Embrace the disgraced general concept of enshittification as it pertains specifically to the New York Mets and, by geographic circumstances, also to the New York Yankees.
As pent-up anger and frustration ruins the way we wade through an existing world of A.I. slop, we learn that the Enshittocene — a noun coined by author Cory Doctorow and then fleshed out in his 2025 book about “Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to do About it” — expanding the definition beyond soul-crushing Big Tech stalwarts can be a healthy exercise for those who need a way to explain their grief and lack of relief.
If the Amazin’ Mets are an Amazon-Meta mashup, and the Yankees, way more than Waymo or Yahoo in their Oracle world, continue to reflect as the IBM of baseball, you Reddit right that it all happens under what locals call the Big Apple, but really it’s acting on algorithms engineered by the gigabytes of Tim Cook’s Apple Inc.
No wonder the Mets and Yankees start this new week having each lost on five consecutive days for the first time in history, according to Sportradar.
An AI query about how any of this might Venn diagram itself on the circles of despair looks like this:
Plenty of other sources that explain how Steven Cohen, who in 2020 bought the Mets for $2.4 billion from his hedge-fund stash that wasn’t penalized for insider trading, has granted the team a MLB-top $352 million payroll for the 2026. The Mets have under contract the highest-paid player in outfielder Juan Soto, averaging $61.9 million in salary. He is currently injured.
The Dodgers circumvent much of this by deferring payments that otherwise would boost their ’26 payroll to $395 million. They also are on tap to pay the highest tax rate on the Competitive Balance Tax payroll for exceeding MLB’s $244 million threshold. The Mets and Yankees are second and third on that list.
For all the lamentations that the Dodgers are ruining baseball with their ownership spending … why is it every July 1 that we’re all reminded that it is the Mets who continue to give 1999 retiree Bobby Bonilla a $1.193,240.20 paycheck and will do so through 2035 for its example of how defer payments continue to haunt a fanbase looking for excuses to be even more disheveled?
ESPN already has already crunched the numbers to deduct that this Mets-Dodgers matchup is on the hook for more than $1 billion in salary liability. Last year’s meeting between the Mets and Dodgers was the previous most expensive series at $764 million in combined payroll — $36 million in total payroll behind this year’s matchup. When you add in their tax bills, the total jumps to over $1.07 billion, surpassing last year’s record of $1.025 billion. The Dodgers and Mets have ranked first and second (in some order) in total payroll four times since 2022. 2023, when the Mets ranked first and the Dodgers fourth, is the only exception during that stretch.
Aside from cash flow, there’s the Zeitgeist/ethos comparison that can also provide more entertainment.
When the New York Times ran an essay in its opinion pages recently with the headline — “Help! My Favorite Athlete is an Idiot” — it was no coincidence that the author was Devin Gordon, who in 2021 produced the most intriguing and pointed book “So Many Ways to Lose: The Amazin’ True Story of the New York Mets — the Best Worst Team in Sports” (our review here).
His riff was about how the franchise that continues to provide him with comedic fodder had to be somewhat dismantled over the last offseason because of political ideology that was contaminating the clubhouse vibe. Note: That was Brandon Nimmo batting leadoff for the Texas Rangers during last Dodgers’ homestand instead of what we’ve been used to seeing the Mets as they come into town this week.
As with most NYT stories, some of the best material is buried in the reader responses. Such as:
Continue reading “Day 5 of 2026 baseball book reviews: M(ake) E(nshittification) T(errible) S(omewhere) in the N.Y. branding”
Tom Hoffarth's The Drill: More Farther Off the Wall 