The annual salaries of the twelve sluggers below will be displayed and to some extent analized. One slugger is not in the Hall of Fame: Roger Maris. Maris is included so that his salaries can be compared to his Yankee teammate Mickey Mantle.
The original intent was to compare Mantle, Mays, Aaron. This was gradually expanded as other rivalries presented. The final regular season for any of these sluggers was 1976, which means their careers ended before the emergence of the powerful modern players union and just as free agency had started.
Upcoming comparisons:
Mantle, Mays, Aaron
Mantle, Maris: Yankee teammates
Ruth, Gehrig: Yankee teammates
DiMaggio, Williams, Musial
Aaron, Mathews: Braves teammates
Banks and Robinson: not worth comparing, especially since Robinson's salaries start in 1964, not 1956 his rookie season.
From the 50 biggest multi-year contracts through 2020: top ten, the only ones at least $30 million annually, sorted by average annual value, then year:
| Rk | Name | Orig Tm | First Year | Last Year | Years | Total Value | Avg Annual Value ▼ | Summary | WAR | WAR/yr |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gerrit Cole | NYY | 2020 | 2028 | 9 | $324,000,000 | $36,000,000 | 9 yrs/$324M (20-28) | 2.2 | 2.2 |
| 2 | Mike Trout | LAA | 2019 | 2030 | 12 | $426,500,000 | $35,541,667 | 12 yrs/$426.5M (19-30) | 10.1 | 5.0 |
| 3 | Stephen Strasburg | WSN | 2020 | 2026 | 7 | $245,000,000 | $35,000,000 | 7 yrs/$245M (20-26) | -0.2 | -0.2 |
| 4 | Anthony Rendon | LAA | 2020 | 2026 | 7 | $244,999,998 | $35,000,000 | 7 yrs/$245M (20-26) | 2.1 | 2.1 |
| 5 | Zack Greinke | ARI | 2016 | 2021 | 6 | $206,500,000 | $34,416,667 | 6 yrs/$206.5M (16-21) | 20.3 | 4.1 |
| 6 | David Price | BOS | 2016 | 2022 | 7 | $217,000,000 | $31,000,000 | 7 yrs/$217M (16-22) | 10.4 | 2.1 |
| 7 | Nolan Arenado | COL | 2019 | 2027 | 9 | $275,000,000 | $30,555,556 | 9 yrs/$275M (19-27) | 8.3 | 4.2 |
| 8 | Mookie Betts | LAD | 2021 | 2032 | 12 | $365,000,000 | $30,416,667 | 12 yrs/$365M (21-32) | ||
| 9 | Manny Machado | SDP | 2019 | 2028 | 10 | $300,000,000 | $30,000,000 | 10 yrs/$300M (19-28) | 5.7 | 2.9 |
| 10 | Miguel Cabrera | DET | 2016 | 2023 | 8 | $240,000,000 | $30,000,000 | 8 yrs/$240M (16-23) & 24-25 vesting option | 4.8 | 1.0 |
1, 3, 5, 6 are pitchers.
Annual salaries in this series are from https://www.baseball-reference.com/:
Salaries may not be complete (especially pre-1985) and may not include some earned bonuses ...
Primary salary data (about) courtesy Doug Pappas, and the Society for American Baseball Research. Additional 1915-1969 salaries researched via Baseball Hall of Fame contract archives by Dr. Michael Haupert of UW-LaCrosse. Salaries for mid-season call-ups or traded players may not be shown. Salaries converted to alternate years using Consumer Price Index (CPI) data courtesy of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Board.
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The Salary column contains some obvious mistakes. For instance, Willie Mays was paid $12,500 in 1954 after missing most of the previous two seasons in military service in the U.S. Army. Mays was NL MVP in 1954 but is shown for the next season getting the same salary: no raise. No way. The note for 1955 states that The Sporting News has Mays 1955 salary as $25,000, double his 1954 salary. That rings true.
Mays 1955 salary was listed this way: $12,500*
The asterisk (*) was not defined. Baseball Reference was asked about a couple of weeks ago but no explanation has been provided. Ted Williams has an * for all of his seasons. So you can see that the notes contain clarifying information.
To get a better understanding, a matrix was created with four primary sources for alternate salaries:
TSN: The Sporting News
BJHA: Bill James Historical Abstract
AP: Associated Press
UPI: United Press International.
There are other sources in the notes but these four are the most prevalent.
This link contains these tabs so far:
All: More than 200 lines of data for all 12 sluggers sorted by last name, then year. You'll get a sneak preview.
List: the matrix above
Mantle, Mays, Aaron: the three sluggers who will be featured in the next post in this series.
A link to this post will be in future posts in this series.
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