Okay, so the other day I got curious, like really curious, about who pulls down the biggest paycheck among baseball GMs. You hear about player salaries all the time, right? But the guys making the deals? Not so much.
My Process Figuring This Out
First thing I did, naturally, was just start searching online. Typed in stuff like “highest paid baseball general manager” and “MLB GM salaries”. Simple stuff.
Right away, I noticed something tricky. It’s not like player contracts where the numbers often get reported, sometimes right down to the dollar. GM deals? They’re usually kept way more private. Teams just don’t announce what they pay their front office folks.
So, finding a definitive, official list? Pretty much impossible. It’s all kind of speculation, based on reports from insiders, baseball writers, people who cover the business side of the game. You gotta piece it together.
What I Found (or Didn’t Find Easily)
A few names kept popping up everywhere I looked. These guys are consistently mentioned as being at the top of the pay scale:
- Andrew Friedman with the Dodgers. This name was everywhere. Seems like he’s widely considered the top earner.
- Brian Cashman of the Yankees. Long tenure, big market team, makes sense he’d be up there.
- Theo Epstein came up a lot too, from his time with the Cubs and Red Sox. Though he’s not a team GM right now, his past contracts were huge.
Another thing I realized is the title “General Manager” isn’t always the top baseball operations job anymore. Lots of teams have a “President of Baseball Operations” who might actually be the highest-paid executive, overseeing the GM. Friedman, for example, has that President title.
So, pinpointing the single highest paid GM specifically is tough because:
- Contracts are private.
- The top job might be President of Baseball Ops, not GM.
- Salaries change with new contracts.
My Best Guess Based on the Digging
After reading a bunch of articles and reports, the consensus seems pretty strong that Andrew Friedman is the guy. While nobody seems to have the exact number confirmed publicly, the figures thrown around are often in the range of $10 million per year, maybe even more with bonuses. He runs the Dodgers, a team with a massive payroll that consistently wins, so it fits that they’d pay top dollar to keep him.
It was kind of frustrating not finding a clear-cut answer easily, you know? But that’s how it is sometimes. You dig around, see what the reliable sources are hinting at, and put together the most likely picture. For now, my money’s on Friedman being the top dog in terms of salary.
