Opening Day Mets Payroll: $100 Million

With Opening Day upon us, let’s take one final check on the Mets payroll for the 2015 season:

Bartolo Colon: $11,000,000
Jonathon Niese: $7,050,000
Dillon Gee: $5,300,000
Matt Harvey: $614,125
Jacob deGrom: $556,875
Zack Wheeler: $546,250 (DL)

Jenrry Mejia: $2,595,000
Jerry Blevins: $2,400,000
Alex Torres: 522,900
Jeurys Familia: $523,925
Carlos Torres: $582,125
Rafael Montero: $511,000
Sean Gilmartin: $507,500
Buddy Carlyle: $550,000 (est)
Bobby Parnell: $3,700,000 (DL)
Josh Edgin: $520,625 (DL)
Vic Black: $515,500 (DL)

Travis d’Arnaud: $525,424
Anthony Recker: $517,880

Lucas Duda: $4,200,000
Daniel Murphy: $8,000,000
Wilmer Flores: $513,543
David Wright: $20,000,000
Ruben Tejada: $1,880,000

Michael Cuddyer: $8,500,000
Juan Lagares: $553,696
John Mayberry: $1,450,000
Kirk Nieuwenhuis: $525,415

The total comes out to $100,661,783. The salary for Buddy Carlyle is estimated because Cots Baseball Contracts, where I got all of these figures, did not have it. Cots also included two players who were sent to the minors. I did not include them. I did, however, include the players on the disabled list.

Frankly, I am surprised the payroll is this high. I assumed it would top out at closer to $90 million. If the Mets had been able to trade Dillon Gee and did not suffer injuries in the bullpen that necessitated the deal for Jerry Blevins and his $2.4 million salary, the Mets would have been right around there. Of course, dumping Bartolo Colon could have gotten the Mets at $90 million in one fell swoop.

But maybe $100 million was always the target. It should be no surprise, then, that the final figure is so close to that. The Mets may be cheap, but they are not dumb (well, that’s debatable).

In any case, the Mets payroll is in the bottom third in all of baseball. That is an embarrassment for a New York team. But hey, if they can deliver a winner, who will care?