Money Is Just Numbers: Mets Sign Correa in Whirlwind Reversal
This offseason has seen an avalanche of activity early on, with 22 of our top 25 free agents signing before Christmas. But last night, we somehow doubled up. After an undisclosed medical issue held up the official announcement of Carlos Correa’s contract with the Giants, the entire deal fell through, and the Mets stepped into the fray, signing Correa to a 12-year, $315 million deal this morning, as Jon Heyman first reported.
I’ll let that breathe for a second so that you can think about it. The Giants went from laying out $350 million and adding a cornerstone player to their roster for more than a decade to nothing at all. The Mets went from a big free agency haul to an unprecedented one. Correa is going from shortstop to third base, and maybe losing one gaudy vacation home in the process when all is said and done.
The Mets had already spent heavily this offseason to shore up their pitching. With Jacob deGrom, Chris Bassitt, and Taijuan Walker all leaving in free agency, the team had a lot of high-quality innings to replace, and they did so in volume, adding Justin Verlander, Kodai Senga, and José Quintana. Those were in effect like-for-like moves, as was signing Edwin Díaz, Adam Ottavino and Brandon Nimmo after they reached free agency. The 2023 Mets stood to look a lot like the 2022 Mets in broad shape – most of their additions were either swaps (deGrom for Verlander) or small (Omar Narváez will be a platoon catcher, David Robertson will shore up the bullpen).
Much had been made of owner Steve Cohen’s willingness to go over the competitive balance tax threshold put in place largely because of him – the so-called “Cohen tax” kicks in at $60 million above the first CBT level and charges teams a 90% tax for every dollar spent. Merely in the above moves, which were mostly lateral ones, the Mets ran up a projected 2023 CBT payroll of $362.2 million, well above the $293.3 million line where the highest tax bracket kicks in.
I didn’t find that particularly shocking. The Mets were a great team last year, eclipsing 100 wins for the first time since 1988. Replicating that finish – or at least that talent level – was going to cost more, what with many key contributors hitting free agency and all. Cohen has made no secret of his willingness to spend to build a contender, and he’d already done just that over the past two offseasons. The owners put in a Cohen tax in last year’s collective bargaining agreement, and they didn’t do it for no reason: There was a widespread expectation that Cohen would be willing to spend quite a bit to make the Mets perennial contenders.
They already looked like that before signing Correa, though. They had the third-best offense in baseball last year by wRC+, the fourth-best collection of position players by WAR. After bringing Nimmo back, they figured to run out an identical group in 2023, and perhaps slightly better than that after accounting for Narváez and top prospect Francisco Álvarez.
By adding Correa, the Mets have kicked their offense and payroll up a notch each. Their projected CBT payroll, per FanGraphs salary guru Jon Becker, is now $388.4 million. Assuming no further changes to their team, that would result in a tax bill of $115 million, easily the highest in history. They’ll also boast the highest payroll in baseball history, as well as the most free agent spending in a single year ever. Counting Correa’s deal, the Mets have guaranteed $806 million in contracts this offseason. The previous high was last year’s Rangers team, which checked in at $584.5 million thanks to big contracts for Corey Seager and Marcus Semien. The Mets have gone from big spenders to a wholly different category.
In doing so, they’ve built a truly fearsome lineup. Incumbent third baseman Eduardo Escobar was hardly a weak link last year; he was a solid contributor with an above-average batting line. If you were looking for a place the Mets could improve, it would be catcher, where they already signed Narváez, and perhaps overall depth. Or they could just add one of the 10 best hitters in baseball, sure, why not.
Correa is very much a luxury addition to that already-excellent offense. He’ll push Escobar to a utility role, while making the top of the lineup perhaps the most formidable in the game. Nimmo, Correa, Francisco Lindor, Pete Alonso, and Jeff McNeil are going to give NL East pitchers nightmares. The lineup will be staggeringly deep, too: Mark Canha is slated to bat eighth, and he’s posted a wRC+ of 115 or higher in each of the past five seasons. There won’t even be much drop-off when someone rests: Escobar can slot in comfortably at second or third, Correa can handle shortstop when Lindor needs a breather and let Escobar take third, and McNeil can slide to either outfield corner from second base as needed. The Mets’ lineup on the days when someone is resting will still be one of the best in baseball.
