The New York Mets didn’t just spend. They spent their way to an all-time luxury tax record in Major League Baseball in 2023.
All for 75 wins last season.
The Associated Press reported the 2023 Competitive Balance Tax threshold on Saturday and eight teams surpassed the threshold of $233 million, which was the base salary for the first threshold.
Combined, the eight teams that will pay tax will pay a total of $209.8 million.
The Mets will account for nearly half of it, as the Mets will pay $100.7 million in tax for last season.
That’s a new record and by a wide margin. The previous record for tax spending was held by the 2015 Los Angeles Dodgers, who had a luxury tax payroll of $291.1 million and paid $43.6 million in tax.
The Mets obliterated it. Along with the tax fee, the Mets had a tax payroll of $374.7 million.
The formula for the CBT is complicated. But to simplify, for a team that is a first-time tax payor, they would owe the following based on the tax tiers:
Tier 1: 20% surcharge on any dollar spent between $233-$253 million;
Tier 2: 32% surcharge on any dollar spent between $253-$273 million;
Tier 3: 62.5% surcharge on any dollar spent between $273-$293 million;
Tier 4: 80% surcharge on any dollar spent over $293 million.
The rates go up for second-time offenders, of which the Mets are one.
The Mets are projected to have a taxable payroll of $241 million in 2024, per Spotrac.com. That's just a bit over the threshold for next season which is $237 million. But the Mets are likely not done spending yet.
Some of that tax bill is dead money. It includes more than $50 million the Mets are picking up for the contracts of Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander and James McCann.
The other teams to pay the tax were the San Diego Padres ($39.7 million), the New York Yankees ($32.4 million), the Los Angeles Dodgers ($19.4 million), the Philadelphia Phillies ($6.98 million), the Toronto Blue Jays ($5.5 million), the Atlanta Braves ($3.2 million) and the Texas Rangers ($1.8 million).
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