Reese Kaplan -- David Stearns Walked Into a Financial Mess

For Monday morning, let's take a deep breath and forget for a moment about the sometimes questionable roster assembly decisions made by POBO David Stearns and instead let's see the financial situation he inherited when he agreed with Steve Cohen to take the position and move on from a successful career in Milwaukee.  

If you asked the average Mets fan what the payroll is for the 2024 season they would likely guess somewhere north of $300 million.  Oddly, that answer would be wrong.  It actually falls slightly under $300 million but that excess from long term contracts still associated with the Mets team pushes an $81 million tax which makes the starting point about $380 million.  That's not pocket change even for the uber-wealthy Steve Cohen.  

To begin, let's see what payroll obligations actually exist.  For long term contracts which are guaranteed, the Mets are on the hook for $193 million.  Back in the Wilpon days that amount would have been a fictitious fantasy, but under this regime it's merely a starting point.

Next comes the obligations to players with arbitration which adds another $36 million to the pot and then you have players who have not yet reached arbitration eligibility who tack on another $4 million.  Add it all up and you're looking at $233 million.  

But wait, isn't that well below the nearly $300 owed in pre-tax dollars.  Why, yes, in fact it is.  That is why the payroll picture contains more layers than you might have imagined.

Some might wonder how the $233 million total evolved.  It is, of course, a combination of luring in free agents, drafting players and paying fees associated with ones they signed, making trades, dabbling in the international market and making waiver claims.  David Stearns has indeed used each of these avenues to try to transition the team from its horrific 2023 into a competitive team in 2024 and then a pennant chasing one in 2025.  

Where else did the money go?  Well, you need to count on dollars promised to folks who are now in different clubhouses than the one at Citifield.  Both of the ace pitchers put on the trading block in July will result in over $47 million in Mets payroll obligations.  Add in another $8 million for James McCann and you're up to over $55 million.  Add that to the $233 owed to everyone else and you're up to $288 million.  Then there were buyouts paid to others like Darin Ruf, Eduardo Escobar and additional buyouts.  You can now easily see how the Mets payroll obligation does indeed approach $300 million.  

Now there is some good news at the end of this costly tunnel.  Much of the payroll obligations disappears after the 2024 season ends.  There's no more Max Scherzer nor Justin Verlander money (unless the currently injured future Hall of Famer logs 140 innings which will cause another payment to happen).  Even James McCann's share disappears.  In addition, consider how many short term or option-oriented contracts the Mets are now carrying which means much more flexibility in payroll is indeed on the near horizon for 2025.  

By some estimates, the total payroll obligation will drop to $172 million.  Now obviously they need to make important and expensive decisions about some high-dollar players like Pete Alonso, prospective free agent Juan Soto and others, but there are also going to be a lot of roster vacancies, not all of which can be fulfilled by people in Binghamton or Syracuse.  

Without delving too deeply into who is owed how much, the fact it that there are only seven players sucking up most of that $172 million total.  In theory it would give the Mets nearly $70 million to spend on other players, but of course that could change if they opted to trade away any of their current long term obligations or retain any of their free agents to be.  

Then you also have to consider the possibility of securing early someone like Francisco Alvarez with a deal mirroring what the Braves and other savvy organizations do to buy out arbitration and free agency.  It gets better still in 2026 but then more of the long term obligations also disappear which means more lockers to fill with ballplayers.    

The fact is that while some of us (me, in particular) have been highly critical of the seeming inertia and take-a-chance player acquisitions made by David Stearns, he did not have that never ending supply of money that other GMs (Billy Eppler in particular) had at their disposal.