I don’t think you came to this article to read about Correa’s lineup contributions, though. You already know how good Correa is. Dan Szymborski covered his initial deal with the Giants, and noted that Correa has the highest projected career WAR of any current shortstop, narrowly edging out Lindor. Or, well, had: Correa is now a third baseman, of course. You came here to read about the drama of it all, and what the voided contract with the Giants means.
I’m not sure exactly what to make of the medical concerns that scuttled Correa’s initial deal. They’re obviously not public, and will likely never be leaked – medical records are far more protected than contract details by law. Correa dealt with intermittent injury issues early in his career, but has been reliably available for the past three seasons; he’s batted just 45 times fewer than Lindor in that interval, and while he missed time in 2022, it was because of a stay on the COVID-19 IL and a short second trip when he fouled a ball off of his finger. ZiPS projects him for 592 plate appearances in 2023, which is nearly the top of the scale when it comes to projected playing time.
Speculating beyond that is outside my area of expertise. I couldn’t tell you what concerns the Giants raised, and whether they were motivated by a desire to renegotiate the deal or by worry about Correa’s availability. It’s also unclear how severe the Giants’ concerns even were in the first place; it’s possible that the deal would have gone through eventually, or that they’d have asked to take a year off of the pact, or something of that nature. The team will likely never fully explain their decision, and the best we have to go on is a statement released by Farhan Zaidi: “While we are prohibited from disclosing confidential medical information, as Scott Boras stated publicly, there was a difference of opinion over the results of Carlos’ physical examination. We wish Carlos the best.”
The Giants’ pursuit of Correa made a lot of sense to me from a team-building standpoint, but they didn’t seem to approach their offseason that way. The team’s main push was for local product Aaron Judge, and you couldn’t walk into a Bay Area coffee shop in November without hearing a theory about why Judge secretly planned on heading home and spurning the Yankees. The Correa deal fell into place quickly after Judge re-upped, and it had the feel of “well we have this money, let’s get a big name” to it.
While Correa might have been a consolation prize in fans’ minds, not having Correa is much worse than that. The Giants were a .500 team last year, and their division isn’t getting any easier. The Padres might be the best team in baseball on paper – unless the Mets are now. Meanwhile, the Giants aren’t even clearly better than they were last year.
San Francisco’s offseason plan seemed straightforward – sign one big ticket hitter and a number of pitchers with upside. There’s no one left to sign on the hitting side, though: the best remaining hitter is probably Jean Segura, and he’s more role player than star. They’re caught in between, and while they clearly came into this offseason with a plan to increase payroll and bulk up their lineup, they’re going to end up with a similar payroll and only Mitch Haniger added offensively. Baseball teams care about far more than just what happens next year, but woof: what’s happening in the Bay next year certainly appears to be another year of being caught in between.
It’s not at all clear that the Giants feared losing Correa when they held up his official announcement over medical concerns. They likely expected to re-work his deal, or perhaps to send it through as-is after further time to scrutinize the findings. But deals aren’t final until they’re final, of course: when the Giants held up making things official, it opened the door to other possibilities. Cohen and agent Scott Boras reportedly negotiated the Mets deal using the framework of New York’s previous offer, which let them move quickly.
There hasn’t been a medicals-scuttled contract of anything approaching this magnitude before. The Orioles are famous for having particularly strict medical examinations, and they’d been involved in the three previous highest-profile ones. In 2000, they reneged on an offer to Aaron Sele over medicals, and he signed with the Mariners instead. Grant Balfour failed a physical with the Orioles and ended up signing with the Rays for $3 million less in 2013. Yovani Gallardo renegotiated his deal with Baltimore after medical concerns. But these are all penny ante compared to what happened yesterday.
I don’t think we’ll be able to measure who “won” and “lost” in this deal for a very long time, but I’m also skeptical that a framework of “winning” and “losing” is really the right way to approach this deal. For the Mets, the takeaway is clear: the whole concept of dollars per win doesn’t really apply. They’re interested in building a great team, and securing core players who will contribute for years to come. If they were trying to compete in terms of most efficiently allocating dollars, they’d clearly have been out; their outlays are meaningfully higher than San Francisco’s thanks to the CBT penalties.
