📰🏟️ Are the biggest MLB contracts worth it?

Good morning. Those looking to watch roided-up monsters go at it like the MLB days of yore are in luck. The Enhanced Games, a company seeking to host athletic competitions where PEDs are strongly encouraged, announced it’ll host its first event in May 2026.

However, while testosterone, HGH, and anabolic steroids are acceptable in the competitions, illegal drugs like LSD aren’t allowed—probably because they’ve conferred too much of an advantage historically.

Thanks, Dock Ellis. You ruined it for us all.

—Peter & Kyle

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💰 FINANCETOK TALK

Are the biggest MLB contracts actually worth it?

Juan Soto has the chance to pull off an all-time troll move and change his walkup song to “Hustlin’” by Rick Ross.

The Mets star outfielder has drawn recent criticism from fans and analysts for a seeming lack of on-field effort—raising the conversation, once again, about whether players with monster MLB contracts are living up to their salary. Soto signed a record 15-year, $765M deal in the offseason, but is so far turning in the worst on-base percentage, slugging, and OPS figures of his career.

The calculation: MLB teams paid an average of $8M per WAR in free agency this past offseason, according to a Paraball Notes analysis. Using this figure as a baseline:

• Soto’s contract carries an average annual value of $51M.
• He’s generated 1.5 WAR so far in 2025, which projects out to 4.9 WAR for the full season. That figure multiplied by $8M works out to $39.2M—or below what he’s getting paid. Outlook: not so good.

But why stop at just one?

Here’s how the other ten biggest MLB contracts stack up*:

1. ✅ Shohei Ohtani: $70M in annual salary vs. $73.6M on-field value created/year
2. ✅ Zack Wheeler: $42M vs. $44.2M
3. ✅ Aaron Judge: $40M vs. $76M (!)
4. ✅ Alex Bregman: $40M vs. $73.6M (!)
5. ❌ Jacob deGrom: $37M vs. $16M
6. ❌ Blake Snell: $36.4M vs. $12.8M
7. ❌ Gerrit Cole: $36M vs. $31.2M
8. ❌ Mike Trout: $35.5M vs. $28.8M
9. ❌ Anthony Rendon: $35M vs. $4.8M (😳) 
10. ✅ Corbin Burnes: $35M vs. $44.8M

Not quite a rising tide: As the biggest contracts keep getting bigger—Mike Trout’s current deal was the biggest in MLB history when he signed it in March 2019—the median league salary has been getting smaller. Baseball’s median salary this year dropped to $1.35M from $1.5M, well below its record high of $1.65M in 2015.

Zoom out: The NBA has the highest median annual salary of the Big Four US sports leagues (~$6.7M), followed by the NHL (~$2.9M) and NFL (~$2.8M).

*Contracts were signed at different times, and injuries may have played a factor in on-field value calculations. See a more in-depth chart here.

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⏱️ Catch Up Quick

Headlines de la semaine

🏈 Even NFL team owners can’t stop the tush push. The QB-sneak play popularized by the Eagles will remain legal for the foreseeable future, after an owner’s vote to ban it narrowly failed yesterday at the NFL’s spring meetings. The Packers-led ban effort needed support from 24 of the league’s 32 teams—but ultimately fell short by two votes, per ESPN and NFL Network. In other spring meeting news: NFL owners approved a change allowing onside kicks at any point in a game by the trailing team (instead of just the fourth quarter), tabled consideration of a new playoff seeding system, and added a new “Protector of the Year Award” for best NFL offensive lineman.

🏀 Basketball is drawing eyeballs at a record pace. Entering the Conference Finals, NBA playoff games were averaging 4.17 million viewers across ABC, ESPN, and TNT, good for the second-highest mark since 2014. The NBA has also drawn a record-high 10.1 viewing share in the playoffs, (meaning 10.1% of all US TV viewers are tuned in), up 23% from the same point last year. Over in the WNBA—the recent Fever-Sky matchup featuring Caitlin Clark vs. Angel Reese drew 2.7 million viewers, making it the most-watched regular-season game in 25 years.

👑 Magnus Carlsen vs. The World: Chess legend’s 46-day match ends in draw. Carlsen this week completed an online match that pitted the former world champion against a team made up of any Chess.com member who wanted to join. The freestyle chess match—a variant where back-row pieces have randomized starting positings— featured a record-high 143k players opposing Carlsen, with the team’s moves chosen by popular vote. The month-and-a-half-long game ended in a draw when Team World checked Carlsen’s king three times in a row after 32 moves.

