There was a running joke in 2013 that Alex Rodriguez had a higher salary than the Astros team payroll. It was correct, Rodriguez’s salary was $28 million that year while the Astros payroll was a little over $22 million via Steve the Ump. The Astros had stripped down the payroll by trading off any major league players as part of the process. GM Jeff Luhnow told fans to be patient as they went through a period of losing. The 2013 team was the last team to lose 100 games.
The 2013 Astros were competing against teams that had $200 million dollar salaries.