Players have always been underpaid. In the last 30-plus years the system was set up so that the top players who were good enough to continue playing until they were eligible for free agency would end up getting paid closer to what they were worth. And frequently, those veterans got paid significantly more than they were worth. But in the last few years, teams have been much more careful about overpaying in free agency. Which means the players are getting squeezed on both ends. It’s because of that squeeze that we might see a labor dispute when the current CBA expires.
For right now, let’s look at a comparison of what Mets players were paid in 2020 versus what they were “worth.” The payroll information comes from Cot’s and Spotrac. In some cases these are just guesses. For guys who didn’t spend the whole year with the team, it’s very hard to determine how much the club actually paid them. For simplicity, the minimum used was $200,000 but it’s likely it was less than that. But we’re talking about rounding errors here, so it’s not anything over which to fret too much. The “worth” comes from FanGraphs Value, which assigns numbers based on a scale of $8 million per each unit of its WAR valuation. This isn’t perfect but it’s a systematic approach.
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