It turns out there were more than two winners on Thursday night as Major League Baseball and the Baseball Writers Association of America announced the 2024 Most Valuable Player Award recipients. New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge and Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani both took home the hardware unanimously in the American League and National League, respectively. But Arizona Diamondbacks second baseman Ketel Marte has reason to celebrate, too.
Marte finished third in National League MVP voting, finishing behind Ohtani and New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor. By doing so, Marte will be earning several million more dollars next season thanks to an incentives clause in his contract.
Indeed, Marte's base salary for the 2025 season will increase from $16 million to $19 million in accordance with the terms of the contract extension he signed back in March 2022. According to Jon Heyman of the New York Post's reporting, Marte's pact guaranteed a $2 million bump the next season following a fourth-through-seventh place MVP finish, and a $3 million bump if he finished third or higher.
Ohtani (who signed a $700 million contract last winter) and Judge (who inked a $360 million deal two years ago) are baseball's two highest-paid position players. But neither of the 2024 MVP winners are believe to get a contractual bonus. Lindor, for his second-place finish, does receive an extra $25,000.
Marte, 31, is coming off a spectacular year that saw him hit .292/.372/.560, good for a career-high 155 OPS+, with 36 home runs and seven stolen bases. His contributions were worth an estimated 6.8 Wins Above Replacement, according to Baseball-Reference's calculations.
This is the second time Marte has received MVP Award consideration. The first time, in 2019, came before he signed his contract extension. Nonetheless, he finished fourth that winter after compiling 6.9 Wins Above Replacement.
It's been said that anything that happens once can happen twice, but that anything that happens twice will happen a third time. Should that prove to be the case with Marte and MVP Award consideration between now and the 2027 season (his deal contains a club option for 2028) the above terms will again see him earn a few million more than he otherwise would have in the ensuing season.