Some Things Are Worth More Than Money

José Ramírez will be decidedly underpaid, but this new contract cements him as a Cleveland legend.

In the end, José Ramírez will be wildly underpaid. That’s simply his destiny. Just about all the other great players of his day — Trout, Mookie, Arenado, Freddie, Bryce, Judge, Machado, his old pal Lindor, Shohei, obviously — will get paid tens of millions of dollars more than him. In some cases, they will get paid hundreds of millions of dollars more than him. There will be those who will call José a sucker.

There are those who call him a sucker.

It feels a lot more complicated than that to me

On Sunday, Ramírez signed a deal that, on its face, feels like a joke in today’s baseball world. A few days after the Dodgers gave Kyle Tucker $60 million a year, and the Mets gave Bo Bichette $42 million a year, the Guardians and Ramírez agreed to a seven-year, $175 million deal. Simple math will tell you that’s $25 million a year for one of the greatest third basemen in baseball history, a surefire Hall of Famer already at age 33. In baseball terms, that is Carlos Rodón money. It’s Trevor Story money. It’s Aaron Nola money. It’s Xander Bogaerts money. It’s not far from Christian Walker money.

No offense to all those fine players — they ain’t José Ramírez.

My default position is to seethe when a player signs a wildly under-market deal, not because the players will struggle financially with a few less million dollars, but because every million that doesn’t go to them goes into the pockets of a billionaire owner who would NEVER give up a dime in their own professions out of loyalty or love of their hometown or deference to history. The Dolan family, which owns the team and is worth more than five billion dollars, has famously kept the Cleveland payroll as low as possible and cried poor before shipping off icons like Francisco Lindor.

It truly bugs me when they cash in on the loyalty of someone like José Ramírez.

And let’s not undersell just how much money Ramírez will have left on the table. According to Fangraphs’ estimates, he has already put up $461 million in baseball value. When this contract ends and, presumably, Ramírez retires, he will have been paid $272 million. There is every chance that he will be paid $300 million less than his value over a career.

You might know that Ramírez already has the highest MVP share in baseball history for someone who has not won an MVP.

When he retires, he will probably be, by sheer dollars, the most underpaid player in baseball history.

OK, but as I said, this is complicated. The deal that Ramírez signed on Sunday is not so easily calculated as $25 million per year. See:

• He was already signed for the next three years for $69 million — $23 million a year. So this gives him a small but meaningful raise over the next three years.

• Starting in 2029 — the year Ramirez turns 37 — he will have three more years at $25 million per. We have absolutely no idea how good a player he will be at age 37, but I mean, Albert Pujols was a sub-replacement level player at 37, Scott Rolen was a replacement level player, and David Wright was retired.

• Ramirez has a no-trade clause that I imagine he will vigorously wield if necessary, meaning he will — if he wants — spend his entire career with Cleveland. And that is exactly what he wants. Look at what his agent, Rafa Nieves, posted:

  

  Rafa Nieves@mlb_agent

  They gave him $106m for his ages 36 to 40, 3 years early. The highest paid 36-year old FA in history is Jose Abreu with 3 years $58.5m The deal brings his total career earnings to $272m, and it also comes with a statue in CF, his number retired, a 1st ballot HOF entrance

  

  Guardians Prospective @CleGuardPro

  @ChuckNaso The hate is real @mlb_agent, 🤣

  9:11 PM · Jan 24, 2026 · 141K Views

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  24 Replies · 62 Reposts · 785 Likes

Now, obviously, his agent will do what he can to defend this deal. But I think this is mostly right. Ramírez WILL get a statue in centerfield (or somewhere around the park), and he WILL get his number retired, and he WILL, I feel quite sure, get elected to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot. That stuff matters.

I wouldn’t want to celebrate a team for wildly underpaying a player as great and important and beloved as Ramírez, but that ship had sailed long before this deal was signed. He was going to finish his career underpaid, no matter what. And while this deal doesn’t balance the scales, there is an unexpected sweetness about it. The Guardians certainly didn’t have to give Ramirez a long-term deal now, when he’s 34 years old and still has three very affordable years left on his contract. The ruthless thing to do would be to let him play out his deal and either sign him year-to-year after 2028 or let him go play somewhere else for whatever contract he could muster. There isn’t much of a market out there for 37-year-old third basemen.

But instead, the Guardians made Ramirez a lifelong Cleveland legend. They set him up to forever be one of the true sports heroes in town, along with Jim Brown, LeBron James, Bob Feller, Duane Kuiper, and Bernie Kosar. That’s what José Ramírez craved, and the team gave it to him. Sure, it’s cliché to say that some things are worth more than money, but it’s also true, and it makes my heart sing to know that Ramírez will spend every game of his professional baseball life wearing a Cleveland uniform.

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Fourteen days (!) until pitchers and catchers report, and here’s your daily splash of joy:

Why do you love baseball?

Brilliant Reader Tom: Because Rick Manning was there to tell me about the game 44 years ago, and he'll be back again this spring to tell me about it again. Go Guards!