Baseball’s Highest-Paid Players 2021: A New No. 1 As Mega-Contracts Reshuffle MLB’s Elite (2023)

MLB’s ten highest-paid players are breaking the bank, with Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor leading a group earning a combined $357 million.

Ballparks are filled with fans. The season will stretch to a full 162 games. The centerpiece All-Star Game will return Tuesday, a year after the pandemic killed it along with most of the baseball traditions that have filled the American summer for more than a century.

It’s back to business as usual in Major League Baseball, and that’s putting record paychecks on the board for the game’s top stars.

MLB’s ten highest-paid players will collectively earn an all-time high of $357 million this season, a giant leap from last year’s $152 million, when the season was shortened to 60 games and players’ salaries cut by 63%. The combined total is also up more than 13% from 2019’s $315 million thanks to a slew of huge contracts handed out over the past couple of years.

New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor tops this year’s list with $45.3 million in total earnings for 2021, including endorsements, followed by Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer ($39 million), Los Angeles Angels center fielder Mike Trout ($38.5 million) and New York Yankees ace Gerrit Cole ($36.5 million). Rounding out the top five is Houston Astros pitcher Justin Verlander, who is making $34.2 million but is expected to miss the entire season as he recovers from Tommy John surgery.

Lindor, Trout and Cole are among the eight players in baseball with active contracts valued at $300 million or more, with Trout’s $426.5 million deal signed in 2019 the largest in baseball history. All but one of those contracts have been signed in the last two and a half years.

The cash is flowing to the elite thanks to richer national TV deals that pay the league an annual average of $1.55 billion—a figure that is double the average under the previous contracts, which ran through 2013, and is set to rise again to $1.84 billion under new seven-year deals that begin next season. For most players, though, there isn’t as much to celebrate: The average and median MLB salaries are trending down, with an Associated Press analysis in April highlighting the earnings stratification with the finding that 100 of the league’s 902 players will earn more than half of all salary money this season, up from 42.5% in 2017. Hitting further into the lower levels of the sport, MLB pared its number of minor league affiliates to 120 clubs this season, from 162, eliminating hundreds of players from its talent pipeline.

Making matters worse are the relatively limited opportunities baseball players have off the field. Shohei Ohtani will earn an MLB-best $6 million from endorsements this year, according to Forbes estimates, a figure that would barely land him among the NBA’s top 20. By comparison, LeBron James, basketball’s No. 1 pitchman, earned $65 million off the court while the NFL’s top endorser, Tom Brady, pulled in $31 million. Even big-name baseball stars like Cole and Stephen Strasburg have been unable to crack seven figures in endorsements. They can blame baseball’s regionalism, an older and less tech-savvy fan base and a marketing strategy that generally favors teams over players, who also must deal with a more grueling schedule than their counterparts in other leagues.

“It’s a hell of a long season,” says Joe Favorito, a veteran sports marketing consultant. “You have natural gaps in every other sport where if players want to do things off the field, whether it’s community events or promotions, there’s time to do that. There’s no time to do that in baseball.”

All of that, along with the glacial pace of free agency in recent years, will be the backdrop of contentious negotiations between the owners and the players’ union for a new collective bargaining agreement, with the current pact expiring in December. Many in the sport anticipate baseball’s first work stoppage in more than a quarter-century.

For now, baseball’s elite can only dream of the day when the endorsement dollars start to match the playing contracts, although a few green shoots offer hope in the form of a crop of young stars that includes Atlanta Braves outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. and San Diego Padres shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. Perhaps their popularity both in the U.S. and abroad will tantalize advertisers in a way their predecessors couldn’t—or perhaps Ohtani will blossom into the icon the sport has long sought. But it will take time.

“It’s not something that can happen in one or two years,” says Favorito. “It has to be a concerted effort made by the players, the Players Association and the league that you’re going to market stars in ways that you never have been before.”

Here are baseball’s ten highest-paid players for 2021.

Francisco Lindor has gotten off to a rough start as a Met, batting .220 after a trade from Cleveland in January, but his bank account has never looked better: The mega-contract he signed this spring pays him $22.3 million in salary this season plus a $21 million signing bonus. The shortstop’s effervescent personality appeals to advertisers, with the 27-year-old counting Oakley, Pepsi, Mars Inc. and David Yurman among his partners.

