Here Are The 26 MLB Players Make More Money Than Lebron

 

My main man Buster Olney tweeted this out this morning and got twitter in a bit of a tizzy. Its one of those perfect twitter stats that in a vacuum makes you go “Oh shit thats nuts.” Theres a lot of reasons behind it but I figured we’d take a look at the list to break it down further. The list of MLB players that have bigger contracts than Lebron are:

Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer, A Rod, John Lester, Justin Verlander, Ryan Howard (WOOF), Josh Hamilton, King Felix, Mike Stanton, Zack Greinke, CC, Mike Trout, Cliff Lee, Pujols, Cole Hamels, Robbie Cano, Prince Fielder, Joe Mauer, Mark Teixiera, Joey Votto, Tanaka, Adrian Gonzalez, Hanely, Ellsbury and Matt Cain. And Miggy Cabrera once his contract kicks in.

Now, first and foremost, this whole statistic comes down to the power of unions more than anything. The MLBPA is quite literally one of the strongest organizations in all of sports. They successfully forced the league to allow cheating for an eternity, have made even the consideration of a salary cap completely impossible, and just keep cranking up salary expectations to an amazing degree. The NBA players association is Mickey Mouse shit compared to MLB. Also, if you want to get technical about it, these guys play 162 games vs 82 to the NBA. Obviously like 90% of the time you’re sitting around, so the actual effort isnt comparable or anything. But its more about twice as many games, in stadiums that hold about 20,000 more fans, to sell tickets and make money off these guys.

Its more about Lebron being comically underpaid than it is about all these MLB guys being overpaid. Lebron should make at least 30 million a year. Cleveland has been ugly so far but seeing what he did with Miami and seeing that he only makes $20 million is crazy. The fact that he just gets lumped in with guys like Carmelo in some sort of upper tier and cant go beyond that is fucking insane. I guess this is where you could argue the merits of a cap vs. uncapped league but when you look at a guy like Lebron, the notion of a “max” contract just being an arbitrary number shared by all the top performers is flat out silly.

And when you look at some of these players listed not all of them are that absurd. Arod basically won a title in 2009 by himself. Stanton is gonna mash at peak levels for the next decade plus and deserves every penny he got. Clayton Kershaw, at least in the regular season, is pitching at a historic level. Those top dollar guys that are performing at peak levels are probably as valuable as a guy like Lebron. Obviously its apples and oranges and a superstar in the NBA can take over a game, season, and franchise much easier. But as far as baseball players go, some of those guys are absolutely worth it.

Its when you look at dudes like Ryan Howard and Joey Votto and Joe Mauer that you just shake your head at Major League Baseball. Some of those contracts are absolutely ludicrous, and whats even more bizarre is that it seems that EVERYONE knows it right away. Like before the ink is dry every fan, all the media, and even the team is like “Oh fuck that was a bad idea.” Always baffles me how that can happen. But like I said, thats the MLBPA for you. Somehow hypnotizes teams into forgetting about those bad contracts and standing their ground holding firm that the next free agent deserves that money. Remarkable really.