The Mets have never been shy about spending, but that doesn’t mean their payroll has to stay glued to the top of the sport forever. Under David Stearns, the pattern has been pretty clear: New York has been willing to pay, but it has also shown a preference for structure, flexibility, and deals that don’t trap the club in the same financial corner year after year.
Juan Soto is the obvious exception. When isn’t he?
If the Mets are going to bring the yearly payroll down over the next two seasons, it won’t happen in one clean sweep. The practical path is spread out, and there are three ways it can unfold.
The first is simple enough: let free agents leave and resist the urge to immediately replace every dollar. That’s not usually how fans want it to work.
When a player walks, the instinct is to funnel that money right back into the roster. Don’t count on the Mets to rush into that.
Marcus Semien is the clearest example. By the time his contract is up, the Mets are not likely to turn around and pour that cash into another expensive name just to stay in the same financial lane.
The logic behind bringing him in while moving off Brandon Nimmo’s deal was financial in the first place.
There aren’t any official free agents for the Mets this offseason, but a few important names are moving toward that point. Semien still has two more years.
Sean Manaea and Jorge Polanco each have one more. When those deals run out, the Mets would much rather have younger, cheaper replacements ready to step in.
A farm system option could take over at second base for Semien. One of the pitching prospects could slide into Manaea’s spot.
And Polanco’s place is less of a mystery because he’s been such a limited factor that attention has already shifted toward Jared Young as the more affordable upgrade.
The second route is one the Mets have already leaned into: prospects, waiver claims, and minor league free agents. That kind of roster building is going to matter even more if the goal is to keep payroll moving downward. New York has had mixed results in those lanes, but the club has clearly not been afraid to keep digging.
These are the moves fans often barely notice at the time. A waiver claim here.
A minor league deal there. But under Stearns, the Mets have been one of the more aggressive teams when it comes to that kind of traffic.
Young is part of that broader picture as a low-key major league signing. So are the additions of Luis Torrens, Daniel Duarte on a minor league deal, and Jose Iglesias, who came off the scrap heap of free agency and became the club’s most beloved player of the last few seasons.
Cheap doesn’t always mean empty-calorie either. Ty France signed a minor league deal with the San Diego Padres last offseason and went on to hit .295 with 21 home runs.
The third way is less dramatic but probably the most important over the long haul: spread the money over more years instead of packing it into shorter ones. On paper, the Mets’ total salaries are reasonable.
The issue is how those contracts are structured. Sean Manaea’s $25 million AAV over three seasons would look very different if that same $75 million were stretched so he made $18.75 million per year.
Jorge Polanco’s $20 million AAV would feel lighter if it were laid out as $13.33 million annually instead of $40 million across the life of the deal.
There’s an argument on both sides of that math. And in the cases of Manaea and Polanco, the Mets will probably be happy to move on when those contracts end after 2027.
Even one contract built this way can make a real difference. An extra $7 million or so could be the kind of number that keeps the Mets just under certain penalty lines and gives Steve Cohen more room to think before approving trades or signings.
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Nate Lavender is one of those arms worth keeping in the back of the mind. He has shown enough strike-throwing and miss bats to stand out as a potential relief piece, even if he is not in the current closer conversation, and the appeal is obvious for a team that wants more answers in the pen. The velocity is not eye-catching, but the Mets may not need a radar-gun headline if the rest of the profile keeps playing the same way. [Read more 🡒]