Predicting Dodgers payroll if Juan Soto teams up with Shohei Ohtani next offseason

Major League Baseball is taking a brief respite from the grueling season for All-Star festivities at Globe Life Field in Arlington.

With many of the season's top players gathered at one location, reporters took the opportunity to ask All-Star players about which MLB player they'd most like to play with on the same team. New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge named Baltimore Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson, who is Judge's biggest competition for the American League MVP this season.

Meanwhile, Yankees slugger Juan Soto immediately named Shohei Ohtani. Soto is set to hit the open market in free agency after the 2024 season, and he could be open to trading in the pinstripes for Dodger blue. While Los Angeles would welcome Soto with open arms, would the Dodgers be willing — or able — to pay him?

How high would the Dodgers payroll be with Juan Soto?

Adding Soto to a star-studded roster that already features Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Tyler Glasnow would create a nearly unstoppable hexad for the Dodgers, but the financial load would be significant. Those five Dodgers players have salaries that total $150.7 million annually for competitive balance tax purposes, according to SBNation's Eric Stephen.

The Dodgers have a $321.5 million payroll in 2024 and they are currently slated to lead the majors in payroll with an estimated $242.3 million already on the books without options in 2025. With Soto, their payroll would rise closer to $300 million in 2025.

The luxury tax threshold is $237 million in 2024, $241 million in 2025, and $244 million in 2026. The Dodgers have paid a combined $84.5 million in competitive balance taxes over the past three seasons. In 2024, the club is approximately $93.1 million over the luxury tax threshold.

ESPN polled 28 MLB executives, agents, and insiders to get a rough estimate of the contract that Soto could demand in the upcoming offseason. After removing outliers, the answered averaged out to 12.4 years with $498.4 million — an average annual value of $40.4 million. That figure on the payroll can be lowered for competitive balance tax purposes. For example, Shohei Ohtani's monster $70 million per year deal only counts for roughly $46 million per year for the CBT payroll due to deferred payments.

Judge, Ohtani, and Soto have taken turns becoming the premier free agent every year since 2022, and all three All-Stars have dominated in the final year of their contracts. Judge earned his deal by hitting 62 home runs in 2022 and Ohtani dazzled as a two-way star in 2023.

Now it's Soto's turn to step up to the plate, and he could be playing himself into one of the largest contracts in MLB history. In his first season with the Yankees, Soto is slashing .295/.426/.558 with a .985 OPS, 23 home runs, and 66 RBIs in 94 games. The 25-year-old currently leads the majors with 79 walks.