The tax bill is due for the Boston Red Sox, penalizing them for owning the highest payroll in Major League Baseball in 2019.
According to the Associated Press, the Red Sox owe a record $13.4 million in luxury tax payments for exceeding the threshold for the second consecutive year with a payroll of $228 million.
As Alex Speier of The Boston Globe points out, this figure doesn’t seem to factor in the nearly $15 million in benefits that count for tax purposes. That would put the Red Sox 2019 payroll at around $243.6 million.
I’d heard Red Sox were around $243.