How Do This Year’s MLB Mega Free Agents Compare To Years Past?

There was a time when the thought of an MLB player earning $35 million a season was completely unthinkable. However, in just this past offseason, the New York Yankees’ Gerrit Cole, the Washington Nationals’ Stephen Strasburg and the Los Angeles Angels’ Anthony Rendon all signed deals that will pay them $35 million annually for the next seven years (and, in Cole’s case, an eighth and ninth year).

Those figures can be pretty shocking, especially when you consider that baseball contracts — unlike those in the NFL — are fully guaranteed, meaning those teams will end up paying hundreds of millions of dollars whether or not the players in question even make it onto the field. The lack of a salary cap in the MLB means that every big-name free agent seems to land a mega-contract that blows all previous ones away.

But how do you really compare these extravagant deals to each other? Is Cole’s $324 million over the next nine seasons a bigger or smaller deal comparatively than the 13-year, $330 million contract Bryce Harper agreed to the offseason prior? That’s the core question behind a new GOBankingRates study that put different free agent deals into a broader context. Pulling data from sports salary information site Spotrac, the study looked at all 1,234 free agent contracts signed from 2012-2020 that included guaranteed money, put the 50 largest deals in order of the total money promised in the deal — smallest to largest — and then determined how each deal compared to the market as a whole at the time of the signing.

For each deal, the study calculated the following:

• The total amount of the deal as a percentage of the total money spent on free agent contracts that offseason
• How much higher the average annual salary in the deal was compared to the average annual salary in all free agent contracts signed that offseason, expressed as a percentage
• How much higher the average annual salary in the deal was compared to the average annual salary in the MLB that season, expressed as a percentage

So, for example, while the $240 million promised to Albert Pujols in December of 2011 might not seem as large as Harper’s deal, the fact that Pujols’ deal represented over a fifth of all money promised to free agents that offseason — the highest proportion of any deal in the study — makes the argument that Pujols really got the more impressive commitment.

See which free agent blockbuster deals from the last eight years are really groundbreaking and which might be less impressive than their dollar-figure alone would indicate.

Last updated: Feb. 5, 2020

• Deal: 5 years, $70 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 2.89%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 179.27%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 258.92%

• Deal: 4 years, $72 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 2.98%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 259.06%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 361.46%

• Deal: 5 years, $72.5 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 1.01%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 223.04%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 344.67%

• Deal: 4 years, $73 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 3.43%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 209.31%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 226.76%

• Deal: 3 years, $75 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 4.96%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 472.63%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 507.25%

• Deal: 4 years, $75 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 4.58%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 304.37%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 535.73%

• Deal: 5 years, $77.5 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 6.59%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 325.64%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 400.32%

• Deal: 4 years, $80 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 3.76%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 238.97%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 248.51%

• Deal: 5 years, $80 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 5.29%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 266.49%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 288.64%

• Deal: 5 years, $80 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 5.60%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 232.44%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 296.41%

• Deal: 5 years, $80 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 3.31%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 219.17%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 310.19%

• Deal: 5 years, $80 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 3.31%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 219.17%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 310.19%

• Deal: 5 years, $80 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 1.12%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 256.46%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 390.67%

• Deal: 5 years, $82 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 5.01%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 253.69%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 468.58%

• Deal: 5 years, $82.5 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 5.78%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 242.83%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 308.79%

• Deal: 5 years, $85 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 3.99%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 188.12%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 211.23%

• Deal: 5 years, $85 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 4.89%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 282.69%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 392.32%

• Deal: 5 years, $86 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 6.02%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 257.37%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 326.14%

• Deal: 4 years, $88 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 5.37%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 374.47%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 628.59%

• Deal: 5 years, $90 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 3.72%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 259.06%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 361.46%

• Deal: 4 years, $92 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 4.32%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 289.81%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 285.78%

• Deal: 5 years, $95 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 5.80%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 309.77%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 542.87%

• Deal: 6 years, $106 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 9.02%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 385.13%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 470.25%

• Deal: 5 years, $110 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 7.27%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 403.92%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 434.38%

• Deal: 4 years, $110 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 7.70%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 471.38%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 581.32%

• Deal: 5 years, $110 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 4.55%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 338.86%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 464.01%

• Deal: 5 years, $118 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 5.54%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 299.98%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 293.24%

• Deal: 5 years, $125 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 1.75%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 456.97%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 666.67%

• Deal: 6 years, $126 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 8.33%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 381.01%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 410.09%

• Deal: 6 years, $130 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 5.38%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 332.21%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 455.46%

• Deal: 7 years, $130 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 7.48%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 318.07%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 437.83%

• Deal: 6 years, $132.75 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 5.49%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 341.35%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 467.21%

• Deal: 6 years, $140 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 7.51%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 370.50%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 473.83%

• Deal: 8 years, $144 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 9.52%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 312.30%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 337.22%

• Deal: 6 years, $147 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 1.71%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 445.83%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 651.33%

• Deal: 7 years, $153 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 8.80%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 392.03%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 532.98%

• Deal: 6 years, $155 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 9.46%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 457.14%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 738.11%

• Deal: 7 years, $161 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 6.66%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 358.80%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 489.65%

• Deal: 8 years, $184 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 7.61%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 358.80%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 489.65%

• Deal: 6 years, $206.5 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 8.54%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 586.54%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 782.33%

• Deal: 7 years, $210 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 12.82%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 547.00%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 857.16%

• Deal: 9 years, $214 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 18.21%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 552.95%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 667.51%

• Deal: 7 years, $217 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 8.97%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 518.39%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 694.74%

• Deal: 10 years, $240 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 13.81%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 440.27%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 595.04%

• Deal: 10 years, $240 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 20.42%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 559.05%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 674.69%

• Deal: 7 years, $245 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 11.51%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 493.20%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 434.89%

• Deal: 7 years, $245 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 11.51%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 493.20%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 434.89%

• Deal: 10 years, $300 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 16.09%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 504.93%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 637.78%

• Deal: 9 years, $324 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 15.22%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 510.14%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 447.31%

• Deal: 13 years, $330 million
• Percent of total free agent deals: 17.70%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (free agents): 411.87%
• Percent higher than average annual salary (MLB): 524.27%

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Methodology: Using information from Spotrac, GOBankingRates looked at every free agent signing from 2012 through the 2019-20 MLB offseason, excluding any 2020 free agent signing that occurred after Feb. 5, 2020. From there, each player’s annual salary was pulled to determine the average MLB salary for that season. Each free agent contract was then compared using the following three factors: 1) what percentage of total money promised in free agent contracts that offseason the contract represents; 2) what percent higher (or lower) is the average annual salary of that contract than the average annual salary for all of that offseason’s free agent contracts; and 3) what percent higher (or lower) is that contract’s average annual salary than the average MLB salary for the first season of the deal. All data used to conduct this study was compiled and is up to date as of Feb. 5, 2020.