Mets Payroll Wouldn’t be a Concern with a Savvy GM
According to an ESPN New York piece, the Mets could see the largest year-to-year payroll drop in Major League Baseball history. Last season, the Mets had a payroll of about $143 million. Adam Rubin of ESPN says that total is expected to drop to about $91 million. A team can do a lot with $91 million. Imagine the Tampa Bay Rays with the flexibility to spend $91 million. Imagine Billy Beane’s Athletics spending that much year in and year out. Imagine Kansas City, Pittsburgh, San Diego, and Washington with that type of money.
If the Mets do slash they 2012 Opening Day payroll to $91 million, they will still rank in the top half of all of baseball according to the 2011 salary figures for all 30 teams. According to CBS Sports, there were 13 teams with payrolls over $91 million in 2011. There were ten teams with salary totals under $70 million. A $91 million Opening Day payroll is far from chump change. In New York, the amount may be low. But take New York out of the equation. Forget about the city. If the Mets had a General Manager who could stretch the most out of his money, a $91 million payroll could buy a championship.
Sandy Alderson, current Mets GM and former Athletics GM and Padres CEO, said the Mets lost $70 million last season. Forbes has yet to release their analysis of each Major League team, so there has been nothing to truly refute this statement. For this reason, Alderson is slashing payroll. That’s fine. The Rays, who failed to increase attendance enough to compensate for a rising payroll in 2010 announced they would be cutting the payroll drastically. Guess what? The Rays beat out the Red Sox in 2011 and made the postseason.
Alderson has had success in both Oakland and San Diego. However, his success in Oakland was tied to their ability to spend. He was in Oakland before the team was sold to its current owner. Billy Beane was left to deal with a tighter budget while finding creative ways to win. Alderson moved on to San Diego. There, he saw the Padres win back-to-back National League West division titles on a shoe-string budget. So when Alderson came to New York, with payrolls consistently passing the $100 million mark, he had no excuse to fail.
But that’s what has happened. The team has been crippled by the Bernie Madoff scandal. Players have been injured or under-performed. In all, the team had simply not functioned well. Sometimes that’s the by-product of having additional capital. For someone who has never had the ability to go out and buy anything he wanted (baseball-related at least), the Mets job offered Alderson a chance to operate with a complete lack of constraint. Obviously all the blame does not fall on the shoulders of Alderson, but he must stand up and accept the majority of it. With teams where payroll is a constant concern, the front offices are forced to find the right players for the right price. They must spend every dime wisely, always cautious of the devastating miscalculation. When given a payroll over $100 million, much of that caution is thrown to the wind. The results, often times, are losing ball clubs.
After Alderson’s hiring, a move that was supposed to vault the Mets back into contention. Yet, he failed to lift the team out of fourth place in 2010 and 2011. This while the team had some of the game’s brightest young stars in David Wright and Jose Reyes. Much of the failure came from injuries to players who ate up so much of the team’s payroll it was impossible to replace them with anyone of substance. Johan Santana was injured, Jose Reyes was often injured, Carlos Beltranwas injured. Those three players accounted for over $70 million between 2010 and 2011. Had they all remained healthy, we could be discussing a very different topic surrounding the Mets, but they were not healthy all the time.
So with payroll in Queens cut to under $100 million for the first time in years, perhaps Sandy Alderson will be forced to recall the types of moves that helped the Padres win on payrolls that could barely pay the three players listed above. In today’s game of baseball, with the analysts employed by each team, the advanced statisticians, the abundance of resources and information, there is no excuse for failing with a $91 million budget. Alderson is not a bad GM. He is simply a GM who found himself in a comfortable monetary position when moving from San Diego to New York. It’s hard to blame him. Who among us would not feel the same if given a promotion that afforded them the luxury to spend at will, finally free of financial restraints?
But with that being said, tears should not be shed over a slash in payroll to $91 million. When the average payroll in baseball is $89 million (subtracting the Yankees, whose $201 million payroll skews everything), the Mets should be able to put together a winning ball club on their estimated $91 million 2012 budget. All it will take is a GM able to make smart decision, stretch every dollar as far as it will go, and win with analysis rather than dollars.