Pro salaries in general are getting way too high. Paying this much for a part-time player who relies on eight others to function is ridiculous. Team owners need to go to a results oriented system of pay, something like a base salary plus performance bonus.
When I see ticket prices to pro sports events, which help pay these high salaries, you wonder who is buying the tickets. How many people take the family to a ball game nowadays, vs. how many tickets are bought by corporations and the wealthy, who get a tax write off for buying the tickets???
I wonder if pro sports as we know them will survive into the future, if tax laws changed, and/or corporate types stopped buying the tickets. Could you still have these multimillion dollar contracts if ticket sales and TV viewership declines???
Performance bonuses are specifically against the rules, although there are ways around that. Perhaps profit-sharing? (i.e., the more money the team makes, the more the players make.)
I have long advocated that the teams put up money to fund an office at MLB whose specific function is to get the players endorsements. If they make substantial money off the field, perhaps they won’t need to make quite so much on it.
Find other ways to get them more money without it always costing the owners (who then pass it on to the fans.)