaukee Brewers—$105M, 24th
No. 6 seed: San Diego Padres—$209M, 9th

Other on the cusp include San Francisco ($195M, 10th), St. Louis ($136M, 19th), Cincinnati ($117M, 22nd), and Arizona ($187M, 14th). The Brewers stand out here in the current standings, while the Cardinals and the Reds are showing themselves to be crafty competitors. But yes, three of the top-four spenders in MLB reside in the senior circuit, and those teams are getting their money’s worth so far in this 2025 season.

For the record, Texas ($219M, 7th) and Atlanta ($210M, 8th) are the only two Top 10 teams right now playing sub-.500 baseball, and both are capable of turning it around late season and making a push for October; each team has won the World Series recently, of course. Generally, though, as you can see, it pays off to spend a lot of money, as it’s the best way to gain entry into the four-round postseason playoff tournament.