The Diamondbacks Are Being Generous With Their Postseason Earnings

It's good news for many team employees

Arizona Diamondbacks at the World Series
Alek Thomas of the Arizona Diamondbacks returns to the dugout during Game 5 of the 2023 World Series.
Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images

What happens after a baseball team makes a deep run into the postseason? Turns out there’s an economic component to that as well as a sporting one — and if you’re a club that makes it all the way to the World Series, the pool of earnings that are set to be paid out are pretty vast. Now, if you’re a player making Ketel Marte levels of money in your base salary, that bonus might not represent that much of a step up. If you’re a team employee or someone further down in the club’s hierarchy, though, getting an extra six figures could go a long way.

And, as The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reports, the Arizona Diamondbacks voted to disburse their postseason winnings in 71 shares, each with a value of $313,634. Rosenthal notes that members of the support staff will get “at least a portion of a postseason share” this year. The pool of postseason winnings that MLB teams had to split up was vast this year — almost $108 million.

The distribution of shares is something that varies dramatically from team to team, and has evolved over time. “My take is guys are a lot more generous with their shares today than they used to be,” Andy Van Slyke, then the coach of the Seattle Mariners, told ESPN in 2014. “Do you think a postseason share is going to change Robinson Cano’s life? No. It will not change his life in any way, shape or manner.”

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The pool of money that teams have to draw on in the postseason has also increased over time. In 2019, playoff teams had a pool of over $88 million to distribute; this year, it was almost $20 million higher. (Both years set new records.) It’s a striking amount of money — especially when it comes to a team’s employees who do their work off the field.

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