With at least one more name poised to join the list this offseason, here’s a look at the most lucrative contracts in league history.
As a to-be 30-year-old baseball fan, it still stuns me to look back on just how much the most valuable contracts in the game have changed over the course of my lifetime.
Obviously, inflation has naturally helped increase the amount of dollars the sport’s best players are taking home, but the rapid rise goes far beyond the equivalent of an inflation-adjusted increase.
The Texas Rangers blew the sports world away in December 2000 when they signed Álex Rodríguez to a 10-year, $252 million deal that stood out on an island as the largest contract in global professional sports history.
Of course what looked to be a prosperous decade in the Dallas area abruptly changed when Rodríguez was shipped to the New York Yankees ahead of the 2004 season, with A-Rod later breaking his own record with a 10-year, $275 million deal signed in November 2007 after opting out of his initial deal with the Yankees.
Yet within the last decade, the pace of pay increases for the league’s elite has accelerated at an unforeseen rate. Giancarlo Stanton became the league’s first $300 million man when he signed a 12-year extension worth $325 million with the Miami Marlins ahead of the 2015 season, with Mike Trout becoming the first to top $400 million with a $426.5 million contract signed ahead of the 2019 season.
The last two offseasons have seen Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto reach heights previously unthinkable, with both players garnering $700 million-plus in free agency from the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets, respectively.
This offseason, free agent outfielder Kyle Tucker figures to add himself to the list of the league’s most expensive contracts, viewed as a virtual guarantee to at least capture a contract near or north of $400 million.
While both of A-Rod’s gargantuan contracts have since been dwarfed, here’s a look at the 10 largest contracts in MLB history with the 2025-26 offseason underway:
10. Bryce Harper, Philadelphia Phillies: 13 years, $330 million (2019-31)
Already an MVP off to an incredible start to his career after being anointed as a prodigy of the game, Harper signed one of the most lucrative deals in sports history at the time ahead of the 2019 season, moving from the Washington Nationals to the division-rival Phillies.
In seven seasons with the Phillies, Harper has put up 26.3 WAR with 179 home runs, a .281/.386/.526/.912 slash line, good for an outstanding 145 OPS+. Harper has been named to two All-Star teams since joining the Phillies, along with winning three Silver Slugger awards and the 2021 NL MVP.
The slugger also appeared in his first World Series in 2022, with Harper having perhaps his signature career moment in that year’s NLCS against the San Diego Padres with a series-clinching home run late in Game 5.
Harper converted from an outfielder to a first baseman ahead of the 2023 season, and currently has six years remaining on his contract.
9. Fernando Tatís Jr., San Diego Padres: 14 years, $340 million (2021-34)
Acquired from the Chicago White Sox as a young prospect in a lopsided trade in 2016, Tatís Jr. was cemented as the face of the franchise with a mammoth $340 million deal lasting 14 years signed ahead of the 2021 season.
While the first season went according to plan as Tatís led the NL with 42 home runs while finishing third in MVP voting, 2022 could not have been more of a disaster. Tatís was involved in a motorcycle accident during the 2021-22 offseason that resulted in a broken bone in his wrist, while violating his contract by riding a motorcycle.
His lengthy absence was made worse in August 2022, when it was announced that Tatís had tested positive for an anabolic steroid, leading to an 80-game suspension that bled into the first 20 games of the 2023 season.
Things have gone much better for Tatís and the Padres since then, with the shortstop-turned-outfielder posting 20.4 WAR with 113 home runs and a 131 OPS+ across the course of his contract thus far, including a 5.9 WAR season in 2025.
Though his name is involved in trade rumors as the Padres potentially look to shed payroll, Tatís still has nine years remaining on his contract.
8. Francisco Lindor, New York Mets: 10 years, $341 million (2022-31)
Emerging as a highly-touted prospect and star with Cleveland in the first part of his career, Lindor was shipped to New York ahead of the 2021 season for a package of four players headlined by Andrés Giménez. With free agency looming, the Mets made their strike and locked down Lindor for a decade with a $341 million contract beginning in 2022 just before the start of the 2021 season.
The massive deal initially didn’t look great, as Lindor turned in a league-average season at the plate and the worst campaign of his career in 2021, before the deal had even kicked in. While the Mets have been starved of notable postseason success sans a 2024 NLCS run, Lindor has clearly proven his worth since.
