Do Home Runs Affect MLB Player Salaries?

Introduction to the Data

Baseball has always been one of my favorite sports, and I’ve played it for most of my life. I was never really a big home run hitter myself, but I’ve always enjoyed watching the game, and some of my favorite players are known for their power at the plate. That connection made me interested in exploring whether home run hitters are actually rewarded financially in Major League Baseball. For this project, I wanted to examine whether players who hit more home runs tend to earn higher salaries. This question stood out to me because home runs are often treated as the most exciting and important part of the game, and there is a common belief that power hitters are the most valuable players. I wanted to see if that belief holds true in the data and whether players who produce the most home runs are actually the ones being paid the most.

Ethics Statement

ESPN and Spotrac make player statistics and salary information publicly available specifically to support sports analysis and discussion. They are designed as reference tools, not restricted or proprietary databases. The data being used here is limited and focused, just individual player home run totals and salary figures for a single season, collected to answer a specific research question. This is not a large scale scrape or an attempt to recreate their platforms, and there is no commercial use or redistribution involved. In practice, this approach is no different than manually recording the same numbers from the website; using code simply makes the process more efficient. At the same time, the data collection process is designed to stay within ethical and acceptable boundaries. The scraping is limited in scope, avoids restricted areas of the site, and follows responsible practices like spacing out requests. This ensures the process respects the website’s structure and intended use while still allowing for meaningful analysis.

Note

Identify myself to ESPN and Spotrac

library(httr)
set_config(user_agent("TrentonPollard-MLB-Project (academic use)"))

Question #1: Who are the top 10 home run hitters, and what are their salaries?

Example: Aaron Judge hit 58 HR in 2024 and earned $40,000,000

             player hr   salary
1       Aaron Judge 58 40000000
2     Shohei Ohtani 44 46000000
3        Matt Olson 41 20000000
4  Ronald Acuna Jr. 41 17000000
5    Kyle Schwarber 38 19000000
6       Luis Robert 38  6000000
7   Julio Rodriguez 37   800000
8         Juan Soto 35 31000000
9       Pete Alonso 34 14500000
10    Rafael Devers 33 31300000

This dataset shows the top 10 home run hitters from the 2024 MLB season along with their salaries. Aaron Judge led the league with 58 home runs and earned about $40 million, which suggests strong financial reward for elite power hitting. Shohei Ohtani hit 44 home runs and earned about $46 million, making him the highest-paid player in the group despite not leading in home runs. His higher salary reflects his value as both a pitcher and hitter. A major outlier is Julio Rodríguez, who hit 37 home runs but earned only about $800,000 due to being on a rookie contract, which limits early-career earnings regardless of performance. Overall, the data shows a positive relationship between home runs and salary, but it is clearly influenced by contract rules, experience, and overall player value beyond home runs alone.

Question #2: What does the distribution of home runs look like across all players?

The home run distribution is heavily skewed to the left, meaning most players hit relatively few home runs. This dataset includes both pitchers and position players, and pitchers are not expected to hit home runs, which contributes to the large number of very low values. Most players fall in the range of about 10 to 23 home runs. As you move into the 40–50+ home run range, you see only a small number of elite power hitters, and these are generally the players who also receive the highest salaries. This is important because it shows that the relationship between home runs and salary is being driven largely by a small group of high performing sluggers rather than the overall population of players.

Question #3: What does the distribution of salaries look like across all players?

MLB salaries are even more unevenly distributed than home run totals. Most players earn close to the league minimum during their first few years in the league, which creates a large cluster of low salaries on the graph. From there, salaries spread out into a middle group of solid players earning roughly $20–$30 million per year, and then a smaller group of star players earning $30 million or more. This distribution can make comparisons between home runs and salary misleading, since many players are still on rookie contracts. Some of these players may perform at a high level, but their salaries do not yet reflect that performance due to MLB’s contract structure.

Question #4: Is there a relationship between home runs and salary?

The scatterplot shows a positive relationship between home runs and salary. The upward trend line suggests that players who hit more home runs generally earn higher salaries. However, the points are widely spread, which indicates that home runs alone are not a strong predictor of salary. A major feature of the plot is the large group of players with zero home runs but very different salaries, which is largely made up of pitchers. On the higher end, players with more home runs tend to fall into mid to high salary ranges. There are also clear outliers, such as players on rookie contracts, who may produce well but still earn low salaries. Overall, the correlation between home runs and salary does exist, but it is weakened by contract structure and the presence of outliers.

Question #5: Do players who hit more home runs than average earn significantly more?

Players who hit above the median number of home runs generally earn more on average than those below the median, and the difference between the two groups appears fairly large. However, this gap is strongly influenced by MLB’s contract structure rather than performance alone. The below-median group includes many pitchers and young position players who have not yet reached arbitration or free agency, which keeps their salaries relatively low regardless of production. Overall, the salary premium for home run hitting is most meaningful among veteran and free-agent players, where salaries are determined more directly by the open market. In that context, home run production does appear to play an important role in driving higher pay, even though it is not the only factor.

Overall Takeaways and Reasoning

As I mentioned earlier, I chose this topic because I’ve loved baseball my whole life and wanted to see whether hitting home runs actually leads to higher player salaries. I was also interested in the idea of whether players might focus more on hitting home runs if it clearly resulted in bigger contracts. The data shows that there is a relationship between home runs and salary, but it comes with important limitations. The presence of rookie contracts and pitchers in the dataset complicates the relationship. Unlike other sports, higher performance in MLB does not always lead to immediate financial rewards. Due to arbitration and service time rules, players may perform at a high level for several years before earning significantly higher salaries. The main takeaway is that service time plays a major role in shaping the relationship between performance and pay. Players who earn the largest contracts are typically veterans who have reached free agency, where salaries are determined more directly by the market. Overall, home runs do contribute to higher salaries, but the effect is most clearly seen in veteran players rather than across the entire league.