For the third year in a row, nobody met the Mets in terms of spending.
The Mets set a league record with a $333.3 million payroll in 2024, according to MLB figures obtained by The Associated Press.
They also set a record with a total cost of $430.4 million, which covered their payroll and a $97.1 million luxury tax.
Those lofty numbers exceeded the Mets’ $319.5 million payroll and their total cost of $420 million in 2023, although they paid a higher tax ($100.8 million) that year. That 2023 payroll made the Mets the first MLB team to hit $300 million.
In the four seasons since Steve Cohen bought the team for $2.4 billion, the Mets have spent a whopping $1.36 billion in payroll and luxury tax. Cohen has a net worth of $21.3 million, according to Forbes, making him baseball’s richest owner.
“I’ve always wanted to be more measured in payroll growth,” Cohen said last month at spring training.
“And then we get there and it’s never quite there. I have the ability to spend if I have to, and I want to win and I want to put the best team I can on the field. But free agency’s expensive. It’s just the way it is, and it’s always more expensive than you can imagine.”
Cohen made those comments after a franchise-altering offseason in which the Mets signed Juan Soto to a 15-year, $765 million contract — the biggest in MLB history.
He also re-signed Pete Alonso to a two-year, $54 million contract; Sean Manaea to a three-year, $75 million deal; and Clay Holmes, Frankie Montas and A.J. Minter to multi-year pacts.
The Mets did have multiple significant expenditures come off the books, including the nearly $31 million they paid Max Scherzer and the $25 million they gave Justin Verlander in 2024. The Mets agreed to pay large portions of both pitchers’ contracts when they traded them away in 2023.
Cot’s Contracts projects the Mets to have a $326.6 million competitive balance tax payroll in 2025, trailing only the Los Angeles Dodgers, whose latest offseason spending spree has them at $399.7 million.
MLB teams are taxed if their payroll exceeds a collectively-bargained threshold, which is set at $241 million in 2025.
The tax increases for repeat offenders. Teams that go more than $60 million past the threshold are subjected to harsher penalties, referred to colloquially as the “Cohen Tax.”
The Mets’ spending for the 2021-24 seasons exceeded what the lower-rolling Tampa Bay Rays, Miami Marlins and Pittsburgh Pirates each spent over the past 21 years.
The stark disparities in MLB payrolls continues to prompt discussion about whether the sport needs a salary cap. MLB’s Collective Bargaining Agreement expires after the 2026 season.
“I’ll compete under any circumstances,” Cohen said last month. “You tell me the rules and I’ll compete against them.”
