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.
Six young Twins players get big bonuses from MLB pre-arbitration pool
Bailey Ober, Edouard Julien, Ryan Jeffers, Joe Ryan, Jhoan Duran and Royce Lewis will have paydays averaging about $350,000 each.
December 19, 2023 at 1:43AM
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.
Armando Alvarez played first base and third base in 16 games for Oakland. He ranged further in the minor leagues, where he hit .315 in Class AAA last season.
