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PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Steven A. Cohen has since owned a Major League Baseball club. October 2020. In that short time, he dramatically changed the trajectory of his team, the Mets, and his spending, the latter leading directly to a new league payroll tax named after him.
“Listen, I’m still new to baseball,” Cohen said Sunday morning, after touring the Mets’ spring training facility and pausing to meet with reporters. “I know it has a name. They call it the ‘Cohen Tax’ or whatever.”
He later added, “It’s better than naming a bridge after you or something like that.”
For a very long time under the previous owners of the Mets, WilponsDespite playing in the nation’s largest media market, the team slumped in the National League rankings and MLB payroll rankings. But in hedge fund manager Cohen, who bought the Mets for $2.4 billion and reportedly for $15 billion, the team now has the richest majority owner in MLB, and their spending is starting to reflect that reality.
It overhauled the Mets’ once-lean analytics department, brought employee salaries back to pre-pandemic levels, and opened the checkbook for talented gamers.
In Cohen’s first season, the Mets traded Cleveland for short-back Francisco Lindor, and then signed it 10-year, $341 million contract extension. According to FanGraphs, the team’s 2021 payroll for luxury tax purposes was $203 million, just below the initial luxury tax threshold of $210 million. This led to a disappointing 77-85 record and the fifth consecutive season out of the playoffs.
A year later, Cohen intends to reverse the Mets, pushing them into the first $300 million payroll in MLB history.
after hiring Billy Eppler as general managerand the Mets, before the MLB lockout kicks off on Dec. a total of 124.5 million dollars to outfielder Starling Marte, outfielder and first baseman Mark Canha, infielder Eduardo Escobar and star pitcher Max Scherzer. That sent the Mets’ payroll to a league-leading and franchise record $270 million.
MLB’s other club owners noticed. The current form of competitive balance tax began in 2003 and was aimed at limiting illegal spending. But during negotiations for a new five-year collective bargaining agreement, team owners sought to make the luxury tax system more burdensome, while players argued the opposite, arguing that its annual growth wasn’t keeping up with club revenues.
a concession the players finally did Increasing the luxury tax thresholds in the new deal was the establishment of a new, fourth threshold of $60 million ($230 million in 2022) over the floor that could limit top spenders such as the Los Angeles Dodgers and Mets. On Saturday, Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo told him “Steve tax”
“Listen, $290 million is a lot of money to spend overall, and I’m okay with that,” Cohen said on Sunday, adding later, “I don’t feel so restrictive that I can’t live with that.”
Cohen said the new tax mark — each level has increasingly higher surcharges — won’t stop it. When asked if he could beat her, he said, “I probably will.”
On Saturday night, the Mets traded Oakland Athletics right-handed starting pitcher Chris Bassitt, who became All-Star in 2021. they included him in their discussion.) On Sunday afternoon, the Mets reached a one-year, $4 million deal with relief pitcher Adam Ottavino. The team’s newly projected salary is $285 million.
“He just said, ‘Keep bringing me opportunities,’ and that signaled to me that if anything, we need to keep an open mind about it,” Eppler said on Sunday.
Buck Showalter, who entered his first season as manager of the Mets after leading the Arizona Diamondbacks, Baltimore Orioles, Texas Rangers and Yankees in the past, said Cohen is curious and focused on winning. “I’ve had some owners…” he said before his voice broke. “He wants to win.”
Cohen said he was not involved in the labor negotiations, but was pleased that a new deal, unanimously approved by the owners, was made to allow a 162-game regular season to be played.
In 2021, only two teams – the San Diego Padres and the Dodgers – paid luxury taxes. Nine of the 30 teams spent $92 million or less on payroll. According to this Associated Press’s calculationsSpending on major league payrolls of $4.05 billion in 2021 was the lowest in a full season since 2015. The median MLB salary was $1.15 million, up from a record high of $1.65 million in 2015. Before the pandemic, MLB owners were estimated to be a $11 billion-a-year business.
Big payrolls don’t always equate to championships, but when asked if other owners were as determined as trying to win by spending, Cohen objected.
“I can’t speak for them,” he said. “I’m not in their head. I can only speak for myself. And I’m very committed to winning, very attached to the fans. And I’m focused on that.”
With an injection of new talent and cash, the Mets look poised to compete for a playoff spot. (As of this season, the playoff field has been increased from 10 teams to 12 teams.) They made the end of the season last when they lost the wildcard match in 2016. When he took over the Mets, Cohen said it would be disappointing not to win a championship in three to five years.
“Everything looks good on paper,” he said of his team on Sunday. “It’s hard to know what’s going to happen in real life, isn’t it? Looking forward to a great season. I think we’re going to be really competitive and we’ll see what happens.”
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