^{On-The-Field Earnings: $43.3M — Off-The-Field Earnings: $2M}

The three-year, $102 million deal Trevor Bauer signed with the Dodgers in February guarantees him $38 million in 2021, with the ability to opt out after the season and trigger an additional $2 million buyout payment. (Similarly, while he is due $32 million in 2022, he can opt out after that season and collect a $15 million buyout.) The 30-year-old right-hander has built a successful YouTube channel, with 405,000 subscribers, but now faces assault allegations and was placed on seven-day administrative leave last week. Bauer has denied the accusations.

^{On-The-Field Earnings: $38M — Off-The-Field Earnings: $1M}

Mike Trout’s 12-year, $426.5 million deal with the Angels, signed in 2019, withstood the recent flurry of big contracts to remain the largest in baseball, although Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes did surpass him last summer for the top spot across U.S. team sports with a ten-year, $450 million extension. The 29-year-old outfielder has been sidelined with a calf injury since May but is gearing up for a return to the field after the All-Star break.

^{On-The-Field Earnings: $35.5M — Off-The-Field Earnings: $3M}

Gerrit Cole signed with the Yankees for nine years and $324 million in December 2019, becoming baseball’s first $300 million pitcher, and his contract’s annual average of $36 million is unmatched in the sport. Things haven’t come quite as easily for him lately: The 30-year-old right-hander became one of the faces of MLB’s crackdown on pitchers’ use of sticky substances and has struggled in recent starts.

^{On-The-Field Earnings: $36M — Off-The-Field Earnings: $500,000}

A return to form with the Astros in his mid-30s earned Justin Verlander a two-year, $66 million extension ahead of the 2020 season, but he tore his ulnar collateral ligament in September. Now, he’ll have to return to free agency while coming off Tommy John surgery and approaching his 39th birthday. The Hall-of-Fame-bound right-hander can at least count on partners Nike, Rawlings, Ford and T-Mobile.

^{On-The-Field Earnings: $33M — Off-The-Field Earnings: $1.2M}

Stephen Strasburg carries a salary of $23.6 million but is also collecting $10 million in deferred money. The Nationals right-hander, who turns 33 this month, has another $10 million in deferred money coming next season and then a combined $80 million scheduled to be paid from 2027 to 2029.

^{On-The-Field Earnings: $33.6M — Off-The-Field Earnings: $500,000}

Clayton Kershaw is earning $23.3 million in salary and $7.7 million in bonus in the final year of his contract, with the opportunity to make more in incentives. The Dodgers’ 33-year-old left-hander has started 18 games so far this season; if he gets to 30, he’ll pocket an extra $4 million.

^{On-The-Field Earnings: $31M — Off-The-Field Earnings: $2M}

David Price, dealt from the Red Sox to the Dodgers in February 2020 as part of the Mookie Betts trade, sat out last season because of the pandemic and has mostly been relegated to bullpen duty in 2021, with one more season left on his contract. The 35-year-old’s name adorns the IMAC Regeneration Center, a medical clinic, near his hometown in Tennessee.

^{On-The-Field Earnings: $32M — Off-The-Field Earnings: $500,000}

George Springer inked a six-year, $150 million deal to jump from the Astros to the Blue Jays in free agency in January, but injuries delayed the 31-year-old outfielder’s debut with Toronto and have limited him to 17 games. His corporate partners include Nike, TD Bank and Topps.

^{On-The-Field Earnings: $32M — Off-The-Field Earnings: $500,000}

Newly dethroned as baseball’s top pitchman, Bryce Harper still makes an estimated $5 million annually from an endorsement portfolio that includes Under Armour, Gatorade, Acuvue and T-Mobile. The outfielder set an MLB record for total contract value with the 13-year, $330 million deal he signed with the Phillies, but Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Francisco Lindor and Fernando Tatis Jr. have passed him in the two years since.

^{On-The-Field Earnings: $26M — Off-The-Field Earnings: $5M}

Methodology

On-the-field earnings figures reflect base salaries, deferred payments and signing bonuses paid during 2021. Off-the-field earnings figures reflect annual income from endorsements, licensing and memorabilia, as well as cash returns from any businesses operated by the player. Forbes does not include investment income like interest payments or dividends and does not deduct for taxes or agents’ fees.

Nolan Arenado was not included on the list because his amended contract after his trade from the Rockies to the Cardinals in February guarantees him $15 million for 2021, with additional money due to come this year or in future years depending on whether he opts out of the contract. If he were credited for the full $35 million for 2021, he would place fifth on this year’s earnings list.