This morning, Robinson Cano and the Seattle Mariners agreed to the MLB's third largest net contract in it's history - a 10 year $240M deal. This is a large amount of money by anyone's standard but it is $70M less than what Cano had originally asked for. It appears all along that Cano wanted a team to reward him the same contract Alex Rodriguez was given in 2007 by the New York Yankees to the tune of $27.5M / year + potential for incentives. It would be shocking if Cano is discouraged by a $240M paycheck that doesn't match up to what he expected to receive BUT if that does occur Cano can rest a little easier - he will be a lot closer to ARod's salary than he thinks.
An athlete must pay state income taxes in each state they play. The Mariners and the state of Washington are one of the three states that host an MLB team but do not have any state income tax. The Yankees and New York boast the second highest state income tax rate of MLB teams with at 8.82%. With Cano playing 42% of his games in a state that doesn't charge state income taxes instead of 43% of his games in a state that collects nearly 9% more of his salary -
Cano's net salary will be only $1.6M less per year than what ARod will make each year.
Much better than the $70M pay cut he thought he would be taking.
Some food for thought - $24M per year compared to his 9 year season average equates to Cano being paid $125,000 per hit or $1,000,000 per home run. Hit the batting cages kids.
Note: This contract is tied with Albert Pujols' third highest ever MLB contract when looking at gross income but because Pujols plays for the LA Angels which reside in a 13.3% tax rate of California, Cano will make $7.3M more than Pujols over the life of the deal.
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