Dodgers Owe More Than $1B in Deferred Payments After Edwin Diaz Contract, Full List

The Los Angeles Dodgers continue to accrue deferred money, and the figure is staggering.

According to ESPN, "The Dodgers are now on the hook for $1,064,500,000 through 2047, owed to Edwin Díaz, Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Blake Snell, Freddie Freeman, Will Smith, Tommy Edman, Tanner Scott and Teoscar Hernández."

The Dodgers signed Díaz to a three-year, $69 million deal this winter, with deferred payments between 2036-47.

Per that report, Díaz will receive a base salary of $14 million in 2026 and a $9 million signing bonus. He will then have base salaries of $23 million in the 2027-28 seasons, though the Dodgers will defer $4.5 million in each of the three seasons on the deal.

The Dodgers already have a ridiculous amount of deferred money owed to Ohtani ($680 million between 2034-43) and Betts ($115 million in salary from 2033-44), so Díaz's deferred figures are modest in comparison. And while fans may wonder how the Dodgers will stay afloat when all of those bills come due, reporter Joon Lee posted in October that the Dodgers already recouped the entire $700 million owed to Ohtani in his first season:

The Dodgers are also banking on rising revenues in the years to come, and even if everything were to somehow fall apart, the team has already collected a pair of titles as justification for their massive spending. But given their huge L.A. market and their massive appeal in Japan due to rostering players like Ohtani, Roki Sasaki and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, it's hard to imagine money being an issue in the future.

The bigger question might be whether other MLB teams might try to stop the practice in the labor discussions to come. It's hard to imagine the players taking issue with deferred money, as it opens the door for even larger contracts that reset the free agency market, even if it means less money in the short term. But it's another avenue smaller-market teams can't utilize to compete with the big boys, and at this point, even most of the larger markets are being left behind while the Dodgers keep deferring money into the future.