As the Mets embark on an offseason where they’ll try to give a roster that finished two wins shy of a World Series appearance the boost it needs to take the next steps, there’s one enormous thing working in their favor.
Already helmed by the wealthiest owner in the sport — who is supremely motivated to help the team ascend, the Mets’ willingness to spend at the top of the market will be buoyed further by the fact that they have a ton of money coming off their books.
Those relatively clean books should mesh well with New York’s philosophy of spending smartly but aggressively in free agency, while maintaining the goal of creating a sustainable winner.
“We’ve got financial flexibility,” president of baseball operations David Stearns said at Citi Field on Wednesday during his end-of-season news conference. “It means that pretty much the entirety of the player universe is potentially accessible to us. That’s an enormous opportunity. I envision us taking advantage of that opportunity, and being aggressive in certain spaces.
“We also have to recognize that we want to set up our organizational pattern so that we can invest in free agency, invest where we think we need to to complement the club on an annual basis. So, you’re right. We have a lot of money coming off the books. I would expect us to spend some of that — a good portion of that — to complement our team, to improve our team heading into next year. We’re also not gonna do anything that hamstrings us in future years and prevents us from continually adding, supplementing to our core group.”
Specifically, the Mets — whose 2024 payroll was pockmarked by money owed to players who were no longer playing for them — will enter the offseason with around only $150 million committed for 2025.
The above figure will go up with arbitration raises owed to a handful of players, but the Mets will have lots of flexibility. For reference, the Mets ended the 2024 season with a payroll of $341.58 million, which included the luxury tax penalties they paid.
Gone are the contracts of Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, and James McCann. The Mets can also look to the end of the 2025 season, when the $20.75 million that has been owed to Starling Marte annually will come off the books.
“I think it’s too early to determine exactly where we’re gonna take our shots, and so we’ll continue to evaluate that plan and that path as we move through the offseason,” Stearns said about the overall approach.
When Stearns was asked about potentially getting back under the lowest luxury tax threshold ($241 million) next season after exceeding the top threshold in 2024, he didn’t seem moved. And it feels highly unlikely the Mets have that as a goal.
That means that if they wanted to do something like sign Juan Soto to a $600 million deal, re-sign Pete Alonso, and rebuild their starting rotation primarily through free agency, it likely wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility.
While Soto will be the biggest fish on the free agent market in terms of position players, there will also be some ace-level starting pitchers out there.
Corbin Burnes, who reportedly wants an eight-year deal, is one of them.
Max Fried is another.
And Stearns was asked about the idea of giving huge deals to free agent starting pitchers, which is something that often ends poorly.
“In all of these different segments of the player universe, there are no hard and fast rules for me,” Stearns explained. “I really do think we have to take each individual decision, looking at the individual player, to determine whether we think a long-term investment is warranted, is wise, is in the best interest of the organization.
“When you look at the history of long-term investments in pitchers, it is not overwhelmingly a rosy picture. But there are pitchers who have gone into their mid-or late-30s and pitched very well. And so, if we think we can identify that, then there could be exceptions.”
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