Major League Baseball has more $100 million players than the NFL, NBA, and NHL combined

It pays to play baseball.

As Major League Baseball's offseason starts to hit its stride, we are once again reminded of just how much money MLB teams have to spend on players. There are currently 42 MLB players with a contract that is worth at least $100 million — approximately one out of every 18 players on active rosters — led by the $325 million contract for Giancarlo Stanton of the Miami Marlins. That is more than the other three major North American sports leagues combined, according to data collected from Spotrac.

The NBA is next with 18 players with $100 million contracts, or about one out of every 20 active players. The NFL has 12 players (1 out of every 141 players). That number goes down to zero if we were to only include the guaranteed portions of contracts. Meanwhile, the NHL has three such players, or one out of every 230 players, and none since the most recent collective bargaining agreement was ratified in 2013.

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(Cork Gaines/Business Insider)

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