The Francisco Lindor deal and the Mets’ new payroll reality

The Mets signed Francisco Lindor to the richest contract ever given out by the club and the hope is that he becomes the offensive star to pair with Jacob deGrom. The length of the deal is obviously a concern, as the worry is that the last few years wind up with what the club is experiencing now with the Robinson Cano contract. The more immediate concern is what the contract does to the payroll, starting in 2022. Will the Lindor deal affect the club’s ability to sign Michael Conforto and Noah Syndergaard, much less Marcus Stroman?

The good news, of course, is that new ownership allows the Mets to even have this discussion. Imagine a year ago, wondering how a $341 million contract on the books would influence the decision making on signing three other impending free agents. We might as well have discussed how our new purchase of a kangaroo influenced what we were going to do with our grizzly bear, rhino and lion.

But it’s our new reality. On an individual level, they say winning the lottery doesn’t solve all of your problems – it just gives you new ones. As Mets fans, this is our new problem. For years, fans whined about the club not running a “New York” payroll. Now, it’s inevitable that the Mets will feature a top five payroll and it likely still won’t be enough to keep everyone and also to keep adding shiny new toys.

One of the challenges for GMs is to structure the team’s payroll so that enough contracts are coming off the books each year to afford the inevitable arbitration raises, along with making it possible for a new free agent signing or two. In one of his first years on the job in his initial Mets tenure, Sandy Alderson didn’t have any contract come off the books, a situation that resulted in Chris Capuano being the team’s biggest offseason import.

So, who do the Mets have coming off the books following the 2021 season? In addition to Conforto, Stroman and Syndergaard, there’s Jeurys Familia, Dellin Betances, Jonathan Villar and Aaron Loup. Those seven players combine for $65.1 million, which ordinarily would be a terrific amount to have available. But, as noted before, the Mets will want to bring at least a couple of those guys back. And there are also these other factors to consider:

Lindor’s salary goes up $11.8 million
Cano’s $20.25 million obligation comes back
The Mets have at least seven players that will be getting more expensive through arbitration

Those three things could be using up a big chunk of the $65.1 million of expiring deals. Here are the seven arbitration players and a guess on what they’ll make the following year:

$10 – Edwin Diaz
$8 – Brandon Nimmo
$5 – Dominic Smith
$4 – Pete Alonso
$4 – Seth Lugo
$3 – J.D. Davis
$2 – Jeff McNeil

That’s $36 million in arbitration. Of course, those guys got paid something this year, so it’s not like that would be all new expense. Those seven are making $20.6 million in 2021, putting the guess at an increase of $15.4 million for the following season. That brings us to around $37.5 million or about 57% of the money freed up by expiring contracts. Plus, there are several other arbitration-eligible players they may tender a contract to and there’s also the chance that one of the options – yes, both the team and the player hold one – on Kevin Pillar gets exercised.

So, a rough ballpark would give the Mets around $25 million to use from expiring contracts for 2022 payroll. Maybe if they non-tender the rest of their arbitration-eligible guys it climbs above $30 million and if they tender the majority and pick up the club option for Pillar it falls below $20 million. Neither scenario makes it likely to retain both Conforto and Syndergaard.

But we haven’t counted a couple of factors in yet. First, the Mets are currently under the tax threshold of $210 million by nearly $13.4 million. And Steve Cohen has indicated a willingness to go past this amount. Under the current rules, as long as a club doesn’t exceed the luxury tax limit by $40 million, it won’t receive anything besides a monetary penalty. Above $40 million and then draft pick penalties come into play. With Cohen’s fortune, the line should be $250 million, not $210 million.

And the big unknown is what financial system the league will operate under with the new collective bargaining agreement. It’s possible that the luxury tax threshold goes up by a significant amount, although the lost year of fans in the seats in 2020 probably reduces that likelihood, at least in the beginning of the contract. The previous CBA saw the tax threshold increase from $195 million to $210 million over the life (2017-2021) of the deal.

It’s next to impossible to forecast how the Mets will play things without knowing the details of the new CBA. But if we thought that the same system was going to be in place for 2022, the Mets should have no trouble retaining two of their three impending free agents, even with the Lindor deal. They should have roughly $38 million before hitting the luxury tax and there’s no reason they shouldn’t be willing to exceed that in order to keep someone like Syndergaard or Conforto from going elsewhere. And if Stroman turns in a big year, there’s room for him, too, while staying beneath the draft pick penalty salary.