Mariners center fielder Julio Rodríguez will receive $1,865,349 from the $50MM bonus pool for pre-arbitration players, the highest of the 2023 recipients, per a report from Ronald Blum of the Associated Press. The AP later released a full list of bonus recipients.
A notable new element of the current collective bargaining agreement is that $50MM is to be taken from central revenues annually and distributed to players that have not yet qualified for arbitration. Certain portions of the money are to be based on awards voting:
- Rookie of the Year: $750K for first place, $500K for second place
- MVP and Cy Young: $2.5MM for first place, $1.75MM for second place, $1.5MM for third place, $1MM for fourth or fifth place
- All-MLB: $1MM for being named “First Team,” $500K for being named “Second Team”
As Blum highlights today, a player is eligible to receive the bonus for one of those achievements per year, earning only the highest amount. Rodríguez finished fourth in American League MVP voting, meaning he got $1MM for that, which accounted for the majority of his payout. After the bonuses, the remainder of the pool is divided on a percentage basis among the top 100 players based on the joint MLB/MLBPA-created version of WAR.
Players are still eligible even if they have signed extensions, as long as they would have been pre-arb without signing such a deal. Rodríguez and the Mariners signed a convoluted extension towards the end of his rookie season in 2022 but he’s only at two years of service time now. Since he would have been pre-arb without that extension, he was able to top this year’s pool.
The following 10 players got more than $1MM:
- Rodríguez: $1,865,349
- Corbin Carroll: $1,812,337
- Adley Rutschman: $1,798,439
- Spencer Strider: $1,692,833
- Justin Steele: $1,673,331
- Kyle Bradish: $1,666,786
- Félix Bautista: $1,467,094
- Gunnar Henderson: $1,428,001
- Jonah Heim: $1,060,306
- Tanner Bibee: $1,016,931
Last year, Dylan Cease got the biggest slice of the 2022 pie, taking home $2,457,426.
I’m a Rangers fan, so it’s nice to see that Jonah Heim got some extra change to add to the World Series money.
Jonah is from where i grew up in western ny..super cool to see someone from there make it in baseball
Buy a hot dog at the game, tell the lady that the profits are for Jonah and wink.
I’m a Mariners fan, and I really really dislike Jonah Heim
(Though I respect him)
The man owns us
Owned the jays to
It’s a fluke
Interesting that Carroll and Rodriguez still get the pre-arb bonuses even though they’ve already signed long term extensions.
That was covered in the post.
It’s based on service time.
This money should instrad be coming out of Ohtani’s and Scherzer’s/Verlander’s salaries. Those greedy players are the only ones whining about pay.
Please do share that link where any of the three were quoted as “whining” about pay, d/K TR. I won’t hold my breath.
Verlander and Scherzer were both on the negotiating team for the players union during the lock out. Look it up yourself, Mr. Blue.
I am willing to bet that you and the majority of the people who call players greedy while ignoring the billionaire owners are of the right.
You understand capitalism is not socialism? Good for you! Capitalism does have a free market for workers/players, but the owners would have to try to make a profit to actually make it capitalism. Capitalism is proven to work. If the Mets’ owner wastes his money on baseball and loses money, that’s no longer an efficient capital market. You are right that most of these guys who think like me are right, while most who disagree are dumb, uneducated, and lazy (“left,” if you prefer). Also, Scherzer was a MLB PA rep, so his job was literally to whine.
google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j…
Pure, laissez-faire capitalism has been shown again and again to be a flawed system that leads to excess and collapse. The S&L crisis happened because Reagan deregulated S&L’s, the 2008 banking/home mortgage crisis grew out of the repeal of Glass-Steagal and a refusal by the US government to regulate derivative securities.. And the efficient, but phenomenally boring baseball of my youth, when only Dodgers or Yankees could win consistently, reflected an under regulated market in Major League Baseball. Favoring billionaire owners, at the expense of millionaire talent, isn’t the sign of a good education. It’s not good business, and it’s not good for baseball.
I see your misguided, skewed point, d/K TR. That link was all about negotiations and nowhere was there a whiff of whining. Scherzer was making points on behalf of the players as a whole, not himself. No mention of Ohtani or Verlander whining about pay in the link. You’d been better off just walking away from your whining comment rather than dig up a link which does nothing to support your weak dishonest post.
@Degrom, Cohen is definitely not losing as much as it appears on the surface. I guarantee he’s factor in a way to write off the added payroll to his advantage and the Organizations strategically plans tax liabilities years in advance.
And despite what you think, pro sports franchises are like stock investments for the uber rich. Any profits taken annually are like dividends. The ultimate pay off is the increase in value in the Franchise itself. Not to mention having an enormous asset to leverage to borrow $ against opposed to taking income elsewhere. Which the interest they are paying is a fraction of what they’d owe in income tax.
Don’t understand the urge you have to try and spin it political. But it’s pretty funny that anyone would refer to the American economy as “Capitalism”. Regardless of political views are which ways policies are leaning at any given time, we are much more of a “Corporate Oligarchy” then a capitalistic society.
For true Capitalism you need an economy with minimum outside influence. And a few government policies or regulations are nothing compared to the special interest groups and pacts formed for Corporate America and the Elite to have massive influence over how government policy and laws are directed. So the notion of “Capitalism” in America is absolutely laughable. As is the notion that any owner of a pro sports franchise is losing $. These franchises aside from gaining massive ROI are an immense tool to manipulate tax and financials for one’s personal benefit.
