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Mets owner Steve Cohen spoke with reporters on Tuesday morning, discussing the organization\u2019s spending outlook after another huge offseason. Cohen acknowledged that a winter involving a record-setting Juan Soto<\/strong> contract and retaining\u00a0Sean Manaea<\/strong> and\u00a0Pete Alonso<\/strong> pushed spending beyond his initial expectations.<\/p>\n \u201cIt always seems like ballplayers are more expensive than you think<\/em>,\u201d the owner told reporters (including Newsday\u2019s Tim Healey and Jorge Castillo of ESPN). \u201cListen, I have the ability to spend if I have to. I want to win. And I want to put the best team I can on the field. But free agency is expensive. \u2026\u00a0<\/em>Even this year, I had a thought of where I wanted to be, and I\u2019ve already blown through it. And I really wanted to be there. And just circumstances created, \u2019all right, I have to adapt my thinking.’\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Landing Soto required an eye-popping $51MM average annual value that handily shattered previous precedent. They successfully waited out Alonso\u2019s market to avoid a long-term commitment, getting him on a two-year deal with an opt-out after the first season. That comes with a lofty $27MM AAV and a $30MM figure for the upcoming season, so it\u2019s still a huge investment in 2025. Manaea landed three years and $75MM (albeit with deferrals), while Frankie Montas<\/strong>,\u00a0Clay Holmes<\/strong> and\u00a0A.J. Minter<\/strong> all secured multi-year contracts with eight-figure salaries.<\/p>\n RosterResource projects New York\u2019s raw payroll around $331MM. Their competitive balance tax estimate is slightly lower at $325MM. Those seem to be within the ballpark, as Cohen told reporters that he expects to finish the season with a payroll in the $340MM range after accounting for in-season pickups (i.e. waiver claims and trade deadline acquisitions).<\/p>\n That could theoretically also include a Spring Training free agent move. There\u2019s been some thought that the Mets could try to add to the rotation after the recent revelation that Montas will be out for an extended stretch because of a lat injury.\u00a0Jose Quintana<\/strong> is arguably the best unsigned starting pitcher, but it seems the Mets aren\u2019t circling back to the veteran southpaw. Mike Puma of The New York Post reported this morning that while Quintana has expressed interest in returning to Queens, the Mets haven\u2019t been involved in his market.<\/p>\n The Mets will enter the year with the second-highest payroll in MLB behind the Dodgers. It\u2019ll be the fourth straight season in which they not only pay the luxury tax but find themselves in the highest penalization tier. That\u2019s $60MM above the base threshold. It was implemented in the 2022 collective bargaining agreement largely in response to other owners\u2019 concerns that Cohen would blow the rest of the league away in spending. Teams that land in the top tax bracket and have paid the CBT in three or more consecutive seasons are charged a 110% tax on spending beyond that number, which lands at $301MM this year.<\/p>\n While the Mets are going to be firmly in that tier in \u201925, Cohen said he\u2019s hopeful of ducking below that line in future seasons. \u201cI\u2019d like to get below the Cohen Tax<\/em>,\u201d he said, alluding to the informal name for the highest tax bracket. \u201cWe sure it\u2019s about me? There\u2019s a lot of Cohens out there.<\/em>\u201d To that end, he somewhat downplayed the possibility of signing another extended megadeal next offseason. \u201cY<\/em>ou really can\u2019t have too many long-term contracts, because then you lose your roster flexibility, so you need to be really careful,<\/em>\u201d he said. \u201cBut I\u2019ll let my baseball people make that decision.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t the first time that Cohen has spoken broadly about wanting to cut back spending over the long term. That hasn\u2019t really happened. They ended last year with a tax number around $348MM, so this season is likely to represent a slight spending cut. RosterResource estimates their CBT number for 2026 around $206MM. Starling Marte\u2019s<\/strong>\u00a0four-year deal wraps up after the season, as do the one-year signings of\u00a0Jesse Winker<\/strong>,\u00a0Griffin Canning<\/strong> and\u00a0Ryne Stanek<\/strong>. Alonso, Montas, Minter and\u00a0Edwin D\u00edaz<\/strong> all have opt-out chances.<\/p>\n Of that group, Alonso is most likely to retest the market. The star slugger didn\u2019t find the long-term interest he\u2019d expected, leading to the pillow deal. Alonso acknowledged that it represented \u201ca bridge thing just to get to the next contract<\/em>\u201d (link via Tim Healey of Newsday). He conceded that his past two seasons have been below his peak standards, which contributed to a shorter deal. Alonso declined a three-year proposal from the Mets in order to take a more frontloaded two-year guarantee. Jon Heyman of the New York Post wrote over the weekend that the Mets and Blue Jays had each made proposals earlier in the offseason in the $85MM range which included some amount of deferred money.<\/p>\n Alonso also said that the qualifying offer had a greater impact on his market than he\u2019d anticipated. Any team other than the Mets would have forfeited a draft choice and\/or international bonus pool space to sign him. The Mets merely relinquished the right to a fourth-round compensation pick to retain their own free agent. Players can only receive the QO once in their careers, so Alonso is positioned to hit the market unencumbered next offseason. He indicated he has no hard feelings with the Mets about how this winter played out and said it\u2019d be \u201cfantastic\u201d if the sides eventually work out a longer-term contract.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Can the Mets keep spending at their current levels? Read owner Steve Cohen’s comments at MLB Trade Rumors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":35289,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[51,42],"class_list":["post-35288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","tag-jose-quintana","tag-pete-alonso"],"yoast_head":"\n