For professional athletes, true financial success goes beyond signing big contracts or landing endorsements. It’s about making smart decisions that transform short-term earnings into lasting wealth.
In this series, I interview athletes and entertainers to explore how they’ve navigated their career’s financial highs and lows—learning from big paydays, unexpected challenges and strategies that set them up for lasting success.
This time, I sat down with Adam Jones, whose 14-year MLB career earned him a place in the Baltimore Orioles Hall of Fame. The former centerfielder anchored the Orioles for over a decade, earning five All-Star selections, four Gold Gloves, a Silver Slugger Award, and helping lead Baltimore to three postseason appearances. He hit 282 career home runs throughout his career and also starred for Team USA before rejoining the Orioles organization as a special advisor to the GM after he retired from the game.
Evan Vladem: You were drafted at 17 years old, signed your first MLB contract with the Mariners and secured a $925,000 signing bonus … What was your relationship with money growing up? Did your money mindset change immediately?
Adam Jones: I understood money, but I don’t think I understood that much money.
From ages 13 to 17, while I was playing tournaments and making ends meet, I would sell candy door-to-door in northern San Diego with a group of guys. We were a candy crew. I understood what it was like having $100 to $250 at a time.
When I got drafted, I didn’t think I was going to be that high of a pick. When I was picked 37th overall, I said ‘Wow! This is different.’
Once I signed, a lot of the guys were like, ‘Hey, take $10,000 to $20,000 and buy what you want, clothes, shoes, necklace, earrings. Have a good time because you earned it. But that’s it. The goal is not to spend money like this every day. The goal is to make it to the major leagues, and that’s where the real money is at.’
I did what everybody did. I wanted to buy some fresh fits, some fresh shoes, some stuff I couldn’t afford at the time. And then it was over. … I got to work.
EV: How did things progress as you were working your way through the minors?
AJ: I learned to understand something that I’m trying to instill in my kids: do the work when nobody is looking. Especially going through the minors, I realized that the signing bonus was great, but when I got that first Minor League check, and I saw $630, I knew I needed to get to the big leagues. I thought I was going to get the same type of “signing bonus money” every two weeks. … No, no you’re not, buddy. … What you’re going to get every two weeks is $630. The big leagues are where it’s at.
EV: After being called up at 20 with Seattle, and as you progressed through the league before that massive Orioles extension, what did your financial team look like around you?
AJ: I’ve had three advisors over my career, and brought them into my family. I originally met one of my advisors at 17. They know me, know what I like to do, and know my family.
My advisors know that we didn’t come from money, but we’re trying to change our family dynamic. My wife’s family is highly educated … a lot of lawyers, real estate professionals. … Once I got my large contract (a six-year, $85.5 million extension with the Orioles in 2013), I wanted to elevate my family. I wanted everybody to get an education. I wanted everybody to elevate themselves.
Now, did it all work out? Hell no, because some people have their own plans, and I can’t influence someone who’s not in my household the way everybody else wants to. You can help people, but ultimately, they have to help themselves.
EV: How did you specifically push family members to elevate themselves?
AJ: I helped start a couple of businesses for my brothers and cousins. I approached it so I was not involved; it was for them. They got ownership. Being able to create that sense of ownership, where they may not have been able to get that in other places, possibly using a $100,000 oan from a bank, which wasn’t going to happen, I was able to do that for them. I just had one ask … that they never ask me for money again.
They have a home healthcare business, and they made their first million eight years into the project. They’ve been doing really well for themselves, and that’s what I wanted.
I don’t want to keep saying, ‘Hey, here’s $5,000’ … I said, ‘Here’s $100,000. … Leave me the [expletive] alone.’
They’ve done their job, and I salute my brother and cousins because they went in and they said they wanted something to do, they wanted ownership. Everybody else says, ‘I need a piece of this!’
Well, here’s your piece. What are you going to do with it? They’ve done pretty well for themselves.
EV: What you’re saying is that with family, you have a cutoff?
AJ: I can do one of two things: I can create a burden, and you can keep coming back to me. Or, I can create your self-sustainability. I’m on the board of BAT (Baseball Assistance Team), and one of our big things is getting players, umpires and coaches back on their feet. And a lot of this, with education, is about self-sustainability, and trying to create that for people. And again, I was able to do it on a larger scale. … One of the greatest accomplishments is watching other people accomplish things.
EV: Did you approach it a similar way with friends?
AJ: I love my really close friends. … In emergencies, I’m obviously always there. There are things that happen. I’m not going to buy someone a car. I’m not going to be paying your rent. I’m not going to be doing those kinds of things, but emergencies happen in life.
EV: After the big contract, were there any financial situations that you may have approached differently now?
AJ: I think the only real mistake I made was that I didn’t move to Florida.[The Orioles] had a brand new facility in Sarasota, and now, Sarasota is booming. We had some players who moved there early, too.
I just love [my hometown of] San Diego so much. I love going back home, I hang out with my friends, and go to the beach. I get to see my family and friends in an intimate setting. They don’t have to come to Baltimore and see just a bit of me. I think financially, that was the mistake. But I was happy; if you’re happy, it’s worth it.
EV: How do you approach your investments?
AJ: I want to be conservative. I just want to grow. I think a lot of financial advisors say, ‘Underpromise, overdeliver.’ So, if you have a large amount of money, and you’re [aiming] for 5% but get 7.5%, who can be mad at that?
I have funds, I have bonds and my favorite is real estate. Obviously, you can’t touch it for a while, but I’m a big fan of real estate. Growing neighborhoods for families, doing both for single families and [multifamily].
I approached investments in buckets. Each check, I would say, ‘Let’s create a bucket where we have 5% being risky. Let’s have a little fun with it. Try to hit a home run with it.’ We’ve had some good home runs, some singles and some strikeouts. … The larger bucket, though, goes over to the conservative bucket and works.
With real estate, I like being the bank for a lot of projects—it makes more sense than going to the bank. But [what has also worked was] getting in deals with other people that have been really fruitful.
A lot of my baseball friends, we are all in the business world so we’re all throwing ideas off each other. Obviously, a lot of people have different interests. I like real estate; some people like VC, some like AI, some like crypto. But whatever you like, share the ideas you got. We are all sharing our information.
EV: As your MLB career matured, did your mindset ever shift to a post-playing career and transition?
AJ: When I signed a two-year, $8 million deal for the Orix Buffaloes in 2020 in Japan, that was the real moment of feeling, ‘Okay, well, these are the last two years, this is it. The body will tell you when it’s it. Going to Japan, playing on that turf, being 35 at the time, the body was saying, this is it. We had plenty of talks all the time, but Japan was really even more educational for my wife and me. This is what the future looks like. This is what the back end [of my career] looks like. Let’s try to be smart on the back end.
EV: Did the way you approached your finances change during those transitional years?
AJ: We invested heavily in different things, such as insurance and [other financial vehicles] that get you to 45 and pay a lump sum. Then at 50, another lump sum. Then, I get my pension.
With the kids’ education and other things, we invested in real estate and insurance for the annual payouts. It’s like having another job. And right now, I don’t need the cash. In five to 10 years, I’m going to love it.
EV: Adam, I really appreciate your time and candor in discussing how you’ve set yourself and your family up for success beyond a stellar playing career.