Cubs have no intentions of spending like Steve Cohen and the Mets

As the Cubs look to emerge from a multi-year rebuild, spending levels are once again on the rise in Wrigleyville and owner Tom Ricketts says the team will be near the $233 million CBT threshold by Opening Day, a welcome piece of news after the team spent just $151 million on payroll in 2022, which was just a tick above league-average.

Tom Ricketts: Cubs are ready to spend - but won't get crazy

That being said, Ricketts has no plans of stepping into the ring with free-spending New York Mets owner Steve Cohen. During the ownership panel at Cubs Convention on Saturday, he joked that, while the new sportsbook at Wrigley Field would add a new revenue stream, it wouldn't give him Cohen-level wealth to deploy.

In a sitdown with 670 WSCR, payroll - and the Mets' staggering spending - came up, as well. Here's what Ricketts had to say:

"I don’t know what their strategy is or how they’re financing their player decisions. I think for us, we just know that we have to just do what we know how to do. Let’s build a team from the group up, because that’s how championships are won. And if there are other teams that are spending in a way that we don’t understand, then we just have to let them do it and let it all be settled on the field."

- Tom Ricketts, via 670 WSCR

New York is set to field a payroll pushing $360 million in 2023 - which means a luxury tax bill of nearly $90 million. Ricketts sounded like he was ready to be right at the competitive balance tax threshold this year, but seemed unlikely to blow past it in hopes of avoiding those tax penalties that snowball with each year a team is above the threshold.

Both the baseball ops and ownership panels made it clear the Cubs have a vision and have no plans of deviating from it based off what other clubs are doing. The spending has returned (although there are, of course, still critics out there) and the farm system is rapidly rising rankings lists across the industry - and the team is hoping that recipe leads to another World Series championship in the not-too-distant future.