If the Mets are truly trying to build Dodgers East, I think this is a smart way to go about it, and I’ve always thought that the best use of Cohen’s money is in signing superstars that the team can build around. Lindor was the first example of that, and Correa is in the same tier. I’m much more confident in teams’ ability to turn a good development system into excellent role players than I am in anyone’s ability to predict true MVP-level players. Those are few and far between, and I’m in favor of adding them when possible.
Does this deal make sense financially? Let me put it this way – Steve Cohen thinks so. The man isn’t exactly famous for being bad at making money. Baseball’s financial system is set up to let big-market teams flex their spending muscle; teams had treated it like a hard cap throughout the previous CBA, but there’s no reason that had to be the case. I don’t know what the exact point of owning a sports team is, but winning championships and having something to be proud of is surely a lot of it, particularly for billionaires whose fortunes are so vast that money is more about keeping score than anything else. It’s not even like Cohen is exploiting some loophole; you’re allowed to spend as much as you want.
I’d be surprised if the Mets are still running payrolls this high in five years. They’re notably light on pre-arbitration contributors at the moment, the key component that allows teams to run relatively light payrolls while contending for division titles and championships. That fact surely hasn’t escaped their front office’s attention. But if they keep spending big, so what? Sports fans always wish their owners would open the purse strings and go the extra mile. Cohen is doing it.
As for the Giants, your view of this deal comes down to how much you trust them, more or less. They put together a spectacular team in 2021, winning 107 games to wrest the NL West away from the Dodgers. They fell back to earth this year, and they don’t have a notably good farm system or an obviously playoff-worthy major league roster. They’ve shown an ability to build a winner by getting the most out of role players, but I look at their roster and struggle to see how they’ll win 90 games, let alone 100.
One way or another, the Giants need stars, tremendous talents to make their skill at deploying role players move the team from 90 to 95 wins rather than 80 to 85. They could develop them from their own prospects, though that’s always a crapshoot. They could theoretically trade for them; it works for the Cardinals. Or they could sign them, as they were trying to do this season. It’s not quite fair to say that they’ve sacrificed 2023 in pursuit of a mystery box next offseason, but look at it this way: they have that money to spend, they were clearly willing to spend it on someone of Correa’s caliber, and now they aren’t spending it.
Perhaps in a year this will all feel silly; maybe they’ll trade for Fernando Tatis Jr. or sign Shohei Ohtani. Maybe they’ll sign Rafael Devers and Aaron Nola. It’s hard to judge the Giants without knowing what they do instead. It hurts for 2023, but maybe it won’t hurt long-term. There’s no way to know.
That uncertainty is part of the cost, though. The Giants are going to spend a year in a holding period, hoping to sneak into the playoffs but mostly waiting to see how they can pivot to another star. They’ve assembled a fairly good team but one that needed more impact players; it feels like a huge missed opportunity to come away from free agency worse than the team was in 2022.
