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| Steve Cohen. USA TODAY Sports |
With the league's highest ever tax payroll, the New York Mets top the list of an unprecedented eight Major League Baseball teams that owe a luxury tax for the 2023 season, according to multiple reports.
Owner Steve Cohen's Mets owe a record luxury tax of almost $101 million, according to numbers finalized by MLB this week and obtained by the Associated Press. The Mets' $374.7 million tax payroll tops the previous high of $291.1 million by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2015.
The money spent didn't help the Mets, who finished at 75-87 and in fourth place in the National League East.
It would have been even worse for the Mets if not for their selling bonanza over the summer, trading Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, David Robertson and Mark Canha. Those moves reportedly saved the team $18 million and prevented them from jumping past the next tax threshold and owing an even higher luxury tax.
