March 4
MLBPA union chief Tony Clark said the player’s union is aware of the decrease in spending by the Mets and they are watching closely, according to a report by Adam Rubin of ESPN New York.
“Let me offer you this: If there are concerns, what often ends up happening is we have an opportunity, along with Major League Baseball, to sit down and discuss perhaps what the game plan might be or could be going forward,” said Clark, who played for the Mets in 2003.
“Is New York one of the marquee franchises? Yes. Will they always be? Yes. Are we paying attention in general? Yes.”
The Mets head into Opening Day with a projected 24th rank payroll.
Original Post – March 2
Wendy Thurm of FanGraphs, charted where each team’s projected payroll currently ranks in MLB. The Mets are ranked at 24th with a projected payroll of $82 million.
She also ranked where each teams highest paid player ranked in terms of payroll concentration – that is the percentage of the entire team’s payroll. The Mets ranked 27th with 24.4% being allocated to one player.
Thurm does acknowledge that these rankings can still change somewhat between now and Opening Day, especially where the Mets are concerned and if they are able to sign Stephen Drew which would bring them closer to $92 million which would still place them in the bottom half of baseball. They could also spike lower if they were to trade Ike Davis and not sign anyone else. That could drop the Mets to $79 million or the 3rd lowest payroll in the game.
Performance bonuses are not included for the Mets or any other team for that matter. But where the Mets are concerned, over the last three seasons, more than half of their free agents with performance bonuses were either traded or released before the bonuses kicked in.
You could point to the Pirates (#28 Payroll), A’s (#26 Payroll) and Rays (#27 Payroll) as evidence that you don’t need large payrolls to make the post season. But none of the three were able to advance to the League Championship Series.
On the flip side, the Dodgers (#1 Payroll), Cardinals (#11 Payroll), Red Sox (#5 Payroll) and Tigers (#4 Payroll) all made it to the LCS and World Series, with Boston winning it all. In fact, over the last 8 seasons, only teams in the top ten in payroll have won the World Series.
Anyway, like it or not, this is where the Mets currently stand. That’s the “New York” Mets.
