The Mets’ luxury-tax payroll this year is somewhat deceiving. 

The total projects to roughly $340 million, which is the highest in the sport for a second straight year.

But the Mets have roughly $65 million in dead money tied up in James McCann and — most notably — Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander. Remove that and the Mets fall behind the Dodgers and Yankees in payroll, just ahead of the Braves and Phillies.

It was always understood that this was a transitional season and part of that was to clean up the payroll.