At the end of the day, that’s my read on this wild situation: the Mets got better while the Giants got less certain. In 10 years, we’ll be able to look at the ex post facto tale of the tape and see how each side made out. For now, it’s all a matter of degrees of expectation. I think what the Mets did makes a ton of sense. I’m sure the Giants didn’t think this would turn out the way it did. At the moment, I can’t say anything more than that. But ZiPS can – as a postscript to this long-winded shrug, here’s what it thinks of Correa as a third baseman in Queens:
Year | BA | OBP | SLG | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | SB | + | DR | WAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2023 | .265 | .347 | .451 | 517 | 76 | 137 | 25 | 1 | 23 | 75 | 64 | 116 | 0 | 122 | 13 | 5.4 |
2024 | .259 | .344 | .438 | 514 | 74 | 133 | 24 | 1 | 22 | 73 | 65 | 115 | 0 | 117 | 12 | 5.0 |
2025 | .254 | .339 | .429 | 504 | 71 | 128 | 23 | 1 | 21 | 69 | 63 | 112 | 0 | 113 | 11 | 4.6 |
2026 | .248 | .332 | .414 | 488 | 67 | 121 | 22 | 1 | 19 | 65 | 61 | 109 | 0 | 108 | 10 | 3.9 |
2027 | .244 | .328 | .402 | 468 | 62 | 114 | 21 | 1 | 17 | 59 | 58 | 106 | 0 | 104 | 9 | 3.5 |
2028 | .235 | .321 | .381 | 438 | 56 | 103 | 19 | 0 | 15 | 53 | 54 | 100 | 0 | 96 | 8 | 2.7 |
2029 | .234 | .319 | .374 | 401 | 50 | 94 | 17 | 0 | 13 | 47 | 49 | 93 | 0 | 94 | 6 | 2.3 |
2030 | .234 | .320 | .375 | 363 | 45 | 85 | 15 | 0 | 12 | 42 | 44 | 85 | 0 | 94 | 5 | 2.0 |
2031 | .231 | .315 | .363 | 364 | 43 | 84 | 15 | 0 | 11 | 41 | 43 | 86 | 0 | 90 | 4 | 1.7 |
2032 | .228 | .310 | .351 | 325 | 37 | 74 | 13 | 0 | 9 | 35 | 38 | 77 | 0 | 85 | 3 | 1.2 |
2033 | .223 | .304 | .337 | 282 | 31 | 63 | 11 | 0 | 7 | 29 | 32 | 68 | 0 | 80 | 2 | 0.7 |
2034 | .224 | .305 | .341 | 232 | 25 | 52 | 9 | 0 | 6 | 23 | 26 | 57 | 0 | 81 | 1 | 0.6 |
Percentile | 2B | HR | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS+ | WAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
95% | 36 | 36 | .310 | .397 | .565 | 160 | 8.2 |
90% | 33 | 32 | .300 | .387 | .532 | 154 | 7.7 |
80% | 30 | 28 | .288 | .370 | .506 | 141 | 6.8 |
70% | 28 | 27 | .278 | .362 | .487 | 135 | 6.4 |
60% | 26 | 25 | .271 | .354 | .467 | 129 | 5.9 |
50% | 25 | 23 | .265 | .347 | .451 | 122 | 5.4 |
40% | 24 | 22 | .257 | .339 | .436 | 117 | 5.1 |
30% | 23 | 20 | .249 | .331 | .424 | 111 | 4.6 |
20% | 21 | 18 | .238 | .320 | .407 | 105 | 4.2 |
10% | 19 | 16 | .227 | .308 | .384 | 96 | 3.5 |
5% | 18 | 14 | .214 | .296 | .368 | 90 | 2.9 |
Ben is a writer at FanGraphs. He can be found on Twitter @_Ben_Clemens.
Can’t wait for this year’s Mets-Padres Wild Card series!
So we have Braves, Mets, Phillies, Padres, Dodgers, NL Central winner. Any other NL playoff field would be fairly shocking. BOOOORING.
I’d argue that the Cardinals/Brewers might have what it takes to challenge for that last wild card. Plus, there’s a Giants or an Orioles or two every year (D-Backs are maybe the most likely NL team to fill this role), not to mention the inevitable injuries that could come for anyone, so we’ll see!
I guess the Brewers/Cardinals could get a WC but it’s certainly not the most likely outcome. Marlins and Diamondbacks could merge and make a playoff team.
Seven NL teams will enter the season with less than 5% playoff odds. That isn’t a good look for the league, IMO.
Definitely under 5%:
Nats
Reds
Pirates
Rockies
Marlins
5%-ish?
Cubs
Giants
D-backs
Cubs more like 2% and the Giants 10 imo
I dunno, even if you think the Giants are better the Cubs have at least a handful of scenarios where they win their division with like 88. They could luck into 88.
It’s hard to see any scenarios where you don’t need 98-100 to win the east or west.
There are a lot of teams going into the season with essentially no chance.
“Well, time to expand the playoffs again!” -MLB, probably
NL Teams, projected by Fangraphs, each year with a 5%+ chance of making the post-season–
2023: ???
