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Earlier in the offseason, there was an entire cycle of outrage at the Dodgers, for their decision to keep adding good baseball players who cost money to their team, that won a championship in 2024. The deferrals were a particular sticking point, but also just the idea that a team had resources and was using them was another. Let’s prepare ourselves for the same thing happening now, with the Mets, as they signed Juan Soto to a 15-year, $765 million contract — and one without deferrals, too, to really show off how much owner Steve Cohen has more money than anyone else in the league.
You’re going to hear people complain about a salary cap, or the fact that the Mets spending like this isn’t fair because not every team has this kind of money. Conveniently enough, I already covered the aforementioned outrage cycle for the Dodgers over at Baseball Prospectus, and quite a bit of it overlaps here with the Mets — to the degree that I already used Juan Soto as an example for points I was making within. So, I’ll just share some of that now:
…teams like the Cubs bowed out of the Juan Soto sweepstakes before it had even began, since, apparently, the 26-year-old superstar signing a huge free agent deal with them would have messed with their long-term plans. Those plans? They’ll say it’s about flexibility and patiently rebuilding, but it’s just to not spend to their abilities—there’s plenty of money to be made for those who don’t want to try, even if it’s maybe not quite as much money as they could earn should things break their way through actual effort. The Cubs, for the record, put just 43% of their revenue toward payroll in 2024, which placed them in the bottom half of the league.
The Yankees jumped out in front of maybe not re-signing Soto in-season, with owner Hal Steinbrenner trying to argue that it’s simply not realistic for the team to field a $300 million payroll every season. The Yankees spent just 52% of their reported revenue on their roster, by the way, and make enough in ticket sales in a postseason year to cover their entire payroll with that alone. You get the point here: the teams with the most resources, for the most part, are not spending them. And we’ve been presented with a warped idea of what kind of resources are available to the supposed “small-market” teams, as well.
The Pirates, for instance, put $118 million, or just 41% of their revenue, toward their payroll in 2024, of which $86 million went toward the Opening Day roster… There is reporting showing that, for a sustained period of time, that the Pirates made enough on ticket sales alone to cover their payroll, which means that, instead of, say, adding to their talented core from a decade ago that lost Wild Card games instead of advancing and maybe winning something for the first time since 1979, owner Bob Nutting just pocketed a whole bunch of the profits from television deals, both local and national, in addition to the revenue-sharing checks funded by money from teams like the Dodgers. The Pirates aren’t poor. The Pirates don’t lack resources. The Pirates lack an owner willing to spend what they have to build a better baseball team. They could have signed Bryce Harper years ago, just like any other team. They could have signed Manny Machado, instantly transforming their organization as the Padres did. They could have brought in Blake Snell a year ago, they could angle for Juan Soto now to give them a hitting equivalent to youthful ace Paul Skenes on the roster, and give that arm its best chance of winning—and maybe staying. Instead, Nutting will continue to cry poor, he will continue to refuse to sell—why would he, he’s got an incredible grift going that’s totally acceptable by MLB’s own systems and structures—and the Pirates will continue to be the Pirates.
I do want to stop and give the Yankees credit here in the present: Hal Steinbrenner did whine in the past, yes, but he also offered $760 million to Soto, and, given the bidding just kept going up, realized that there was no way Cohen was going to let Soto sign anywhere else. The bidding would still be escalating right now if the Yankees kept adding another $5 million here and $10 million there, until Soto became Cohen’s billion-dollar prize. However! Let’s go back to the Pirates again. They made $287 million in reported revenue in 2024 — “reported” is a key word there, since teams make money they don’t have to share the existence of with even the Players Association, so this is just the cash we know of. They spent $118 million on their roster in 2024, which includes all the extra taxes, 40-man roster, minor leaguers, and cost of medicals and such. That figure accounts for just 42 percent of their reported revenue, meaning — in theory, at least — that they could have afforded $51 million for Juan Soto. And with room to spare, even, since their total payroll would still just sit at 59 percent of their revenue at that point.
Which is not to say that this is the best use of the Pirates’ resources, to be clear! They’ve got more holes than a single Soto will fill, and their budget does not stretch infinitely into the distance. The thing is, if they could theoretically afford a $51 million player, they could also afford a $30 million player and a $20 million player, or two $25 million players, or whatever split breakdown you want to go with here. Instead, Mitch Keller ($15.4 million) is their highest-paid player, with just one other (Bryan Reynolds) clearing $10 million per season, and just two more guaranteed contract besides. They’ve got six arbitration-eligible players on the roster, accounting for a projected $28 million. Their budget has so much more space for more spending to make up for the holes their farm system isn’t filling, and yet, it won’t be used. Bob Nutting will just become richer every year while the Pirates remain, as said, the Pirates.
Now, if this is the case — that the Pirates could, in theory, afford Juan Soto — then you know this is also true of the rest of the league. The Pirates are one of the worst offenders for hoarding their revenue, but half the league spends less than half of their revenue on the team itself, and, in 2024, just four teams spent at least 60 percent of their revenue, with the Mets being the only one to spend over 70 percent — not even the Dodgers reached that level.
So, if no one besides the Mets could get Soto because Cohen was going to do whatever it took to get him, and that’s the lone reason why he was not financially viable for the other 29 teams, then it follows that those other teams have plenty of money they could be spending on players who aren’t Juan Soto. Some of them will spend that money — the Dodgers already have been. Will the Red Sox find other uses for the $700 million that John Henry was reportedly willing to hand him, five years after telling Mookie Betts to take a hike for asking for less than half of that despite being just one year older and at least as accomplished of a player? You already know that the Cubs won’t. The Mariners won’t even entertain the thought, and so on down the line.
Which means that, as was said about the Dodgers, is the issue that the Mets have this money to spend at a rate no one else can, or is the issue that every team has money to spend, but only a few teams, like the Mets, are willing to spend it?
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