Pirates ace Paul Skenes topped the 2025 pre-arbitration bonus pool, taking home just over $3.4MM, per the Associated Press. He was followed by Cristopher Sánchez of the Phillies at $2.7MM and Hunter Brown of the Astros at $2.2MM.
The 2022-26 collective bargaining agreement introduced the pre-arb bonus pool as a way for younger players to get paid earlier in their careers. Every team pays roughly $1.67MM into the pool, which adds up to a $50MM total. That money is then dispersed to pre-arb players, even if they have signed an early-career extension. In many cases, the pool is a greater source of income than a player’s salary. The league minimum was $760K in 2025 and many pre-arb players would have played the season getting paid something close to that.
The payouts are initially determined based on awards voting. Winning MVP or Cy Young nets a player $2.5MM. Finishing second place leads to $1.75MM, with $1.5MM for third place and $1MM for fourth or fifth place. Winning Rookie of the Year translates to $750K with runners-up getting $500K. Players get $1MM for being named first-team All-MLB and $500K for second-team.
Players cannot double up on those awards-based tallies. They will receive the highest of those numbers they earn. Skenes won the National League Cy Young Award, so that accounted for $2.5MM of his total payout. He was also named first-team All-MLB but did not get an extra $1MM for that.
The remainder of the pool is then paid out to the top 100 qualified players based on a Wins Above Replacement formula that has been agreed to by Major League Baseball and the Major League Players Association.
Right-hander Dylan Cease, then with the White Sox, topped the pool in its inaugural year. Mariners outfielder Julio Rodríguez came out on top in 2023, followed by Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. in 2024. The Associated Press link above has details on the payouts for every player who qualified, so curious readers are encouraged to click that link for the full info. Here are the ten players who received at least $1MM:
- Skenes: $3,436,343
- Sánchez: $2,678,437
- Brown: $2,206,538
- Bryan Woo: $1,540,676
- Corbin Carroll: $1,341,674
- Nick Kurtz: $1,297,017
- Pete Crow-Armstrong: $1,206,207
- Drake Baldwin: $1,175,583
- Brice Turang: $1,155,884
- Junior Caminero: $1,068,739
Photo courtesy of Charles LeClaire, Imagn Images
Skenes is worth every penny
3.4 m is an absolute bargain.
@Acoss1331
3.4M for the best pitcher in baseball? I wonder what lesser skilled pitchers are getting…? 🙂
Per FanGraphs, Skenes provided $52 million in value this year.
Yep. Anthony was brought up too late for the big money but signed long term and got even bigger money…
I thought Sanchez was extended previously?
Doesn’t matter. Anyone whose service time would have them in their pre-arbitration years is eligible for these payouts.
Pirates pay in $1.67M, Skenes gets $3.4M. Leave it to the Pirates to find the best pre-arb player in baseball so Nutting can find another avenue to soak the system
that can be said about every better pre arbitration players, not just Skenes and the other players’
respective teams
Are you a relative to Bob Nutting? You have this crazy obsession for the guy. It doesn’t matter what it is, the negative energy you bring to any post, is suffocating. I have yet to see a comment posted from you that didn’t have “Nutting” and negative vibes. You must be the life of the party on all social get togethers.
But to your opinion, arb numbers and Skenes rookie scale contract, are within the CBA. He’s still getting paid more than any other sophomore in league, and by a large margin. Don’t worry, he will get what he is worth after his rookie contract expires in 3 years. He will get a record and ground shattering contract. None of this is within Nuttings control. Cleveland, Minnesota, Baltimore, Tampa Bay, and other smaller markets could never give Skenes the contract he will get in 2029. Only large markets will be able to absorb Skenes financial commitments. It’s not of Nuttings fault, but the economics of the sport. Rich will buy the best, the middle class will develop the best, and lower will cherish whatever small window they have with a superstar of Skenes caliber.
I am not a huge fan of Nutting and believe he does the bare minimum to improve the club. But unlike you, I don’t need to make everything Nuttings fault. Somethings are out of his control
Low-effort doomers are going to find every reason to spread their doom. Every fanbase has them here. When they’re wrong, way more often than not, they ignore the replies. When they’re right, they’ll endlessly gloat about it and tell the internet how smart they are.
while i agree with what you are saying in general.