Ignore deGrom/Kershaw Texas Ranger
They’re literally a horrible human being who spends their life making this place miserable
Shut up with the politics garbage this is baseball. Take that somewhere else
Happy to see Bautista getting a nice paycheck. It’ll help put a nice villa on the mountain while he recovers from the John. Three O’s on the list. Love it.
4 actually: Rutschman, Bradish, Bautista, Henderson
Let’s Go O’s!
Also, farther down the full list:
26 Grayson Rodriguez($284,002)
31 Dean Kremer ($276,862)
I’m a Jays fan myself, but credit where credits due, Baltimore has a scary young team. The division could be theirs for the next half decade or more if they play their cards right.
You missed Yennier Cano at $336k.
Why? The orioles will have to cut someone to maintain their frugal payroll.
False, but if that helps you sleep at night with your engorged failure of a luxury team, say what you want.
You realize, don’t you, that MLB pays the pre arb bonusses, not the teams.
I see they allocated about 700K for Wander Franco. I wonder if he is eligible to get the money in his current situation.
Articles already written about it suggest he does get the money. He did after all play the games and perform at the level required.
Question:
Do they get this money straight up for themselves, taxes aside, or do their agents get their standard cut of these bonuses?
If I had to guess I would say since the agent did not negotiate the bonus or have anything to do with the bonus size then he won’t get his cut
I would imagine it pretty much depends on how their contract with their agent is written out.
I know in some other businesses, any income you receive that involves the job they advise you for they take their cut.
It is crazy, but you have to always read the fine print and know who you are getting into business with before you ever sign over your name.
That’s kind of tricky, although these bonuses are not negotiated the contract that put them on the team and in position to get the bonus was negotiated by the agent. I don’t think they would collect on it, but it would not surprise me.
I like this bonus money that I didn’t knew existed. They probably can do more, but nice anyways.
I remember we had a lockout with this being a point of contention. Score one for the pre-arb guys and one for the minor leaguers.
I like these bonuses to. It helps some of these young players get some $ earlier if they perform very well.
I do think that once a player signs an extension they should be excluded. I’d assume the whole principle behind why these bonuses were created were for the young players who the value of their performance far exceeds their performance as far as baseball economics go.
Is Carroll’s accurate. It seems like it should be higher. He won the NL Rookie of the Year, came in fifth in NL MVP voting and was named to All MLB first team. That alone is $2,750,000
“A player is eligible to receive a bonus for only one award per year, for the highest amount eligible for.”
“…As Blum highlights today, a player is eligible to receive the bonus for one of those achievements per year, earning only the highest amount.”
It’s only the value of the largest award, plus his share of the general pie, not all awards together.
Article covers that. The player gets whatever the largest is, they aren’t cumulative. He’ll get $1MM from the all-mlb first team.
When Elly De La Cruz gets more in half a season than a full season of Spencer Steer, there are definitely some flaws.
With all the Reds on thst list, I am sure Buffalo Bob is going crazy at the extra pay he has to dish out. That got India traded a year later. A trend?
The pay comes from a pool that already exists. Owners don;t have to pay extra out of pocket for these bonuses.
Well, that’s debatable. You think the kid or their agent is going to want to take a pay cut the next year? So the team does end up paying in the long run.
I’m glad Wander Franco got some extra money that he deserved. The Rays are going to “opt out” of his contract now that he provided the cheap value they wanted and his salaries are going up.
I know he’s technically still pre-arb…but I feel like the bonus money was put in place to fill the pockets of guys who are making league minimum or close to it. Julio is guaranteed 9 figures. Not that he doesn’t deserve the bonus but…
It’s still functioning correctly. Julio’s earnings are still capped because of the team control factor. This just gives him a little more on top. Neither team nor players want to exclude extension signees from the list.
This line is inaccurate:
> Rodríguez finished fourth in American League MVP voting, meaning he got $1MM for that, which accounted for the majority of his payout.
The $1MM is in addition to the amount on the list (so he’s getting a total bonus payout of $2.87MM). The AP article makes this clear.
The second AP article, that is. The list is only of the money from the leftover amount.
How did Triston Casas (.264 24HR 65RBI 2.2 WAR) not get any kaching? 22 YO rookie should certainly be pre-arb.
Not sure what WAR model they used, but that most likely left him off the top 100 list. For reference Anthony Volpe was at the bottom of the list and had 1.9 Fangraphs WAR, 3.3 BBRef WAR, versus Casas’ 1.7 Fangraphs and 2.2 BBRef.
WAR, what is it good for? Absolutely………. a couple hundred thousand dollars. At least.
Oooooh!!
No Bobby Witt Jr.?
@kcmark
Bobby Witt jnr is 11th on the list, and got 800K+.
Pleased that two A’s guys are on the list too. They’ll be able to afford to eat this off season…
Seven of Detroit Tigers got a piece of this pie, congrats to each of them.
None of the names on the list are top 10 baby names from 1940.
But how much money can the M’s save if they trade Julio now? They shouldn’t miss out on this opportunity field an entire MLB roster with rookie ball salaries.
Note how d/g TR leaps to Wander Franco’s defense. Despicable.
This has been the worst off-season in Cleveland history.
“No Hope.”
– Mel Brooks