The New York Mess

The New York Mets have a 40-man payroll of $377 million, the highest payroll, by far, in the history of baseball. It is EIGHTY-TWO MILLION DOLLARS more than the next-highest payroll in the game, the New York Yankees’.

The Baltimore Orioles’ payroll is $82 million. The whole thing.

Now, there is a long history of baseball teams that have spent money poorly. It seems to me that these teams fall into three major traps.

Trap 1: They overspend on older players.

Trap 2: They put too much faith in one good season.

Trap 3: They are paying the price for long-term contracts that have gone upside down.

I say that there are three traps … but most of the time, it comes down to No. 1. Let’s take the 2018 Giants as an example. They had a $200 million payroll (for the 25-man roster), second-highest in baseball, but they were not a good team at all. Nobody expected anything of them (they had lost 98 games in 2017) and they didn’t do anything (they went 73-89) and didn’t get out of fourth place after July 14.

So what did they spend their money on?