In the first four seasons of his contract, Lindor has compiled 24.3 WAR with 132 doubles, 121 home runs and 107 stolen bases alongside an excellent .266/.341/.471/.812 slash line and 128 OPS+. Lindor has earned a top-10 MVP finish in each of the first three seasons of his deal, and could be in line for another such campaign after 2025.
Entering his age-32 season, Lindor has six years remaining on his contract with the Mets.
7. Manny Machado, San Diego Padres: 11 years, $350 million (2023-33)
Though only one of his contracts cracks the top 10, this was the second extremely lucrative deal Machado signed with the Padres.
Machado first arrived in San Diego ahead of the 2019 season on a 10-year, $300 million deal that was in line to keep him with the Friars through 2028. However, Machado inked the even bigger 11-year, $350 million deal in February 2023 that anchors him in San Diego through his age-40 season.
The re-up for Machado certainly puts a lot of faith into his durability and longevity, and it’s played out alright thus far. He’s amassed 9.8 WAR over the first three years of the current deal, smacking 84 home runs and posting a .270 batting average with a 117 OPS+. San Diego would undoubtedly love more seasons like his 2022 campaign, which saw him finish as the MVP runner-up with 6.8 WAR and a 157 OPS+.
With next year being Machado’s age-33 season, he still has eight years remaining on his massive deal with the Padres.
6. Aaron Judge, New York Yankees: 9 years, $360 million (2023-31)
While the Giants may have signed Arson Judge in the 2022-23 MLB offseason, the Yankees locked down Aaron Judge for the long haul after he set the AL single-season home run record in 2022 with a nine-year deal worth $360 million.
Though the deal began with Judge’s age-31 season, there haven’t been any signs of it being anywhere near a bad move a third of the way through the late bloomer’s contract. Judge has totaled an unreal 25.1 WAR with 148 home runs in the first three seasons of the deal, likely taking home back-to-back MVP awards for his efforts in 2024 and 2025.
So far, Judge has managed a video game-like 1.119 OPS and 208 OPS+ during the contract, making him more than twice as effective as the average MLB hitter in that timeframe. While Shohei Ohtani rightfully gets most of the superstar attention, there hasn’t been anyone in Judge’s echelon as a hitter the past two seasons.
That was perhaps perfectly put on display in 2025, with Judge leading MLB in every slash line category, amassing a .331/.457/.688/1.144 line with a 215 OPS+. While the Yankees weren’t long for the postseason, Judge exorcised some demons with a 13-for-26 showing that included a home run and seven RBI.
Judge is locked in with the Yankees through his age-39 season, with six years remaining on the mega deal.
5. Mookie Betts, Los Angeles Dodgers: 12 years, $365 million (2021-32)
After acquiring Betts from the Boston Red Sox in an unthinkable trade in February 2020, the Dodgers ensured Betts would all but certainly retire in Los Angeles with a 12-year extension inked just before the start of the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
Before the deal even began, Betts won a World Series with the Dodgers in 2020 and has continued his Hall of Fame trajectory in Los Angeles. Betts has posted 29 WAR in the first five seasons of the deal, putting up a 136 OPS+ with 156 doubles and 136 home runs.
While Betts’ 2025 season was below his excellent standards from an offensive standpoint with just a 104 OPS+, Mookie more than made up for it by leading the National League in defensive WAR…as a shortstop. Staying true to his five-tool status that caught eyes across baseball as a blue chip prospect more than a decade ago, Betts has contributed to an incredible degree in every imaginable way.
Betts is entering his age-33 season in 2026, and is under contract with the Dodgers for seven more years.
4. Mike Trout, Los Angeles Angels: 12 years, $426.5 million (2019-30)
Widely regarded as the best player of his generation at the time of the signing, the contract was seen as a move of necessity from the fledgling Angels to lock down the greatest star in franchise history for the rest of his career.
While Trout’s individual accolades certainly speak for themselves, the Angels have remained the bastion of mediocrity they were before locking him down for a dozen years.
Though the Halos ensured Trout wouldn’t hit free agency, the results of the contract have been quite mixed, even from an individual standpoint. While Trout was on a Mickey Mantle-like trajectory early in his career, injuries have robbed him of large chunks of three seasons since his current deal began in 2019.
