Will MLB Ban Teams From Copying Angels' Salary Dump?

Maren Angus-Coombs | Aug 14, 2024

Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports

The Los Angeles Angels raised a few eyebrows last season when they placed nearly a quarter of their roster on waivers in August.

The maneuver wasn't a good look for owner Arte Moreno, who already has a negative reputation among his team's fan base. From a practical standpoint, Moreno wanted to get his team's payroll under the luxury tax threshold — which he did via the extreme cost-cutting maneuvers.

Now, the precedent has been set for other teams to do something similar.

The Texas Rangers are nearly $14 million above the threshold and outside the playoff picture. The Rangers are 9.5 games back in the American League West and 10 games back of the last AL Wild Card spot. If they choose to follow the Angels' lead, their motivation would be to save on salary.

FanGraphs' Jon Becker thinks the Rangers might try to accomplish the same thing this month: place their high-salaried players on waivers and watch them leave for a rival organization.

"We currently project the Rangers’ CBT payroll to be just under $251 million, or about $14 million over the tax line," writes Becker. "Since the Rangers paid the luxury tax last season, but not in 2022, all overages will incur a 30 percent tax, so that $14 million becomes $18.2 million. Since their CBT payroll is under $257 million, they won’t pay any additional overages, nor will they have their top draft pick moved back 10 spots, as would have been the case if their payroll was at least $287 million."

If players are in an organization before Sept. 1, they are eligible to be on that team's postseason roster. By placing good players on waivers in August, the Rangers can save on salary payouts and luxury taxes while also facilitating their own players' postseason ambitions.

However, if the Rangers go through with this, Major League Baseball will have to seriously consider banning this type of decision-making in the future.

Britt Ghiroli of The Athletic said on the most recent episode of the "Rates and Barrels" podcast that MLB will change the rules and ban what the Angels did.

"I really think MLB is going to change the rules. I don't think it's worth a whole lot of debate," Ghiroli said. "It's going to change."

The league decided not to change the rules coming into this season.

"The issue was discussed at the GM meetings in November, sources told ESPN," according to ESPN's Buster Olney," and it was decided then that more data was needed — at least another season of evidence, to determine whether the Angels' salary dump was precedent for more of the same by other teams, or if the Angels' waiver choices in 2023 were a one-off event.

Another massive dump most likely isn't going to happen again. If the defending World Series champions decide to put a subpar product on the field for the last month of the season simply to save money, MLB has a much bigger problem on its hands.

Following the Angels' lead on personnel decisions doesn't always end well.