USA TODAY International Edition
Top- paid 2020 MLB player is teamless
CHICAGO – We are in the middle of a pandemic, and MLB is embarking on its strangest season in history.
You want bizarre?
The highest- paid player will be a pitcher who won’t be in uniform. WeiYin Chen, released in November, will be paid nearly $ 22 million. If the Marlins had waited until the spring when baseball was shut down, they could have saved $ 14M.
Oops.
The Yankees will have the top payroll at $ 220.7 million in USA TODAY’s annual MLB salary report, buoyed by the signing of Gerrit Cole for nine years, $ 324 million and their 30- man roster.
Cole, scheduled to earn $ 36M, would have been the highest- paid alongside the Angels’ Mike Trout. But with 60 games, Cole and Trout will receive $ 13.3M. It’ll be the lowest paid to the game’s highest- paid player since slugger Albert Belle of the Orioles was paid $ 11.95M in 1999.
Twelve will earn $ 10 million or more in prorated salaries. It would have been 13, but Dodgers pitcher David Price, whose salary is $ 32M this year, opted out of playing, forfeiting $ 11.85M.
The Yankees’ prorated 30- man payroll, including those on the injured list, will be nearly $ 84M, the lowest they’ve shelled out since the heart of their dynasty in 1999, when their payroll was $ 88.1M.
The wackiest salaries are for those scheduled to earn less than $ 750,000. Every player under a straight guaranteed contract received $ 286,500 in advance money in April and May. The player would keep it if there was no season but if it commenced the money would be repaid, taken out of the paycheck. So those players will be paid zero for the rest of 2020.