If there is a good baseball player available, he seems destined for New York. But it’s the Mets, not the Yankees, that have shelled out for several key free agents this offseason.
The Mets appeared to be done making big acquisitions after Carlos Correa was in a reported agreement with the Giants. However, San Francisco balked due to a medical concern and Steve Cohen swept in to add another big piece.
Cohen and the Mets continue to spend this offseason. They’re expected to pay over $100 million in luxury tax, a number that is larger than several MLB teams’ entire payrolls.
Marc Luino of the “Mets’d Up” podcast joined Rob Bradford on “Baseball Isn’t Boring” and talked about how exciting it is to see Cohen and the Mets pony up this offseason.
“It’s pretty unbelievable, especially for me in my 26 years of being a Mets fan; I’ve seen the Mets have some years of success and I’ve seen bits and pieces here but it’s never been like this,” Luino said (2:26 in player above). “I’ve been dying for the Mets to spend money like they have this past season. We saw them spend last year. It’s unbelievable having an owner who wants to invest money into the team strictly for the goal of winning a championship. It’s awesome.”
The Mets have now spent over $800 million this offseason on nine players. They brought back Edwin Diaz and Brandon Nimmo, replaced Jacob deGrom with Justin Verlander, and also added Jose Quintana, David Robertson, Kodai Senga, Omar Narvaez, and Adam Ottavino.
Oh yeah, Carlos Correa signed a cool $315 million contract early Wednesday morning as well.
While some view this as the Mets trying to buy a championship and see it as a negative thing, it only makes baseball more competitive and encourages more teams to spend.
“It’s awesome for baseball. I don’t know if you saw but there was an article in the ‘New York Post’ about Steve Cohen talking about the luxury tax,” Luino said. “Basically, he was saying something along the lines of he’s been dealing with such big amounts of money for such a long time now that the luxury tax isn’t even on his radar.”
Cohen has an estimated net worth just shy of $13 billion, according to Bloomberg, so having to pay $111 million in luxury tax penalties isn’t the worst thing in the world for a wealthy owner.
Bradford and Luino also brought up a good point in that by going over the luxury tax teams are more likely to make the playoffs. There is plenty of money to be made in the postseason from ticket sales, playoff shares, and more.
“It’s cool because he came in – he’s a businessman, obviously, he’s made a lot of money – but he’s also a fan, and he’s showing that,” Luino continued. “Yeah, OK, last year was a good season but we got to do more. 100 wins and making the playoffs isn’t enough.”
The Mets will have plenty of competition next season, though, with both the Atlanta Braves and Philadelphia Phillies fighting for the top spot in the NL East after a busy offseason.
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