How Much Does A Rookie Baseball Player Make?

A rookie in Major League Baseball will make a minimum of $550,000 this season. Salaries start at $535,000 for players with less than three years of service time and increase incrementally with each year of service.

Major League Baseball

A baseball player just out of high school or college, or a player drafted in the first year of the MLB draft, is considered a rookie. A player can be considered a rookie even if he has played professional baseball in another country (for example, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Cuba) as long as he has not played in an MLB game.

Overview

As of the 2017 Major League Baseball season, the minimum salary for a player is $545,000 US dollars per year. Players on 40-man rosters (active and inactive lists) earning less than that amount are “pre-arbitration eligible” and do not have their salaries set by the MLB Collective Bargaining Agreement. Instead, their salaries are determined by the team they play for. Salaries for pre-arbitration eligible players are typically at or near the MLB minimum salary.

Salaries

In Major League Baseball, players are paid according to the number of years they have been in the league. Players with more experience are typically paid more than rookies. The minimum salary for a player with zero to three years of service time is $507,500. The minimum salary for a player with four to six years of service time is $604,500. Players with seven or more years of service time are paid a minimum salary of $888,300.

Bonuses

Major League Baseball (MLB) teams are allowed to spend up to $5.75 million signing bonuses on draft picks. Players who are not first-round selections can earn bonuses of up to $125,000. Players who are drafted in the first round can earn much more, with the top pick in the draft typically earning a signing bonus of more than $8 million.

Minor League Baseball

At the root of most American sports is money. The same is true for baseball. Professional baseball is a millionaire’s club. But, what about baseball players who are just starting out? In this article, we’ll discuss how much a rookie baseball player in the minor league makes.

Overview

In the United States and Canada, a minor league is a professional sports league which operates mostly in smaller cities throughout the country. Minor league baseball is considered a developmental training ground for aspiring Major League Baseball players. Most players who eventually make it to the major leagues start out in the minor leagues.

There are three levels of play in Minor League Baseball: Triple-A, Double-A, and Single-A. The Triple-A level is the highest level of play, followed by Double-A and Single-A.

The salary of a minor league baseball player varies depending on the level of play, with players at the Triple-A level making the most money and players at the Single-A level making the least.

In general, minor league baseball players make significantly less money than their counterparts in major league baseball. The average salary for a minor league player is $6,000 per year; by comparison, the average major league baseball player makes $3.2 million per year.

Despite this disparity in pay, many minor league baseball players continue to play because they love the game and hope to one day make it to the major leagues.

Salaries

Players at the Rookie level of Minor League Baseball earn a salary of $290 per week for the first season. Salaries increase to $300 per week in their second season and $325 per week in their third and fourth seasons.