Question

In a recent year a baseball team paid six times as much to their ace pitcher as they paid to their shortstop. If they paid $56 million for the two salaries, what did they pay each player

What was the pitcher's salary? S
(millions of dollars)
What was the shortstop's salary?
(millions of dollars)
​

Answer 1

• pitcher: $48 million
• shortstop: $8 million

Explanation:

The ratio of salaries can be written as ...

short : pitcher = 1 : 6

Then the fraction of the total that the shortstop received is ...

short : total = 1 : (1+6) = 1 : 7

The shortstop's salary was (1/7)×($56 million) = $8 million.

The pitcher's salary was 6 times that, so 6×($8 million) = $48 million.

The pitcher's salary was $48 million; the shortstop's, $8 million.