Jacob Misiorowski's 2026 Earnings Will Roughly Sextuple This Month

[Matthew Trueblood]

Next week, Jacob Misiorowski will officially win the 2026 National League Cy Young Award. That will be a fitting end to one of the great pitching seasons of this decade and one of the best in Brewers history, but it will also be a huge boon for Misiorowski. Under the rules of the pre-arbitration bonus pool created upon the completion of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement, Misiorowski will get $2.5 million for that win. Add in the money he'll get based on a proportional distribution of other bonus money based on players' WAR outputs, and he'll receive roughly $3.2 million sometime in the next month. Not bad, for a player whose nominal salary for 2026 was under $800,000.

Misiorowski will be the big earner, but four other Brewers will receive payouts via the pre-arbitration pool, according to a Brewer Fanatic review of the relevant WAR totals. Jackson Chourio will receive around $500,000. Joey Ortiz and Logan Henderson will get roughly $300,000, and Abner Uribe will get roughly $200,000. Chourio made $7 million in 2026 under the terms of his long-term contract extension, which he and the team agreed to before his debut. The other three, however, each made roughly what Misiorowski did from the Brewers in 2026, so these bonuses will be substantial raises for each of them. 

Each team pays an equal share ($1.67 million or so) into the pool from which $50 million is distributed to high-performing pre-arbitration players. The Brewers get a better return on that investment than any other club in the big leagues. Last year, a whopping 10 Brewers got some bonus, and their total earnings were over $4.7 million. This season's total will fall a hair shy of that (unless Chourio makes the All-MLB team, also set to be announced next week), but it should roughly match the $4.5 million earned by eight different Brewers in 2024. Milwaukee players are getting almost $3 million per year more from this new system than the Brewers are paying to fund it.

This year, of course, the whole team's earnings will be augmented by the fact that they went all the way and won the World Series. Playoff shares haven't yet been announced, but each Brewers player should receive somewhere north of $450,000 for being on the team that won it all. Add together the pre-arbitration bonuses and playoff shares, and Misiorowski is in line to increase his earnings roughly sixfold, relative to his salary. For Ortiz and Henderson, the extra money will roughly double their annual pay,

The Brewers don't directly profit by having their young players get more money than the team pays for pre-arbitration bonus pool allotments. In fact, those earnings reduce the team's leverage a bit when they talk to players about contract extensions. Sal Frelick won't make any new money via the pool this year, but he made about $740,000 over the previous two campaigns, which was like adding an extra year's paycheck for him. Ortiz will fall just shy of $1 million in earnings across his three pre-arbitration seasons. Misiorowski's big payday makes it a bit less urgent that he secure his future. What he's getting via the pool alone this year is about 50% more than he got as a signing bonus when the Brewers drafted him in 2022. 

However, the extra money filtering through the roster and the clubhouse is good for morale. It makes young players a bit more secure and a bit more willing and able to accept the team's feedback or decisions, like when they optioned Henderson to the minors to begin this year or when they bumped Ortiz out of his starting shortstop job in favor of Cooper Pratt in June. In baseball, there are few true win/win situations, and for teams who don't do as well at developing young players (or who give them fewer chances to shine), the pre-arbitration bonus pool isn't one, either. For the Brewers, though, it's a boon, not only to the players themselves, but to the team.

The smallest-market team in the league runs a bigger payroll than that market size suggests, but they'll never rank among the game's big spenders. The fact that they get a good middle reliever's worth of money paid to their players from a league-wide common fund each year (and that, this year, they'll also get to spread a little over $20 million more around via playoff shares) helps them avoid looking stingy, and it helps them spend what they do with a bit more confidence. Meanwhile, it also makes players like Misiorowski rich a bit sooner than they otherwise would be, which makes the sport a bit fairer, overall.

Image courtesy of USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

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[JoeyWiemerTruther]

Had no idea they got performance bonuses like this. Pretty awesome for Miz this year specifically 

[BrewerFan]

I remember talking about extending him just last year! 

8/96 +2 TOs was my suggestion. It was understandably met with some... resistance. At least one said we should only pay him as a reliever. 

I wonder what it'd take to get it done now? Likely much more than it's worth. 6/120+2 TOs at 35 would be my guess. 

Just enjoy the next 5... hopefully healthy years and root for a a couple more years of big bonuses!