Following the 2016 season, Detroit Tigers general manager Al Avila made it known he would be cutting payroll substantially moving forward. Other than trading Cameron Maybin, which many would love to do over, the Tigers look about the same as they did last season and will be above the luxury-tax mark for the second consecutive season.
On Thursday, Avila spoke at a Detroit Sports Broadcasters Association event and he made it known that the Tigers would not be above the luxury-tax mark again in 2018.
”Everybody knows what our payroll is. It’s over 200 million dollars. This will be the second year that we go over the luxury tax,” Avila said. ”We certainly are not going to go over the luxury tax a third year, because the penalties are just too severe – not to mention paying the actual luxury tax in actual cash dollars. It will just keep on going up. We’re going to obviously avoid that.”
The luxury-tax threshold is $195 million for 2017 and $197 million for 2018. A team that is over the boundary for a third consecutive season would owe a 50 percent tax on the amount exceeding the threshold – not including any possible surtaxes that could kick in.
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Source: Tigers GM vows team won’t be above luxury-tax mark for 2018 | theScore.com
