Just in time for Christmas, a half-dozen of the Twins' youngest players learned over the weekend that they have earned bonuses averaging nearly $350,000 apiece from Major League Baseball.
Bailey Ober, according to figures acquired Monday by the Associated Press, will receive an extra $432,752 over his MLB-minimum salary of $720,000 for his work in 2023. Though highest among the Twins, Ober's bonus ranked only 34th among the 101 young players around the majors who qualified for a bonus.
Edouard Julien will be paid an extra $397,629, according to the AP; Joe Ryan gets $341,931, and Royce Lewis nearly matches him with a $341,190 bonus. Catcher Ryan Jeffers gets $300,304 under the bonus program, which was created in 2022 during negotiations between MLB and the Major League Players Association over the collective bargaining agreement, while reliever Jhoan Duran receives $271,789.
The money comes from a $50 million pool that each MLB team contributes to, and it is distributed to pre-arbitration players who win, or receive votes for, the Rookie of the Year, MVP, Cy Young and All-MLB Team awards. The latter awards were announced Sunday, finalizing the bonuses. Seattle's Julio Rodríguez earned the biggest bonus this year, earning an extra $1,865,349.
In addition, each of the top 100 pre-arbitration players — 101 this year because of a technicality — qualifies for a bonus based on a mathematical formula that quantifies their contributions to each team.