It is still 100% in nuttings control as he can offer to buyout his arbitration years or offer him more. While it is not the norm it is in his power to give him more money and potentially buyout a free agent year. He just chooses not to because he doesnt have to. They just traded away an example of this in his own house in Kebryan Hayes or you can look at Strider from Atlanta if you want to look at only pitchers.
Extending him, that is a very tall order for an organization like the Pirates. He’s already ROY and CY Young winner in 2 years in the league. That gives Boras plenty of cards in his favour to get Skenes 500-750 million dollar contract. Length could be between 8-12 years. Even at a low end of 500mill/8 years, average 62.5 million per year. There is not a single small market team that will be agreeable to that. Skenes market value is phenomenal and will break Cole, Verlander, Strasberg, Kershaw, and even Ohtani (granted he is a 2 way player) respected contracts.
Pirates have no choice to ride this out for 2-3 years before the decision to trade him. I see a zero chance of an extension with Pittsburgh. It’s a shame, but money is not in Pittsburgh for that type of contract. Skenes is a once in a lifetime Ace, multiple CY Young, potential MVP, and quite possibly World Series champion at some point.
He will set a record next year during his first arbitration.
Seriously, if any fan base deserves an “I’ll just shut up and sign the checks” owner, it’s Pittsburgh.
MLB rookie scale contracts 🤡
Hey the Giants have a couple guys on the list! One of em had TJS and will miss the entire season! But still!
I womder how many arbitration years the pirates are going to be able to stomach. Surely he’ll be setting some records there too
The answer is one
Just offer up a haul of Schlittler, Rice, Dominguez and Hernandez-Cruz plus another pitching prospect and get it done!
For who, Skenes? If so, keep your pitching prospects. Just pony up your top farm player at each position. That should do.
(Yeah. I’m joking )
That Yankees offer is not nearly enough.
The underpayment of young stars is one of the truly market-distorting aspects of this CBA since forever. The bonus pool is the right step
The dead money spent on washed up guys is also market-distorting b/c only a few deep pocket major market clubs can outspend the mistakes when costly guys are on the IL a lot or bad.
The expanded playoffs makes the strategy better to try to string together a few wildcards/reset to bad/repeat (although Central teams with lower revenues can avoid resets with lack of divisional big spenders if FO is somewhat competent-unlike a Rays or Marlins situation).
In other words, the expanded playoffs discourage teams from trying too hard, i. e., spending to win. This is what the owners want.
To a degree yes. It allows MLB to please corporate/TV sponsors by making it difficult for the large market teams to not at least make the playoffs most years with constant/much greater spending advantages. NYY never been sub .500 since early ’90s while its other pro sport franchises are often irrelevant/haven’t won a championship in decades w/o that advantage!
Gee, wonder why.
LAD just lethal combo of great FO laughing as they can exploit it, rest its highly paid pitchers/players as status quo for various points to be ready for October.
Other teams get the leftover spots and some get revenue kickbacks. There shouldn’t be a labor stoppage. Some teams can spend crazy, smaller areas eternally frugal for justified reasons and bunch in middle take turns finding a so called playoff window or being bad.
gbs42
the expanded playoffs discourage teams from trying too hard
======================
Maybe a couple of top-tier teams will cut back, but many more of the .500 teams will spend a few more dollars to make the playoffs.
Older free agents sign for what they can get, and if they are high performing one of the things they can get is contract length. Sometimes it’s just a way of spreading out total compensation.. The only way to rein that it is to create a buyout on extant contracts at some discount, or something like the Red Sox “Lackey” clause.
A pay for performance model is the right step. Unfortunately you can’t do that for all of them yet.
I would trade the 4 top Mets prospects for Skenes. Who say no???”
Pirates
Can someone tell the village doofus “This one belongs to the Reds” that American pro sports operates on mutually-agreed contracts and that no owner or league has the right to install performance quotas?
The big man muted me so in case anyone’s willing to do it, it’d be appreciated.
Crazy by the time Skenes gets his first arbitration salary, baseball will have paid him about $27M. That’s gotta be an above and beyond record thanks to the Cy Young/pre-arbitration bonus pool stuff. Heck, if he’d have made $0 for his draft signing bonus, he’d still be at about $18M- again, gotta be a pre-arbitration record beyond anything else in MLB history.
Waooo, I thought 4 top 100 prospects would get it done for sure :(… 1 cf, 1 ss, and 2 sp
I thought Corbin Carroll was already signed for multiple years.