By Brian Joura January 3, 2021
Fans see roughly $50 million before the Mets hit the Competitive Balance Tax (CBT) threshold and wonder why they aren’t spending at least up to that level now and possibly going over, since money isn’t really an issue for new owner Steve Cohen. It’s been reported that Cohen is expecting to lose about $400 million in his first two years as the owner. And it’s likely that forecast was made without going over the CBT in his first year.
The easiest thing to do is to throw money at a problem, especially when it’s not your money. But the Mets have made it clear that they want to build a sustainable winner and you can’t do that if you throw away draft picks. Trevor Bauer, DJ LeMahieu and George Springer each come with draft pick compensation attached to them. It doesn’t mean the Mets can’t sign one of them but it does make it problematic to sign two or three.
Draft picks are key because they provide a low-cost source of talent. While the three players mentioned above figure to easily make eight figures each year of their deal, the 2019 Mets had eight key contributors to the team making fewer than a million dollars, including Pete Alonso in his 53-HR season. Having those types of salaries allows a team to stock the rest of their roster with big-ticket items.
But what happens when you don’t have a bunch of those pre-arb players? Sure, you can still have a bunch of relievers and bench players on that pay scale, whether they’re pre-arb or not. But you need to have those salaries also coming from productive players, like Alonso in 2019.
At this point in time, the Mets don’t figure to have any rookies debut in 2021 who will be major contributors in future years, with the possible exception of Thomas Szapucki. Last year there was Andres Gimenez and David Peterson. That’s good, except for the fact that fans want to trade Gimenez to bring in a big name shortstop and they want to sign a bunch of free agent starters and move Peterson to the minors. And all of those guys who were on cheap deals in 2019 will either start to get expensive in 2022 or will already be there.
Right now, the Mets only have four players under contract for 2022 but those four total just under $60 million, including Robinson Cano and his $20.25 million salary which is not on the books for 2021 due to his suspension. They’ll also have 15 arbitration-eligible players, including 10 that will be in their second or third arbitration season. And two of the first-time arb players will get more than token raises due to being starting position players with an All-Star appearance already on their resume. Now, not all of those arb-eligible players will be tendered a deal. Let’s take a look at the potential arbitration guys:
Edwin Diaz, Brandon Nimmo, Seth Lugo, Dominic Smith, J.D. Davis, Amed Rosario, Miguel Castro, Robert Gsellman, Guillermo Heredia, Jacob Barnes, Tomas Nido, Jeff McNeil, Drew Smith, Alonso and Luis Guillorme
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