Yankees Are in First Place on Salary List : Champion Royals Rank 16th; Average Major Leaguer Got 12.6% Raise

The New York Yankees, pennant contenders until the waning days of last season, were baseball’s best-paid players in 1985, while the World Series champion Kansas City Royals were in the lower half of the major league salary structure.

A list of average salaries compiled by the Major League Players Assn., a copy of which was made available Wednesday, showed that the Yankees made a mean salary of $546,364 each in 1985.

The executive board of the players’ union currently is holding meetings in the resort center of Kaanapali on the island of Maui.

The Yankees, who also had the highest salary structure of the 26 major league teams in 1984, showed an average gain of $87,820, or 19.2%, per player over the past year.

They finished second in the American League East behind the division champion Toronto Blue Jays, who ranked 15th in earnings last year at $385,995 each.

One notch below the Blue Jays were the Royals, who beat St. Louis in the World Series. Kansas City players received an average of $368,469 in salary last season.

At the bottom of the current list were the Seattle Mariners, with an average salary of $169,694. Seattle finished sixth in the AL West last season.

The Atlanta Braves, who averaged $540,988 in salary last season to rank second on the list, wound up fifth in the National League West, won by the Los Angeles Dodgers (sixth on the list at $424,273 a player).

The Braves, who ranked fifth on the salaries list in 1984, had a jump of $138,299 each.

The Baltimore Orioles made the biggest move up the ladder, going from 12th in 1984 ($360,204 average) to No. 3 ($438,256 average) in 1985.

The biggest drop was by the Chicago White Sox, falling $98,793 in average salary, from 1984 to 1985, to go from second to 19th on the list.

On the whole, the average major leaguer got a 12.6% raise last year, with the average earnings growing from $329,408 to $371,157.

By comparison, the average player salary in 1967 was $19,000.

The initial basic agreement between the owners and the players’ union was negotiated the following year, and, although no average figures are available for that year, the average salary in 1969 was $24,909.

Boosted by bidding for free agents, the salaries grew constantly over the intervening years.

The minimum salary, meanwhile, increased tenfold, from $6,000 in 1967 to $60,000 in 1985.

The highest-paid players currently are, predictably, those with the longest time on the job. Of those who have played in the majors at least 15 years, the average salary in 1985 was $673,825.