Baseball’s Highest-Paid Players 2025

Forbes Daily Briefing

Forbes

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4.6 • 12 Ratings

🗓️ 29 March 2025

⏱️ 5 minutes

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Summary

MLB’s top 10 earners will haul in $576 million combined this season, led by the sport’s first two $100 million men in Mets signing Juan Soto and Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani.

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0:00.0	Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Saturday, March 29th.
0:05.1	Today on Forbes, baseball's highest paid players 2025.
0:10.7	The NFL may be the world's most lucrative sports league,
0:14.2	but Major League Baseball will beat it to one milestone this year,
0:17.7	a player making at least $100 million in a single season. In fact, MLB will do it twice.
0:25.1	As the 2025 baseball season gets underway with opening day games this past week on Thursday and
0:30.3	Friday, New York Mets right fielder Juan Soto is baseball's highest paid player due to collect an estimated
0:36.8	$126.9 million in 2025 before taxes
0:41.2	and agents fees. And Los Angeles Dodgers, two-way phenom, Shohei Otani, will join him in
0:47.4	the nine-figure club with an estimated $102 million. Previously, MLB's top earnings figure was Otani's $65 million in
0:56.4	2023. No football player, meanwhile, has exceeded Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott's
1:02.5	2024 total of $96.3 million in a single league year. The two baseball stars, Soto and
1:10.4	Otani, reached their landmark paydays by traveling two
1:13.3	very different paths. Soto, the most coveted free agent of this offseason, join the Mets on a
1:19.5	15-year, $765 million contract, which could rise in value to $805 million if the team chooses
1:27.1	to exercise a clause to avoid an opt-out
1:29.3	and keep him in Queens.
1:31.3	The 26-year-old slugger will add to his $46.9 million salary for 2025 with a $75
1:38.3	million signing bonus.
1:40.3	He then tax on another $5 million from endorsements. For Otani, the split is almost the exact opposite.
1:47.3	While he signed a 10-year, $700 million contract with the Dodgers before last season,
1:52.5	he deferred 97% of the value until 2034 and beyond, leaving him just $2 million in salary
	...

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