2022: 11/15
2021: 11/15
2020: 12/15 (162 game format)
2019: 13/15
2018: 11/15
2017: 10/15
2016: 9/15
Agreed. While spending more money does not always equal wins, Cohen’s level of spending creates too much inequality and significantly reduces the chances for the poorer teams to compete Might be fun for Met’s fans but overall it is not good for baseball. I really do not want MLB to turn into one of those European Soccer leagues where the same teams always win because they and only they can buy the best players…
How is this not Robert Nutting (or your choice of ‘impoverished multi-millionaire owner”) fault?
They get the best of both world: More money from Cohen’s pockets, and a great cover for their laziness “it’s too expensive, we can’t even compete!”.
I would advocate a system where the owners of most teams can afford to get an expensive free agent or two every so often and in general have a better chance to compete, because more competition is more fun to watch. I think revenue sharing rather than forcing Rob Nutting to spend more than he makes from the team is a better way to go. Because these Mets signings are a joke.
As a Mets fan, I say let’s see them win more than one division title a decade before we worry about that.
Could you make a 93 win team out of the Miazmi DiMarlinbacks?
AZ’s OF. Jazz and Walker in the infield then meh. Pretty darn good pitching (depending on how much you believe in the AZ arms knocking down the door). Would be interesting and the uniforms, if done right, could be elite.
I still think as long as MLB is messing with the playoffs, there should be a spot reserved in each league for an all-star team drawn from all the teams that didn’t qualify. If that team wins, there is no World Series trophy awarded that year.
I’m a Mets fan, and I admit I’m a little annoyed that non-Mets fans have turned on a dime from “Haha LOLMets” to “Waaaah it’s not fair they’re buying a superteam waah” when the team hasn’t actually won anything yet, but with some tweaks (like incentives for the non-playoff all-stars—though not their teams), this idea would actually be kinda fun. Chaos!
Many, including myself, completely disagree. These are teams with owners willing to spend on exciting impactful players.
I don’t hate the spending, exactly, but these are teams with the revenue base to spend like this and still make a profit. No one is putting their personal fortune into the player payroll.
There are certainly some bad actor owners among the small market teams, but even if they increased payroll to the point where the team is break-even they wouldn’t be able to spend anything like this.
Expand the rule 5 to any player over 21 not on a 26 man roster. The rebuilds take too long and this would speed it up.
That would be super fun, but I can’t see it happening. For one, it would mean that teams would stop drafting college players entirely. Shortening the length to Rule 5 eligibility would work, though.
“These are teams with the revenue base to spend like this and still make a profit.”
I don’t think your premise is correct. When Guggenheim bought the Dodgers and ramped up payroll, there were reports that they were not profitable for the first couple of years. It was basically a long term investment to draw in fans, with the plan being to eventually drop the payroll down to more “reasonable” levels.
Based on that, I think it’s almost a given that the Mets will not turn a profit this year, and the Padres likely won’t either. Those owners are very likely pouring their personal resources into their teams to help drive their current spending.
Possibly, there’s no way to know. Ask an owner and they’ll always tell you they’re losing money.
The point is that the break-even payroll level for the Mets is something like four times higher than it is for a small market team, even after the current revenue sharing.
We can make a pretty good guess though. If the Dodgers were indeed not profitable back then, then I don’t see any way the Mets could be now.
But the Mets aren’t what other teams should aspire to be, since you can’t exactly bank on being bought by an owner that is by far the richest guy in baseball.
They should aspire to be like the Padres. San Diego is not a big market team, yet they are spending well above their weight class. Again, it’s very likely they aren’t profitable. I think the Padres are making a calculated choice to try and go all in and bring the team its first championship. That would have long term rewards, even after payroll has dropped back down. Other teams should be looking at followig that model.
Profitable can be defined a number of different ways.
1. simple, are revenues > costs
2. are revenues > costs when you factor in the opportunity cost of capital
3. are revenues sufficiently greater than costs (that you have you cleared some hurdle rate)
I doubt the dodgers ever failed (1), but given the high cost of the franchise there was probably a time when they failed (2)…
The reports suggested that the Dodgers did indeed fail option (1). They were estimating the Dodgers revenue vs costs, and determined that the Dodgers were likely in the red. Since these were estimations, we don’t know for sure, but I don’t actually see it as all that surprising. It’s not uncommon for big companies to run at a loss over a short period of time with the expectation that they will eventually become profitable over time.
