Breaking Down Mets' Financial Situation for This Offseason

With the offseason now underway, the New York Mets need to begin to plan for 2015 as they go for their first winning season in nearly a decade.

But before thinking about any potential trades and free-agent signings that may occur, let's see what the Mets will be working with internally in 2015.

The Mets have $54 million in guaranteed money next season toward David Wright ($20 million), Curtis Granderson ($16 million), Bartolo Colon ($11 million) and Jon Niese ($7 million).

Beyond that, the Mets will have quite a few players still in their arbitration years, plus the younger players who are still under rookie contracts.

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Mets players who will be eligible for arbitration this offseason include Daniel Murphy ($5.7 million 2014 salary), Bobby Parnell ($3.7 million 2014 salary), Dillon Gee ($3.625 million 2014 salary), Eric Young Jr. ($1.85 million 2014 salary), Lucas Duda ($1.6375 million 2014 salary), Ruben Tejada ($1.1 million 2014 salary) and Jenrry Mejia ($509,675 2014 salary).

Most, if not all, of these players will be due for a salary raise of some sort in the future. The 2014 salaries between these players add up to $18,122,175, and this figure could possibly go up another $5 million or so, if not more.

With that being said, the grand total for the Mets' 2015 payroll is now in the $75-80 million range.

Next up are the players with less service time in the major leagues. This group includes Carlos Torres, Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler, Josh Satin, Juan Lagares, Jeurys Familia, Travis d'Arnaud, Jacob deGrom, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Wilmer Flores, Eric Campbell and Vic Black.

Clearly, the majority of the Mets do not have that much major league service time, which shows how young the team is, generally speaking. The aforementioned players combined for over $5 million in 2014 salaries.

This number should remain roughly the same in 2015, which brings the Mets' current payroll to at least the $80-85 million range.

The other players with even less experience will almost certainly continue to earn the minimum $500,000 salary, unless this minimum salary increases. This would add another $6 million to the payroll, which should bring the total amount past $90 million.

Last but not least, any additional call-ups next year will have to be accounted for, which could add another few million to the payroll.

At this point, the Mets' payroll should be under $100 million at the start of the season, but this does not mean that it necessarily has to be under $100 million.

If the Mets can successfully attack free agency and sign a big name or two, it would probably lead to the payroll increasing to $105-110 million, if not more. And of course, various trades could alter payrolls dramatically depending on the particular trades that are made.

As a big-market team, there is no reason why the Mets should not be afraid to spend money—if that is what will ultimately help them get back to the postseason next year.

With all the young talent the Mets have, there are few big contracts the Mets are even committed to at this point, so adding another one or two large salaries should not put a big dent into the club's finances.

However, general manager Sandy Alderson has seemed to be rather cautious with paying big salaries to free agents and/or trading for veterans with large contracts, unlike his predecessor Omar Minaya.

So it will be very interesting to see if Alderson goes about this offseason in a conservative way, or if this is the time the big signings and trades finally happen.

The bottom line is the Mets need to win more in 2015, and finances should not be an excuse.

All contract figures are courtesy of Spotrac.com.