When will the first billion-dollar contract be signed in MLB?
The $765 million dollars that the Mets will pay Juan Soto is the largest contract in MLB history. How long will it take for a player to sign for a billion dollars?
The $765 million dollars that they will pay you New York Mets to Juan Soto They mean more than triple the amount of what he received Alex Rodriguez in 2001 when he left the Seattle Mariners for the Texas Rangers. The inflation – so to speak – of the baseball market in the last quarter of a century gives us the idea that perhaps we are not that far from the first contract of a billion dollars, or a trillion dollars, by an athlete in this sport.
Soto joined Shohei Ohtani of Los Angeles Dodgers as the first duo to receive contracts over $700 million dollars, although the agreement with the Japanese player has deferred money clauses that will end up being paid many years after his playing career has ended. The Mets, owned by the tycoon Steve Cohenthey will give Soto his money in a timely manner during the next decade and a half in which he will play with the New York club.
The competitiveness of certain legacy teams like the Dodgers and Yankees, combined with the aggressiveness of teams backed by owners with impressive amounts of money like the Mets themselves or the Toronto Blue Jaysare leading us to an eventuality in a sport where notably, there is no salary cap that limits the administrators of the 30 teams.
That is, in a few years it is more than likely that we will be talking about the first Major League player to sign a contract for one billion dollars, an amount that would eclipse any number seen in any sport around the world. But who could this player be? And how quickly could we envision this happening?
Before 2030: has the future already debuted billionaire of baseball?
Currently, we are facing a time where young and international talent is emerging in the most important baseball league in the world. In the recently concluded 2024 campaign, the epic battle for the Rookie of the Year award between Paul Skenes, Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher and eventual winner, against Jackson Merrillcenter fielder for the San Diego Padres, is just one of the good omens for the future of the league.
Young players like Gunnar Hendersonthe shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles, as well as the Dominican and also shortstop, Elly de la Cruzstar of the Cincinnati Reds, are, like Merrill and Skenes, elements under the age of 25 who are already doing their thing, making a great impact within their organizations.
The baseball of Major Leagues has been reluctant in the past to allow such sudden bursts of youth – it was not unusual to see player processes in the minor leagues culminating in late debuts, with the first swings or pitches in the Major Leagues at 23, 24 or even after 25 But today, talent evaluators within teams, as well as managers and coaches themselves, are putting more and more faith and pressure on their young talents.
Of the aforementioned group, only De La Cruz, Merrill and Skenes already show level talent. All-Star Gamebut Skenes, being a pitcher, most likely could not command such a huge salary for being a player who appears once every five days. Merrill, a versatile player who started at shortstop and now patrols center field at Petco Park for the Padres, would need more impressive power numbers in the future to be considered on Soto’s level. De La Cruz, evidently with great power, speed and defense – is a rising titan, although he doesn’t hit for contact as well as his compatriot Soto.
In order to justify in a few years a crazy contract comparable to Soto or Ohtani (who, in addition, justifies his salary by being a star pitcher and supernatural hitter), it will be necessary for the aforementioned group – excluding Skenes – to be able to maintain a level similar to the of the $700 million duo to justify a larger contract in the future.
Between 2030 and 2040: a young prospect in the minor leagues or outside the United States?
Roki SasakiJapan’s young promise and one of the most desired starting pitchers ahead of the 2025 season, will sign a modest contract this winter thanks to the restrictions that exist for signing a player who comes directly from a foreign league.
But Sasaki, like Ohtani before him, is an indicator of the great wave of talent coming from the current generation of Japanese players. It is estimated that, if Sasaki had no restrictions on his potential contract, he could command more than $100 million dollars even without having previously debuted in the Major Leagues.
Sasaki, 23, probably won’t be the one to reach $1 billion for the same reason as Skenes, he doesn’t play every day. But perhaps there is another player who comes from Japan with a talent similar to that of his compatriot Ohtani, or another who comes from Latin America, in the endless source of talent from the Dominican Republic, or perhaps from Venezuela, Mexico or Central America who mimics Soto.
Or perhaps, it will be someone who, like Ohtani, is a phenomenon at hitting and pitching. Jac Caglianone is a pitcher and first baseman in the Kansas City Royals organization. He was selected sixth in the 2024 MLB Draft and awarded a bonus of seven million dollars by the club, a boost to his potential. Before suffering a ligament injury in his elbow, he was already throwing over 90 miles per hour as a pitcher and broke his university’s home run record.
The future player who breaks the billion barrier could well be a clone of Ohtani and Caglianone, one who gives multiple weapons to the team that hires him, who can solve both from the mound and from the batter’s box.
After 2040: is the record holder already born?
Perhaps none of the players already mentioned are worth a billion dollars in contract. Maybe he’s not even playing professional or amateur baseball. Perhaps, it is a child anywhere in the world, be it the United States, Japan, Latin America or somewhere else, who in a couple of decades will force whoever wants to hire him to break the barrier.
Major League Baseball, even with interest that appears to be decreasing among certain groups of fans in the United States, is growing impressively internationally. In 2024, sponsorships to the league and different clubs were close to two billion dollars, according to Forbes. The team with the highest valuation, according to the same publication, is the Yankees, with an approximate value of $7.5 billion dollars.
The 30 Major League teams have a minimum valuation of one billion dollars. The Miami Marlinsare worth approximately just $300 million more than Juan Soto’s total contract. Major League Baseball continues to make money, and star players will take advantage of this in the present and future.
That is to say, a player who earns a billion is no longer even a seventh of the value of the richest club. These valuations are destined to continue to increase, so it’s not a question of if a player will someday make a billion dollars, but when.
Prediction: The first billion contract will be signed in…
The 18 years that elapsed between the $252 million contract he signed Alex Rodriguez in 2001, and that of $300 million who signed Manny Machado In 2019 they give us to understand that, in effect, there may be stagnation when it comes to the growth of the richest contracts within the Major Leagues.
But the arrival of young talent from different parts of the world in the last decade, as well as the entry of ambitious owners with practically unlimited capital, has raised the competitive level when it comes to signing contracts. Machado gave up his place in the same 2019 to Mike Troutwho, despite not signing a new contract on the open market, received a contract extension $426.5 million with the Angels. In just four years, Trout fell behind Ohtani, with just under $300 million more than he received, and a year later, Soto supplanted the Japanese with $75 million more than his own.
Although this generation of star players already seems to have closed a cycle of growth, the next one comes with similar strength. In 2026, the employment contract between the owners and players will be negotiated, and if a historic salary cap is not implemented for being the first in the modern era of Major League Baseball, it is more than obvious that Soto’s number will be seen as the floor for players who can provide numbers similar to the Dominican.
Henderson and De la Cruz will be free agents in 2029. Merrill, in 2026. The latter seems unlikely taking into account that he will have played only three full seasons in the Major Leagues before reaching free agency, so it would be very risky. that a team wants to pay a billion. The first two, however, will already have more than five years of experience and will negotiate contracts with less than 30 years.
If anyone guides their current team to a World Seriesas Soto did with the Washington Nationals and the New York Yankees before negotiating his contract, he will also see that the investment can bear fruit at the championship level. Therefore, it does not sound far-fetched that in the winter of 2029, one of the two will be the first to sign a billion-dollar contract.
