The Mets have had a lot of players lead the league in AAV salary and there's no chance anyone needs all of them.
Due to the structure of his deferred payments, Shohei Ohtani is not the highest paid player in the National League this season. It’s actually Juan Soto at $51.875 million. Having the highest paid player in the NL is nothing new for the New York Mets.
Complete data on the highest paid player in the league only goes back to 1985 which isn’t that big of a deal for this exercise because salaries were much more even until free agency began in the late 1970s.