by A million dollars? For a baseball player? People couldn’t believe it.
In November 1979, Nolan Ryan and the Houston Astros agreed to a four-year, $4 million contract. This made the Texas hurler the first player in MLB history to earn at least $1 million per year. Reporters and the public soon dubbed him “The Million Dollar Man.” It was a headline-grabbing, paradigm-shifting deal – proof that the sport had changed and was still changing.
The advent of free agency in the 1970s, brought about by a series of player-led labor disputes, caused contract values to skyrocket. Ryan and the game’s other top stars finally got what they were worth. Still, the sticker shock of that big, fat, round number attached to Ryan’s name made it hard for some fans to wrap their heads around.
Oh, if they could see us now.
Juan Soto’s groundbreaking, eye-popping $765 million contract with the New York Mets has yet to be finalized. It’s a mammoth number that can get even bigger. If Soto opts out after 2029 and the Mets decide to keep him by adding $4 million in each of the final 10 years of the deal, $765 million becomes more than $800 million.
It is a mountain peak that will no longer be climbed in the foreseeable future.
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Soto is, of course, generational. Plus, the bidding war for his services was heightened by the perfect storm: a showdown in New York between two of the game’s richest teams. But aside from Soto, the current MLB landscape isn’t particularly ripe with young stars hitting the open market. Bobby Witt Jr., Julio Rodriguez, Fernando Tatis Jr., Jackson Chourio and Corbin Carroll all signed long contract extensions that will keep them from reaching free agency at a young age. There is no obvious candidate to surpass Soto.
But surely similar things have been said about Ryan and these top baseball millionaires. The thought of a baseball player making a billion dollars would have confounded the mental circuitry of any early 21st century ball fan. But time passes, money becomes more expensive and our expectations change.
This means that one day a major player will sign a $1 billion contract. Who will that be? Let’s go down this rabbit hole and theorize irresponsibly.
First, a note about age
Soto’s contract could reach $800 million, in large part because the contract is for 15 years. Soto is only 26 years old, but his considerable success has been made possible by his remarkably early MLB debut at age 19.
Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani, widely considered superior players to Soto in their own free agent sweepstakes, received “only” $360 million and $460 million in today’s money because they hit the market at 30 and 29, respectively.
It pays to be young. So whoever ends up crossing the nine-figure threshold needs to get to the bigs and free agency as early as possible.
And in position
Unless we make massive advances in medical technology, the first billion dollar player will be a position player. Elbows are simply too fragile, pitchers too susceptible to wear and tear.
If Paul Skenes wants a contract that starts with a B, he should start hitting again like he did in college.
Gunnar Henderson, Elly De La Cruz or Jackson Merrill
These three are grouped together because they represent a similar archetype: a very good, very young player who still has a mile to go before hitting free agency. Henderson, who is 23 years old and has already accumulated more career BWAR than Nick Castellanos, is the best of the trio. He is also a client of agent Scott Boras, the man who brokered Soto’s megadeal. But Henderson (1) will enter free agency two years older than Soto and (2) doesn’t yet have Soto’s undeniably generational offensive track record. It’s unlikely, but he could come there.
For De La Cruz, also represented by Boras, it’s about his ceiling; No one in the world offers such an enticing combination of speed and performance. But teams will certainly have concerns about how the 6-foot-6 shortstop will age. Soto’s value was focused solely on his bat, something that clubs believed would not fade with time.
Merrill, who made his debut last season at the age of 21, is on this list simply because he is a phenomenally talented young hitter who, if not extended, would be at the start of his season at the age of 27 would move in free agency. Will he be the first billion dollar player? Probably not, but again, no one thought Soto would get $800 million in his debut.
Jackson Holliday or Junior Caminero
The baby-faced infielder from Baltimore was woefully underwhelming in his debut season in 2024. But the former No. 1 contender did something enormously important for this stupid exercise: He made his debut at 20 years old. That means he will be a free agent when his age-27 season begins. Holliday still has to, you know, develop into a generational big league player, but the bones are there.
Caminero, born a few months before Holliday, will hit the open market in 2031 at the same time as Holliday. The Tampa Bay third baseman also showed slightly more talent than his division counterpart in 2024, although there is still a long way to go until his free agent payday.
Arjun Nimmala
OK, follow me on this one.
Nimmala, who was drafted 20th overall by the Blue Jays in 2023, took a big developmental step forward in Low-A last season. But that’s not why he’s on the list. To make $1 billion, you have to be a financial magnet. And Nimmala, who is Indian-American and spent summers as a child visiting his family in India, has a chance to break into a new market as a global superstar.
Rangers pitcher Kumar Rocker became the first Indian-American big leaguer in his debut in 2024, but Nimmala, currently 19, has a chance to move the needle even further, both as a position player and as a player who could make it to the big leagues at a young age. In the (highly unlikely) scenario that Nimmala figures it out, becomes one of the best players in the MLB, and makes the world’s most populous country fall in love with baseball, that could be worth a billion dollars.
Leodalis De Vries
The 18-year-old shortstop from the Dominican Republic was signed by the Padres less than a year ago but is already turning heads. San Diego sent him to Low-A Lake Elsinore last season, where De Vries held his own despite being the youngest player in the entire league. He struggled a bit in the Arizona Fall League but remains a very exciting prospect.
There is a scenario, albeit an unlikely one, in which the Padres, who have a track record of moving their players up, push De Vries to the majors for part of next season. That could make him a free agent heading into his age-24 or 25 season — even younger than Soto. Of course, for this to be important in this exercise, he also has to be really good.
Ethan Holliday
Jackson’s brother and Matt’s second son are considered by many prognosticators to be top prospects in the upcoming 2025 MLB Draft. Ethan is much taller and more physical than his older brother, giving him greater power potential and making a corner infield spot his more likely defensive home. The youngest Holliday would have to rocket his way up in whatever farm system he ends up in, but the offensive ceiling is there. That is, probably not for a billion dollars.
The most likely answer
At the recent winter meetings, I strolled around the halls and asked various baseball people in organizations this billion-dollar question. The most common and almost unanimous response was, “We don’t know his name yet.”
Almost everyone I spoke to believed that the Billion Dollar Boy was actually already walking this earth, probably somewhere in Japan or the Dominican Republic at the moment, but the Billion Dollar Day is too far away for that to happen that we might actually know something about the person in question.