San Diego is definitely a big market, though. I think the Braves model makes more sense for mid-market teams – develop some rookie stars, and extend them through their primes right away. You take a lot of duration risk, but if you can do it a few times your odds of coming out ahead are really high.
Of course, developing rookie stars is the tricky part…
Hasn’t worked so well for the White Sox
Any owner who decides that the stakes are too high will find willing buyers lining up to relieve them of their burden.
“Ask an owner and they’ll always tell you they’re losing money”
That doesn’t apply to just owners of sports franchises. Have you ever heard someone say, for example, that their salary is too high? Every worked in government and heard that their departmental budget is too big?
Not just in government, dude.
I work for the Air Force “airforce21one” and I think we can both agree our budgets could be slashed drastically and we’d be just fine. I work for a Directorate at HQ Air Combat Command.
Very doubtful. Rich people don’t have it lying around in cash, and they don’t sell things to raise the money — capital gains tax is 16%, so they take out a loan at a much lower interest rate and pay it out that way. Rich people are different from you and me in the way they manage their budgets.
The much anticipated lost sequel to The Great Gatsby where Nick Carraway becomes an ace accountant for the East Egg set, sheltering their fortunes through dubious avoidance schemes.
Lets say that you expect revenue to be $450M in 2023 and of that you are spending $150M on non-payroll expenses. If you spend $500M between payroll and the luxury tax, you certainly aren’t breaking even as far as revenue vs expenses (-$200M).
But is Cohen perhaps looking at the big picture, that MLB franchises have historically appreciated 10-12% per year and when your team is worth $3B that means it will be worth $3.3-3.4B next year?
Essentially, despite being in the red for 2023, maybe he sees it as still being in the black by not ignoring a long-term source of value…?
Exactly. If you can’t afford to run an MLB team competitively, your fans should not support your ownership of the team. I refuse to believe that Pittsburgh can support the #6 football team (profits wise) exclusively because of the hard cap and not because they built a legacy of winning that keeps the fans coming and this couldn’t be replicated with the Bucs.
Why shouldn’t owners put their personal fortune into payroll? Cohen is (coincidentally) the 30th richest person in the US. Get each of the other people ahead of him to but a team and let them all spend a billion dollars a year on payroll. Who cares?
I don’t care, I just don’t think they’ll do it. I think you’re damn lucky if you can find a billionaire willing to run it somewhere close to break even instead of taking the maximum profit.
I know, it’s not my money. But I really can’t blame an owner for saying no thanks, I want to make some money not lose money on this thing, you know?
Ummm … these costs do get passed down to the fans. There is no way that tickets, concessions, etc stay the same for Mets fans. People who are rich won’t care. But everyone else …
Anecdotal experience … in HS I worked part-time. Made minimum wage. My Sr year I only had classes until noon. A few buddies and I would head down on Wednesdays to catch home day games for the Padres at Jack Murphy Stadium. For less than the cost of 2 hours of work ($10), we could park, get a ticket, and enjoy a hot dog/drink. Fast forward to today, a similar experience at Petco would cost $80. That’s 5-6 hours of CA minimum wage work to have an afternoon at the ballpark.
Payroll for the Pads was about $30M back then. They are close to $240M now. Coincidentally, the 8x increase in salaries has corresponded with an approximate 8x increase in costs passed to the consumer.
At this point Cohen probably is getting pretty close to putting all the operating margin back into payroll, and that’s cool. I respect that. Good for him, good for Mets fans.
How much could the Pirates spend if Nutting did the same? 120m, maybe? Baseball’s financial playing field is very much not equal, and that’s frustrating for those of us who aren’t fans of a mega market team.
People who suggest that the solution for parity is for owners to put every last bit of profit back into payroll never seem to grasp the fact that for the Yankees and Dodgers, they could put in $500M a year in salary and for the Rays and Brewers and Pirates they could probably do like 1/4th of that. Yes, all teams could spend more and break even except for the Mets and Padres. No, that is not even close to a solution for parity. But the owners have resisted more assertive revenue sharing, probably because it would involve more teams bidding on free agents, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
What reasonable person would want to share their profits with their competitors?
They aren’t competitors. They are partners.
