In my opinion, the biggest gripe Red Sox fans have about ownership right now isn't greed. It's incompetence. It's okay to make money when you're providing a good product.
As we've discussed before, it seems to become a matter of ego more than anything. Plus the Players Association encourages players to get as much money as possible.
There is one indisputable good reason not to pay luxury tax every year, though - some of the penalties are losses of draft picks and international pool money, so it's not just costing money but prospects.
We didn't unload all of the $60 mill, of course. We were still on the hook for $16 mill of Price's salary.
So the net increase in AAV would have been $44 mill. Talent-wise we'd have Betts instead of Verdugo.
According to Forbes, the Mets gross revenue for 2021 was $302 million.
https://www.forbes.com/mlb-valuations/list/#tab:overall
So it depends where you get the numbers from.