MLB playoff shares announced; Royals’ full share worth $230K per player

The Royals’ reward for winning the American League pennant now has a dollar amount: $14,866,350.85.

That’s the size of the Royals postseason players’ pool, which was announced Monday by Major League Baseball. The players voted to split the playoff pot into 54 full shares worth $230,699.73 each, plus 9.77 partial shares and 25 cash rewards.

The World Series champion San Francisco Giants, who prevailed in seven games over the Royals, got $22,329,526.27. The Giants issued 47 full shares worth $388,605.94 each, plus 9.65 partial shares and 17 cash rewards.

The players’ pools for the NL and AL runners-up, the St. Louis Cardinals and Baltimore Orioles, were worth $7,443,175.42. The Division Series losers, the Nationals, Dodgers, Angels and Tigers, got $2,015,860.01.

Had the Royals not rallied from a 7-4 deficit against Oakland in the eighth inning of the AL Wild Card Game —which they won 9-8 in 12 innings, the first of eight straight victories to start the postseason — they would have received $930,396.93. That was the share for the wild-card losing Pittsburgh Pirates and A’s, who voted for 53 full shares worth $15,266.43 each.

▪ The Royals on Monday secured outright waivers on infielder Jayson Nix, who elected free-agency instead of an assignment to Class AAA Omaha. Nix, 32, appeared in three postseason games for the Royals, going zero for three with three strikeouts. He was acquired by the Royals off waivers from Pittsburgh on Aug. 28.

▪ Free-agent outfielder Josh Willingham, who made the playoffs for the first time in his career with the Royals this fall, retired Monday after 11 major-league seasons. Willingham, 35, hit .215 with 14 homers and 40 RBIs in 364 plate appearances this year with Minnesota and the Royals.

“I felt like it wouldn’t be fair to myself, and more importantly to the team that was paying me a lot of money to perform at a high level, if there was a chance my dedication would waver,” Willingham told ESPN.com, which first reported his decision. “I’m honored to have played for as many years as I have, and I feel even luckier to walk away on my own terms instead of having the decision made for me.”

This story was originally published November 24, 2014 at 12:20 PM with the headline "MLB playoff shares announced; Royals’ full share worth $230K per player."