Full details of Dodgers' most recent deferred payments have been revealed

Deferred payments are not a new thing in baseball, but the Dodgers have taken things to a different level. It sort of started with Mookie Betts and then Freddie Freeman, but it didn't really draw eyes until Shohei Ohtani put off over 97% of his $700 million deal so that the Dodgers would be able to afford to build around him over the next 10 seasons.

And they have. Five Dodgers signed after Ohtani, either to new deals or extensions, have agreed to defer some of their money. Tommy Edman did it on his five-year, $74 million extension, Will Smith on his 10-year, $140 million extension, and Teoscar Hernández, Tanner Scott, and Blake Snell on new deals to join or re-join the Dodgers.

It was a lot to keep track of over the offseason, when the Dodgers just kept adding players on huge deals at such a fast clip, but the Associated Press broke things down nicely. LA owes these eight players $1.051 billion in deferred payments from 2028 to 2046, with total payments cresting in 2038 and 2039.

Dodgers now owe $1.051 billion in deferred money to eight different players

When the money owed really started to pile up, there was some talk about what those 2038-2039 Dodgers were going to look like when they'd also have to contend with paying players who might not even be on the roster or even in the game anymore. However, Andrew Friedman said, "We’re not going to wake up in 2035 and (say): ‘Oh my God, that’s right. We have this money due.’ We’ll plan for it along the way."

And the Dodgers have done that. With all of the money they're making off of sponsorships (specifically off of Japanese sponsorships, more of which are bound to come in after Roki Sasaki's signing), they've already started to stockpile money for the future. The supposed $120 million they made last year already pays for just under two years of Ohtani's deferred money.

Anyone still complaining about the deferrals will be disappointed to see that they stick around. MLB already asked the players' union if they would consider banning deferrals back in 2021, which was met with a flat 'no.' MLBPA executive Tony Clark has also said that the union plans to defend players' rights to sign contracts containing them. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has also said multiple times that he doesn't believe the Dodgers are the problem (which is kind of a double-edged sword, as there's near unanimous dislike for Manfred in baseball).

As things stand, the Dodgers have things sorted out. $1.051 billion is a mind-boggling number, but there's no way multibillionaire owner/businessman owner Mark Walter is going to let them mismanage this.