It was all too predictable. There’s an owner in Major League Baseball who’s spending big bucks trying to see his favorite team — and now the team he owns — win a World Series championship. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, right? Sure enough, here are the moans.
Here is an anonymous MLB executive, athletics:
Our sport feels broken now. We have someone with three times the median payroll who absolutely doesn’t care about the long-term length of any of these contracts, in terms of the risk associated with any of them. How does it work exactly? I’m having a hard time making up my mind.”
Yeah, there it is. “Risk.” Here’s another buzzword from another official from another team in the same item:
“I think it will have ramifications for him later. There’s no collusion. But…there was a reason nobody for years ever went over $300 million. You always have partners and there is a system.”
In fact, I was wrong. There are several buzzwords in there. Consequences. System. Connivance.
Hey, wait. Talking about how there’s an unspoken system in place to keep the payroll at a fixed rate sounds a lot like… connivance.
On that swear word, the MLBPA declined to comment.
Like I said, it was predictable. the Dishes spent an absurd amount of money this offseason to re-sign Brandon Nimmo and Edwin Diaz in addition to providing Justin Verlander and now Carlos Correa. The list continues. It goes back to the last offseason with Max Scherzer, too. In total, the Mets are expected to have the largest payroll in MLB history, with a total of $380 million before luxury tax penalties. These “competitive equilibrium” taxes will be well in excess of $100 million.
I guess my biggest question with all of this is why. Why? Why are so many people so concerned about how Steve Cohen spends his billions?
It cannot be about pricing fans, as supply and demand set ticket prices. We don’t have to worry about competitive balance because MLB hasn’t had a repeat champion since 2000 and people have been so spoiled by parity that we’re debating whether to win a championship in 2017 and 2022. makes a team a “dynasty”. .” .” Additionally, the team with the highest payroll has won the World Series once (2018). Red Sox) since 2009 and the Mets rebounded in the first round last year.
Are player salaries too high? Man, the billionaire owners seem sure they wouldn’t willingly pay employees more money than they could spare. Welcome to capitalism, anyone new here.
Will “small market” teams be excluded from the market? You will have to explain the padres if you go with that line of thinking. The San Diego market is one of the smallest in Major League Baseball (here is a study which only has Kansas City, Cincinnati and Milwaukee smaller among MLB cities). The Padres are managing a payroll of over $200 million by 2023 and they don’t seem interested in cutting the operation.
The bigger “problem” here is that the Padres’ spending exposes so many MLB owners for being too cheap to spend on superstardom in the free agent years. They care more about protecting their money than putting the best possible product on the field for their fans. Kudos to those who think like Cohen and Padres owner Peter Seidler, who said there was no “window” of contention because he wanted to spend like a winner every year. Remember when Phillies owner John Middleton said he wanted to be a little ‘dumb’ by spending big on free agency? These are the real good guys, not the slot clips like pirate owner Bob Nutting or a family who smugly tell a fanbase “where [else] are you going?” opening day or those who lament possible “biblical losses” or claim that “the industry is not very profitable.”
As for those anonymous executives furious with the Mets, let’s take a quick look.
Risk: Steve Cohen’s estimated net worth is $17.5 billion. That little “.5” is $500 million. I don’t see how running a Mets payroll below that would have any risk, especially since it’s extremely likely that the Mets will actually make some money this coming year between offers. TV shows, ticket sales and everything that comes with being good. What an absolute joke to call it all a “risk”. It’s a toy for him.
Consequences: Again, I’m lost. What consequences? The only worry would be current contracts limiting spending in future seasons, right? I just can’t see that at this point. There is no salary cap. Cohen obviously doesn’t mind paying the competitive equilibrium tax. If he has self-imposed limits, we haven’t seen them yet. Also, the Mets only have three guaranteed contracts after 2025 in Correa (once that becomes official), Francois Lindor and Brandon Nimmo (Diaz and Kodai Senga both retired). That’s it. Go back to that quote and line it all up with “future consequences”. It just doesn’t make sense.
Every new superstar contract comes with jaw-dropping numbers and of course the natural response is to balk at seven zeros on a decimal-less paycheck. If you think about it logically, though, there really isn’t a negative when it comes to Cohen and the Mets. That is, unless you realize it exposes so many other owners for being way too cheap and caring more about the bottom line than their fans.
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