From 2019-25, Trout has been worth 23.2 WAR, playing in just 583 games in that timeframe with 164 home runs and a still elite 158 OPS+. Though injuries led to Trout missing much of the 2021, 2023 and 2024 seasons, he still took home the AL MVP in 2019 while finishing top-10 in MVP voting in both 2020 and 2022.
Trout was mostly healthy in 2025, still providing excellent slug and on-base ability while taking a step back with contact-hitting, with the franchise icon slashing .232/.359/.439/.797. One would be a fool to believe Trout isn’t capable of returning to his MVP form, but the Angels simply need much more than that to get him playing in October.
3. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Toronto Blue Jays: 14 years, $500 million (2026-39)
Entering the 2025 season, the question around baseball was if the Blue Jays, who appeared to be declining away from contention, would trade their franchise star in Vladimir Guerrero Jr. ahead of his impending free agency.
The Blue Jays shut down those conversations in the most emphatic way possible, first by locking down Guerrero for the remainder of his career in April with a 14-year pact worth half a billion dollars, then next by coming within inches of a World Series title.
There isn’t much to say about this contract as it only officially begins at the start of next season, but it’s clear the Blue Jays felt that the Canadian-born superstar was a worthy long-term investment.
Debuting in 2019, Guerrero has amassed 25.9 WAR with 1,077 hits, 183 home runs and a slash line of .288/.366/.495/.861 in his seven-year career thus far, good for a 136 OPS+. Guerrero has made five straight All-Star teams and has finished in the top-10 in MVP voting twice, with a good chance to add to that after the 2025 season.
Entering his age-27 season, Guerrero is under contract with the Blue Jays through the 2039 season, when he will be 40 years old.
2. Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Dodgers: 10 years, $700 million (24-33)
Arguably the most coveted free agent in North American professional sports history, Ohtani signed a groundbreaking deal with the Dodgers ahead of the 2024 season that blew everyone else out of the water, both in terms of value and structure.
While the $700 million commitment over 10 years demolished any contract that came before it, the Dodgers made the most out of the deal by heavily deferring Ohtani’s pay. In a unique agreement that has angered many fans of teams with owners that never try to win, $680 million of the contract is deferred until 2034-43, with Ohtani receiving just $2 million a year over the course of the deal.
A contract like this simply wouldn’t work for anyone else, with Ohtani able and willing to defer almost all of the money due to his status as the game’s most recognizable player, a global superstar with lucrative endorsement deals that dwarf any contract he could have been offered.
The move has clearly been a slam dunk for baseball’s dynasty, with Ohtani and the Dodgers winning it all in each of his first two seasons in Los Angeles alongside back-to-back MVP awards for the two-way phenom.
In addition to getting the best player in baseball himself, the structure of Ohtani’s deal has allowed the Dodgers to add other stars, most notably Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, creating a juggernaut the league hasn’t seen since the Yankees of the turn of the century.
1. Juan Soto, New York Mets: 15 years, $765 million (2025-39)
Both the longest and the most lucrative deal in global professional sports history, the Mets utilized their deep pockets to land a generational star in Soto, who hit free agency unusually early thanks to starting his career as a 19-year-old.
While the 2025 season was an unmitigated disaster for the Mets as they ultimately missed the playoffs with an 83-79 record, one could not possibly blame New York’s big addition. Soto posted 6.2 WAR in 2025, unexpectedly leading the NL with 38 stolen bases while also topping the senior circuit in on-base percentage.
His 43 home runs marked a career-high as well, with Soto compiling a 160 OPS+ while also taking home his sixth consecutive Silver Slugger Award and his sixth top-10 MVP finish.
With how Soto’s career has gone so far, there’s no reason to think he won’t remain one of the game’s elite hitters for the vast majority of the contract’s lifespan, but defense certainly remains a long-term concern for the Mets.
Never known as an excellent outfield defender, Soto posted a career-worst -1.3 defensive WAR in 2025 as a right fielder. While Soto has plenty of experience in left field as well, he has typically been league-average at best defensively over his career so far.
If Soto is unable to turn the corner defensively, the Mets could be forced to move him to either designated hitter or first base in the future, the latter a position Soto has never played as a professional.
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