$200M

Exploring the Future of MLB Megadeals: Who’s Next in Line for a Record-Breaking Contract?

Almost as soon as Juan Soto signed a 15-year, $765 million free agent contract with the New York Mets over the winter, a question was bandied about in front offices across the sport: Who is going to be the player to break Soto’s record for overall value?

Answering that was harder than it seemed, partly because Soto’s deal shattered all previous ones (Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million contract had a present value of less than $500 million), but also because a number of players who would have been threats had signed contract extensions already. To even be considered for a deal of that magnitude takes the rare combination of age and superstardom, and with Bobby Witt Jr., Fernando Tatis Jr., Corbin Carroll and Jackson Chourio all locked up long term, the candidates are severely limited. The extension months later for San Diego Padres outfielder Jackson Merrill erased one of the prime candidates to dethrone Soto.

Expanding the exercise to those executives and agents made for a far more interesting question: Who are the $100 million-plus players in the game right now?

The nine-figure contract isn’t as uncommon as it used to be — more than 150 have been given to players since the first was signed by Kevin Brown in 1998 — but it remains perhaps the clearest threshold of an excellent player. And so off we went on a quest with baseball insiders to identify the next generation of $100 million players.

Here are the names that came up most, from the crowded $100 million tier all the way to the superstar deemed most likely to land the next $600 million megadeal.

(Not included in the below list are players who already are part of the nine-figure club, even if they’re in line for another $100 million-plus deal. Those include Witt, Carroll, Merrill, Yordan Alvarez, Ronald Acuna Jr., Garrett Crochet and Alex Bregman.)

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