IDK that they send money to NPL or even any of the unaffiliated US teams, so they don’t. The teams are called “franchises” for a reason.
With pooled revenue making up a decent proportion of revenues and costs in large markets theoretically slightly larger I don’t think the gulf in payroll capacity is that wide.
It’s very good for Mets fans. Yet the number of posters complaining about this contract (it’s going to be a terrible burden in 7 months – no seven weeks!) – in the NY papers is incredible.
The most recent estimated team revenue numbers I saw for the Pirates was $258 million for 2021, net of revenue sharing and stadium debt service. They had player expenses of $74 million and $64 million of operating income (profit).
If they put all their profit into player expenses, they could spend $138 million without losing a dollar. Additionally, that would increase gate revenue, because more people would want to come to the games. That would mean more profit, and more money they could spend on player expenses.
The fact is that a lot of these small market teams aren’t spending the money they’re getting to make themselves competitive.
The Royals went from 30th in payroll in 2011 to 19th in 2014. They then went from 19th to 16th in 2015, the year they won the World Series. In 2017, they were 15th in payroll before they began to go back down.
I don’t mind if small market teams want to keep their powder dry until their competitive window opens. But when/if it opens, they should take a shot. That’s what the revenue sharing money is for. It’s an uneven playing field, but funny enough, you can buy your way into contention, even on a smaller budget.
Fair enough. I guess the counterpoint is that when you say “competitive” you’re talking about a puncher’s chance at a WC spot and then being heavy underdogs in the playoffs for a year or two, followed by the underwater backend of the contracts you guaranteed.
If you’re Nutting, you might ask whether that’s worth the $65m in commitments annually over a decade. I hate it, but there it is.
The Mets guaranteed almost a billion dollars of contracts this winter.
Bottom 7 media markets with MLB teams:
24. St. Louis Cardinals
25. Pittburgh Pirates
26. Baltimore Orioles
27. San Diego Padres
28. Kansas City Royals
29. Cincinatti Reds
30. Milwaukee Brewers
The Milwaukee Brewers are in the smallest media market in MLB. Of the 8 times the team has been in the playoffs, 4 of those times have been in the past 5 years.
The Cincinatti Reds have been in the playoffs 4 times in the past 12 years.
The Kansas City Royals have been in the playoffs twice in the last 12 years. They lost the World Series in 2014, and won the World Series in 2015… over the New York Mets.
The San Diego Padres have been in the playoffs twice in the last 3 years,
The Baltimore Orioles have been in the playoffs 3 times in the past 12 years.
The Pittsburgh Pirates have been in the playoffs 3 times in the past 12 years.
The St. Louis Cardinals have been in the playoffs 9 times in the past 12 years, winning the World Series in 2011.
What’s the value of an extra $65 million per year in payroll commitments over a decade? Ask the Cardinals, and they’ll tell you it is $40-73 million in operating income per year, thanks to revenue that climbed year over year for a decade before the pandemic.
In 2022, the Mets had an opening day payroll of $253,119,999. What did that get them? Second place in the division and a wild-card round exit in the playoffs.
The Pirates aren’t going anywhere with Nutting, just the bottom of the division until they have a different owner.
Why own a team if you don’t want to win? Oh, right, greed and status signalling. Very many of the small market teams are both netting money each year AND appreciating as an asset. That’s unusual outside monopolies and shouldn’t be tolerated by fans. Pick one.
Would you support a completely free market for MLB? Where anyone could start a team at any time, anywhere, and just join a division?
You just illustrated why MLB teams are not competitors anywhere except on the field of play.
Or how about you think if you run the organization well you can win sometimes and still breakeven or make some money? To do that you can’t take huge risks like Correa and have to be patient. The Brewers and Indians right now are advertisements for this, while the Pirates, Royals, Reds are the ones hit by bad luck/management for now…. The question is, how good is it for baseball to have teams that just give up?
If Pirates spent an extra $70mm this year what would it get them? Say they signed Verlander and Swanson…. would they make the playoffs? Almost certainly the answer is no… would they get an increase in attendance of 7000 a game to cover that $70mm? NO. So for them the option is to make a ~$70 operating income and suck, or make almost nothing and suck a little less.
The first round bye aspect still makes it interesting imo.