Title: List of highest-paid Major League Baseball players
Content:   The highest-paid player in Major League Baseball (MLB) from the 2018 Major League Baseball season is Los Angeles Angels' Center Fielder Mike Trout with an annual salary of $35.54 million on a 12-year contract for $426,500,000. MLB does not have a hard salary cap, instead employing a luxury tax which applies to teams whose total payroll exceeds certain set thresholds for a given season. Free agency did not exist in MLB prior to the end of the reserve clause in the 1970s, allowing owners before that time to wholly dictate the terms of player negotiations and resulting in significantly lower salaries. Babe Ruth, widely regarded as one of the greatest baseball players 
Title: List of highest-paid Major League Baseball players
Content:  This table refers to the salary for 2019 alone, not the overall average value or amount of the contract.
Title: List of highest-paid Major League Baseball players
Content:  million, 10-year agreement with the Yankees, breaking his own record for the largest sports contract. Under this deal, Rodriguez also received $6 million when he tied the career home run total of Willie Mays (660), and would have received $6 million more had he tied Babe Ruth (714), Hank Aaron (755), and Barry Bonds (762), along with another $6 million for breaking Bonds' mark. First base was the highest-paid position in 2010; regular starters at that position earned an average salary of $9,504,165 in compared to an overall average of $3,014,572. Pitcher Nolan Ryan was the first player to earn an annual salary above $1 million, signing a $4.5 million, 4-year contract 
Title: List of highest-paid Major League Baseball players
Content: Earnings up to date as of the end of the 2019 season. 
Title: List of highest-paid Major League Baseball players
Content:  the Houston Astros in 1979. Kirby Puckett and Rickey Henderson signed the first contracts which paid an average of $3 million a year in November 1989, in 1990 Jose Canseco signed for 5 years and $23.5 million, making him the first player to earn an average of $4 million a year. It was until 2010 when the MLB average salary rose above that same mark. Five of the twenty highest-paid players in 2013 were members of the Yankees. Their team payroll for 2013 was $228,835,490, roughly $12 million above the second-largest Los Angeles Dodgers. The Yankees have drawn criticism for their payroll, with some claiming it undermines the parity of MLB.
Title: List of highest-paid Major League Baseball players
Content:  greater than the annual payroll of the entire Minnesota Twins team that year ($15.8 million). The deal was the largest sports contract in history, doubling the total value of Kevin Garnett's $126 million National Basketball Association contract (the previous record holder) and more than doubling Mike Hampton's $121 million contract, the previous MLB record which had been signed just days before. The Rangers later traded Rodriguez to the Yankees in exchange for Alfonso Soriano before the 2004 season, though they agreed to pay $67 million of the $179 million outstanding on the contract. Despite this, he opted out of the remainder of his deal after the 2007 season and renegotiated a new 
Title: Personal finances of professional American athletes
Content:  the average salary for the about 500 players in Major League Baseball was slightly more than $2,000 a season ($ today). The star hitter Ty Cobb received $9,000 a season ($ today), and sold automobiles in the off season. While Cobb encouraged young men to play professionally, top pitcher Christy Mathewson—who had made more money as a player than Cobb—warned, "Keep out of baseball unless you are sure of being a star!" He stated that the average player did not make enough over a ten-year career to justify devoting those years to the sport. By 1941, Hank Greenberg was the highest-paid player in baseball, earning $55,000 a season ($ today). Stan Musial's $80,000 a season ($ today) was the highest in 1952, while young star Mickey Mantle earned $10,000 a season ($ today). Musial, like Cobb, supplemented his income; he owned a restaurant.
Title: 2019 in baseball
Content: December 9 – 2019 World Series champion and MVP Pitcher Stephen Strasburg resigns with the Washington Nationals and signs a seven-year deal worth $245 Million making him the highest paid National League Pitcher in History to sign at the first day of the MLB Winter Meetings in San Diego, California. ; December 10 – Pitcher Gerrit Cole leaves the AL Champion and World Series runner-up Houston Astros and signs a nine-year deal with the New York Yankees for a record-breaking $324 million deal, making him the highest-paid American League pitcher ever to sign a deal at the 2019 MLB Winter Meetings in San Diego, California. ; December 11 – Third Baseman Anthony Rendon leaves the 2019 World Series Champion Washington Nationals and signs a seven-year deal with the Los Angeles Angels worth $245 Million at the Third Day of the 2019 MLB Winter Meetings in San Diego, California. ; December 12 – The Detroit Tigers select former yankees top pick Rony Garcia with the No 1 Pick in the 2019 Rule 5 Draft on the fourth and final day of the 2019 MLB Winter Meetings in San Diego, California. 
Title: List of highest-paid Major League Baseball players
Content:  earned an estimated $856,850 ($0 inflation-adjusted from 1934 dollars) over his entire playing career. When asked whether he thought he deserved to earn $80,000 a year ($0 inflation-adjusted), while the president, Herbert Hoover, had a $75,000 salary, Ruth famously remarked, "What the hell has Hoover got to do with it? Besides, I had a better year than he did." Alex Rodriguez has signed two record-breaking contracts over the course of his career. First, he signed a $252 million, 10-year contract with the Texas Rangers in December 2000 ($0 inflation-adjusted from 2000 dollars). Sandy Alderson called the deal "stupefying", while Sports Illustrated noted that Rodriguez's early salaries under the contract ($21 million) would 
Title: Professional sports
Content:  Professional sportsmen can earn a great deal of money at the highest levels. For instance, the highest-paid team in professional baseball is New York Yankees. Per Forbes 2021 ranking, the highest-paid athletes include Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Naomi Osaka, Tiger Woods, Serena Williams and wrestler-turned-actor The Rock. The top ten tennis players make about $3 million a year on average. Much of the growth in income for sports and athletes has come from broadcasting rights; for example, the most recent television contract for the NFL is valued at nearly US$5 billion per year. Women in the U.S., on the other hand, make much less, for example as of 2014, the WNBA 

Question: who is the highest paid baseball player in the major leagues?
Answer: Clayton Kershaw.
Alex Rodriguez.