As the deadline for exchanging arbitration figures between the players and their teams came and went on Friday, the New York Mets had themselves quite a busy day. With eight players still unsigned entering the day, the Mets came to settlements with seven players just before the team’s hard line “File and Trial” deadline.
Jeurys Familia, Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Addison Reed, Travis d’Arnaud, and Josh Edgin all agreed to one year deals with the Mets.
However, the team failed to reach an agreement with utility infielder Wilmer Flores and the two sides will face-off in an arbitration hearing sometime in February. The Mets filed a $1.8MM contract while Flores countered with a $2.2MM deal. .
Entering Friday, the Mets had already come to terms with Zack Wheeler at $800K, Lucas Duda at $7.25MM, and Rene Rivera at $1.75MM.
The following chart tabulates all the arbitration figures including each player’s previous salary. Please note that the salary for Edgin is an estimate as his salary was not disclosed on Friday. Also, I went ahead with the higher of the two figures exchanged for Flores.
As you can see, Jacob deGrom was the biggest winner in arbitration, garnering himself a $3.443MM raise that can grow even higher if he reaches any of his performance bonuses. Jeurys Familia also gets a significant raise even though he has a suspension looming for violating MLB’s domestic violence policy.
Let’s see how all of this adds up so we can determine where the Mets’ payroll stands at the moment. I’m listing the team’s guaranteed contracts and I’m going to use a $600K salary for remaining pre-arbitration players.
Arbitration Contracts
10 players totalling $39,125,000 dollars.
Guaranteed Contracts
Yoenis Cespedes – $22,500,000
David Wright – $20,000,000
Neil Walker – $17,200,000
Curtis Granderson – $15,000,000
Jay Bruce – $13,000,000
Asdrubal Cabrera – $8,250,000
Juan Lagares – $4,500,000
Jose Reyes – $507,500
8 players totalling $100,957,500 dollars.
Pre-Arbitration Contracts
7 players totalling $4,200,000 dollars.
Total Payroll
When you tally the contracts for all 25 players, the Mets’ current payroll stands at $144,282,500 dollars. Of course there’s still two months until Opening Day and you can bet we’ll have a few changes to roster between now and then.
Sandy Alderson said last month, that his goal is to keep the Opening Day payroll total under $150 million so he still has some wiggle room right now and even moreso if he’s able to deal outfielder Jay Bruce.
I know there’s a bunch of you that really get too hung up on the team’s payroll. But let me remind you that the Mets have gone to the postseason in two consecutive seasons, so Sandy Alderson and his staff have been doing something right with their allotted resources.
This team is never going to spend like the Los Angeles Dodgers, Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees so get that out of your heads. But as of this writing the Mets rank at No. 12 in payroll according to Spotrac, higher than the Toronto Blue Jays, Cleveland Indians and Baltimore Orioles, three other postseason teams. I can live with that.
Current Mets Payroll: $144,282,500
