Consult one of those MLB payroll charts from 2018 and you’ll see the Tigers variously listed anywhere from 17th (spotrac.com, $131 million) to 20th (USA Today and statista.com, $111 million).
The figure, though, is closer to spotrac’s figures, acknowledged a Tigers source close to the payroll picture who asked not to be identified because such information, for any big-league ballclub, is regarded as private.
But whether 17th or 20th, the Tigers’ perch is alarmingly high for a team that finished with baseball’s fifth-worst record in 2018.
By the time next year’s raises and free-agent adds are computed, the Tigers still figure to finish somewhere in the range of 15th to 18th among big-league baseball’s 30 clubs, said the Tigers source.