Most Underpaid MLB Contracts

In a sport without a salary cap, the bargain still matters — because every dollar saved on one deal is a dollar that funds the next. This page surfaces MLB’s best of them: the strongest Contract Value Index (CVI) grades on the board sitting on below-median salaries.

Pre-arbitration and arbitration-era players headline the list, the cost-controlled core every contender is built on. But a smart extension or a value free-agent signing can grade just as high, because the equation is identical: elite return for a fraction of the market rate.

For a front office, these are the names that make a payroll work — production that pays for itself many times over.

The 20 MLB bargains below cost just $50.9M per year combined, led by value at RP — a fraction of what their grades would command on the open market.