MLB Trade Rumors publishes a glossary for its Payroll Tracker, aiming to demystify baseball’s spending math

Baseball fans have long treated payroll numbers as a headline statistic, but the inputs and definitions behind those figures are often buried in spreadsheets and arbitration-era accounting. On Aug. 28, MLB Trade Rumors published a “Payroll Tracker Glossary” tied to its Front Office Subscribers feature, launched earlier in the year, authored by Ethan Hullihen. The goal is straightforward: help readers understand what the payroll tracker is measuring and how the work is done to translate team spending into a consistent, comparable view across the league.

Hullihen’s glossary is framed as a practical guide to the economic landscape of MLB and the mechanics that go into the tracker itself. While the site has previously covered the idea of payroll as a tool for understanding competitive balance, this publication focuses less on negotiations or rumors and more on definitions, terms, and calculation choices. The writing positions the glossary as a companion for readers who want to go beyond the surface-level “how much is a team paying” question and toward “how is that amount determined”.

A key portion of the entry is devoted to distinctions between terms that frequently appear in baseball finance conversations, including what the glossary references as LRD versus CBT. Hullihen’s approach, according to the post’s framing, is to clarify the meaning of those labels in a way that makes the tracker easier to interpret for someone who is new to the data. That matters because the same payroll-related story can look different depending on which underlying measurement is being used, and readers who do not know the difference can reach the wrong conclusion from the same set of team totals.

The glossary also implicitly addresses a common frustration with payroll discussion: the pace of MLB decision-making is fast, but the public record is fragmented. Teams report information on different timelines, and baseball accounting is full of moving parts, especially when you shift from headline payroll to thresholds and other tax-adjacent frameworks. By laying out a “glossary” format, the tracker aims to give readers a stable reference point for terminology, so later tracker updates can be interpreted consistently.

For Front Office Subscribers, the Payroll Tracker is built to support ongoing monitoring of payroll-related changes, but the public-facing publication of the glossary suggests MLB Trade Rumors is also thinking about onboarding. If the tracker’s value is in long-term comparisons, then definitions are part of the product. This is less about any single offseason or trade window and more about building a shared vocabulary for how baseball spending is tracked throughout the year.

At the same time, the post is best read as an educational framework, not as a standalone dataset. A glossary does not replace direct reporting from the league, and it does not by itself confirm what any specific team is doing at any moment. Readers should treat the glossary as context for interpreting the tracker rather than as evidence of transactions, roster moves, or financial outcomes for particular clubs.

What to watch next is whether MLB Trade Rumors continues expanding the tracker’s educational materials and how subscribers use the glossary when comparing teams over time. As payroll-related debates continue to shape offseason strategy, a clearer definition layer can change the tenor of those conversations, turning “who looks like they’re spending” into “what measurement are we using, and what does it actually capture.”