Red Sox-Roman Anthony Contract Explained: Full Breakdown Of $130M Extension

Roman Anthony and the Boston Red Sox had to agree on a lot of specifics to work out the extension heard around the sporting world on Wednesday.

As ESPN's Jeff Passan first reported, Anthony and the Red Sox are in agreement on an eight-year, $130 million extension that can reach up to $230 million with escalators and a 2034 club option. Boston bought out at least three years of free agency for the 21-year-old rising star outfielder.

The basics are good to know, but the real baseball nerds were instantly wondering what all of those contract specifics would be. And now, we have the answers we were looking for.

Roman Anthony's contract with the Red Sox, broken down

MassLive's Chris Cotillo shared the full details of Anthony's new contract on Wednesday afternoon, so let's examine them all. Namely, what do the extra $100 million that aren't guaranteed come into play?

First, the club option for 2034 is worth $30 million, which is fairly straightforward. But the escalators are what get particularly complicated. Those will kick in for the 2032 and 2033 seasons, as well as 2031 if he finishes in the top two of Rookie of the Year voting this season.

Here is Cotillo's breakdown of the dollar amounts of each of those escalators, which he published in a tweet on Wednesday afternoon:

• $1M if earns 1st-2nd Place for ROY in 2025
• $2M for each MVP 1st in any previous year
• $1M for each MVP 2nd-3rd in any previous year
• $750K for each MVP 4th-5th in any previous year
• $500K for each MVP 6th-10th in any previous year
• $200K for each All-Star Election/Selection in any previous year

Same escalators to 2034 option year salary except it’s $2m instead of $1m for the 2025 ROY 1st or 2nd escalator.

So in a nutshell, if Anthony is as good as he looks like he can become, he'll add a lot of dollars to his salary. But there's also the matter of what he's scheduled to be paid in each of those seasons before the escalators come in, which Cotillo also reported.

Anthony gets a $5 million signing bonus, and after his league-minimum salary this year, he is slated to receive:

$2 million in 2026
$4 million in 2027
$8 million in 2028
$15 million in 2029 (this would've been his first year of arbitration)
$19 million in 2030
$23 million in 2031
$25 million in 2032
$29 million in 2033

Got all of that? There may be a pop quiz coming soon, so be sure to go over the flashcards.

The bottom line is that Anthony became a very rich 21-year-old on Wednesday, and the Red Sox still may have saved themselves millions if baseball's former No. 1 prospect turns into the superstar he seems destined to become.