🏆 WINNING TIME

You can now compete against pro athletes with $2M on the line

Regular Joe? Fanatics is offering you a chance to go up against the pros.

The sports-centric company this week announced Fanatics Games, a skills competition between 50 NARPs and 50 pro athletes and celebrities with $2M in total prizes on the line.

• 1st place: $1M in cash
• 2nd place: A Ferrari 812 GTS
• 3rd place: A LeBron James trading card worth ~$250k

And should athletes/celebrities sweep the top three, the highest scoring fan will receive $100k. 

The talent: James Harden, Kevin Durant, A-Rod, Tyreek Hill, Tom Brady, Gronk (who goes wherever Tom does), Jordan Chiles, Kevin Hart, Druski (a regular at events like these), and more.

The Joes may kind of have a chance: The sports-skills comp involves eight activities—football passing accuracy, basketball shooting (around the world), soccer goal-scoring, baseball pitching accuracy, a washer-dryer hockey shooting challenge, a WWE Superstar entrance, a UFC striking challenge, and a closest-to-the-pin golf challenge.

It’s a growth thing. The Games will occur next month at the company’s second-annual Fanatics Fest, which drew ~70k people to its inaugural event in 2024.

This year, Fanatics—a biz worth $31B+ that has its hands in gambling, merch/memorabilia, trading cards, and more—is hoping to draw 100k attendees, with the competition seen as one way to drum up hype and hit this number. 

Elsewhere…More pros vs. joes competition is in the works, after NFL owners this week approved a proposal to allow players to participate in flag football at the 2028 Olympics.

💬 Word on the Street

Overheard

“There’s a reason NBA Twitter likes to call him ‘The Free Throw Merchant.’”

Thunder G Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was named NBA MVP last night, beating out Nuggets C Nikola Jokić by a comfortable margin.

And according to some, including ESPN commentator Doris Burke (☝️), SGA’s excellence can in large part be attributed to his Colonel Sanders-like ability to sell fowls fouls.

SGA, or FTA? The Thunder star lived up to his pejorative nickname in a 114-88 blowout win over the T’Wolves in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals. Within the first five minutes, SGA drew four quick shooting fouls—and also caused opposing star Anthony Edwards to receive a tech over his frustrated reaction to a call. 

• SGA finished the game with more made free throws (11/14) than field goals (10/27) en route to 31 points, with his 14 free throw attempts more than doubling any other player.

Big picture: SGA ranked second in the league with 8.8 free throw attempts/game in the 2025 regular season, and currently ranks fourth in postseason action at 9.2/game.

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📰 News

What else is happening

• Longtime Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay died at 65.
• A lawsuit accuses Josh Bartelstein, the married CEO of the Phoenix Suns and Mercury, of having an affair with WNBA star Sophie Cunningham (who previously played on the Mercury). Both parties deny the accusation.
• TGL, the golf league founded by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, is adding its first expansion team, the Motor City Golf Club.
• NBA conference finals: The Thunder beat the Timberwolves on Tuesday to go up 1-0 in the series; the Pacers beat the Knicks last night to also take a 1-0 lead.
• NHL conference finals: The Panthers won Tuesday's matchup against the Hurricanes to take a 1-0 series lead, while the Stars topped the Oilers last night to also go up 1-0.
• This upcoming season of HBO’s Hard Knocks will feature the Buffalo Bills. It’s the first time the franchise has been the centerpiece of the show.

🤔 Trivia

Spin the wheel, place your bets

It’s time for Franchise Roulette. 

How the game works: We give you three facts about a professional sports franchise—then you tell us which franchise we’re talking about. Eligible franchises are those currently playing in the Big 4 (MLB, NHL, NFL, NBA).

Today’s team:

• Was the first pro sports team to sell the naming rights to their stadium—in 1984 to Compaq.
• Has a nickname that’s a nod to its city’s classical architecture and large number of higher learning institutions.
• Is the only NFL team to have two players rush for 2k yards in a season.

Hint: Very big

🌐 Web Gems

Cool things to click

🙄 Peep: One of worst missed calls in history.

😌 Sweet serendipity: It’s not déjà vu—Trent Grisham did, in fact, hit the exact same home run in back-to-back at bats.

🧠 Brain game: How well do you know the WNBA? Test your knowledge with this quiz from ESPN.

📖 Read: Why US pro softball players are flocking to Japan (soft paywall).

🤔 Answer

The Tennessee Titans, who play in Nashville, aka the "Athens of the South"

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