Mets, Still Paying for 2023 Gamble, Slapped With $100M Tax Bill

The price tag on the New York Mets’ historically expensive failure during the 2023 season keeps getting bigger.

After beginning the year with an MLB-record $344 million payroll on Opening Day, the Mets ended up trading away many of their best and highest-paid players midseason en route to a 75-87 record, the eighth-worst in MLB. Despite the selloff, New York still finished with an unprecedented $374.7 million luxury tax payroll, according to league figures obtained by The Associated Press, resulting in owner Steve Cohen getting hit with a record $100.78 million bill under MLB’s competitive balance tax system. Tax payrolls are calculated using an intricate system that tallies things like average annual values and earned bonuses, and they factor in benefits and deferred salaries.

The Mets’ bill more than doubled the previous record of $43.6 million, set by the Los Angeles Dodgers, whose payroll in 2015 totaled $291.1 million. (The Dodgers lost to the Mets in the NLDS that season.) In 2023, the San Diego Padres were responsible for the second-highest luxury tax bill of the season, at $39.69 million.

More in ’24?

The Mets are projected to once again have the highest tax payroll next season, at $298 million. The New York Yankees are predicted to be second, at $290 million. And in third:  the L.A. Dodgers, at $283 million. The Dodgers had a billion-dollar offseason with the $700 million signing of two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani and a $325 million deal for Japanese pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, but with 10 years of unique $68 million deferrals in Ohtani’s contract, L.A. is staying fiscally responsible in the near term.