The Number: New York Yankees Payroll: The New Yorker Spring training has arrived, and for the first time since 1998, a team other than the New York Yankees will have the highest payroll in Major League Baseball - the Los Angeles Dodgers, at $217,200,000. The Yankees, meanwhile, are projected to spend a mere $210,600,000 on this year's squad. For comparison, the Houston Astros will spend just $15,100,000, about half of what the Yankees are paying Alex Rodriguez, who will spend the year recovering from an injury and dealing with lawyers. The last team to outspend the Yankees in a single season was the Baltimore Orioles, who did so in 1998. In the intervening years, several teams have earned silver medals in spending: the Dodgers, the Boston Red Sox, the New York Mets, the Detroit Tigers, and the Philadelphia Phillies. Overall, during that stretch, New York outspent the cumulative sum of each year's second-highest-payroll team by $595,360,493. The Yankees are actually spending more than they did in 2012; they simply got surpassed by the Dodgers" historically lavish previous year. Last summer, they made several expensive blockbuster trades; then, during the offseason, they tacked on even more salary with a massive contract for pitcher Zack Greinke. All told, their 2013 payroll will be fifty million dollars more than last season, enabled in part by a new seven-to-eight billion dollar television deal with Time Warner Cable. Will the Dodgers" investment pay off? Spending certainly worked for the Yankees. In that thirteen year period, New York won a hundred and eighty-five more games than the second-highest spenders, made the World Series five times, and won it once. Source: baseball-reference.com All figures adjusted to 2012 dollars.