and if it was financial, someone made the call to invest more on the 25 man for “big names” vs. spending the money on prospects. You could have gotten a lot of IFAs and overslots for what they forked over for bay.

you also run into an issue when you bet big on right now. You get committed, and almost have to go all in (go for broke) at some point.

I’m not saying they haven’t tried to put together a winning team but they didn’t go about it with patience and foresight.

They tried to get one by borrowing against the future and while they could have beaten the long odds in 2006, even if they had it would have crashed and burned a year or two later anyway.

1984′s success is what led to a high demand in 1985, and 1985 did the same to 1986. Having a high payroll has nothing to do with fans having that expectation but it certainly has a lot to do with the disapointment factor.

Having players who’s best years are ahead of them keeps that hope alive while players who’s best years are behind them don’t.

taking an extreme scenario, say Duda, Havens, Ike, thole and neise all have monster years, reyes signs an extension, wright plays like it is 2006, and pelf blossoms. Likely, the team will win a bunch of games, right? maybe win the WC?

well, ticket sales for next year will skyrocket, even if they drop payroll 40mill by not adding anyone expensive (not having a need to). Just because people see the team on the ascent, and figure it is going to be a winning year, and they want in.

you know when the biggest payroll in mets history was before 2008? 2003. how did that team work out?

This time the ticket sales will follow the winning instead of following the big FA signing and the inevitable disapointment that goes along with it.

2005/2006, payroll was around 101mill.
2007, jump to 115mill
2008, 137mill
2009/2010, ~140+mill (adjusting for how you account for Sheffield and bay’s signing bonus

so basically, as SNY ramped up and citifield was coming on line, they hoisted payroll to record levels for the team, and one of the top few in MLB.

now, if you think they should have gone up another 20-40 and blown through the luxury tax threshold, that is another question!

and it has not had an impact on running the mets. Even if they sell part of their stake to raise cash, that has nothing to do with the running of the team.

so, people that decide to get tickets for a game mid season may not find the deals on stub hub, so they will just get them from the mets instead. either way, the mets get the price of the tickets.’

how many they will sell depends heavily on wins. Any year where they are in the race, there tends to be a lot of late season tickets sold.

As an aside, the near simultaneous ending of very high priced contracts would seem to me to reflect on some lack of planning skills. Some but not all of this was happenstance.

I find Howard and Duquette to be more credible than she was.

True, she wound up being 100% right 13 months later but is IS possible to be right for the wrong reasons too.

It MAY be that the Mets were recklessly gambling that they would have 40,000 IN attendance 81 times a year plus the post season and that would generate an extra 200 million OR it could be that the “clawback” wasn’t expected to be anywhere near what it turned out to be.

A combination of those two things is most likely and I’m certain that that is what the s**tstorm with Beltran was all about.

One thing the Wilpon’s have continuously done is attempt to salvage bad situations in attempts to preserve the financial bottom line but after receiving legal counsel over the much higher expectation of Picard AND the loss of a huge amount of projected payroll had to change course.

He seemed very upset toward the end of the show when he was told that the amount of money was a billion dollars. Most people don’t know that Mike has his own seats (paid for by him) at both Yankee Stadium and Citi Field and takes his children to both places.

For those of us who truly love sports this episode of the Mets actions is shocking.

Would it be better they not address then and just run the finances bankrupt and then where would the team we “supposedly” love be?

That’s right, we’d rather call them liars then think “oh good they are actually addressing something that needs to be done? Does it feel good to say “hahahah I told you so?”

At the end of 2009, she went on the Fox Business Network to defend her claims. She was joined by Dave Howard, the Mets’ executive vice president of business operations, and former Mets GM, Jim Duquette. A heated discussion took place. Howard was adamant in his denial that the Mets would have to be sold or that additional investors were needed. Howard now has mud on his face.

http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/3894988/madoff-strikes-the-mets/