We didn’t coach them properly!

Just look at Mejia for a case of how those draft picks were being managed!

You keep citing lost 1st rounders and lost picks, never mention the fact that the picks Omar had were bottom rounders because we were competitive 3 out of the 6 years

and then blame them for being busts?

WE WERE COMPETITIVE!!!!

Until the health broke down!

Since 1998 we’ve drafted Jason Tyner, Pat Strange, 1999 Neal Musser, Jake Joseph, 2000 Billy Traber, Bobby Keppel, Matthew Peterson 2001 Aaron Heilman, David Wright, alhaji Turay, Corey Rangsdale 2002 Scott Kazmir, 2003 Milledge 2004 Phillip Humber, Matthew Durkin, 2005 Pelfrey, 2006 Kevin Mulvey, 2007 Kunz, Vineyard, Moviel, Rustich, 2008 Davis, Havens, Holt Rodriguez, 2009 Matz, 2010 Harvey in the first, supplemental or 2nd round.

There are probably many names that you do not recognize there. That’s because they washed out.

Many times we didn’t even have a first round pick. Many other times we didn’t have a 2nd AND a 3rd round pick.

When you compare our drafting vs our competitors in the early rounds PHIL:Rollins, Utley, Howard, Hamels, ATL: Heyward, McCann, Freeman, Escobar, Hanson, Wainwright, Johnson SF: Lincecum, Cain, Bumgarner, Posey it’s not even close.

And don’t tell me it’s OK that Humber and Mulvey busted because we traded them. It’s not the idea at the time of the draft to pick guys who bust so we can foist them off on Minnesota.

So yeah we got a few guys. Omar brought some depth and some raw high ceiling talent in the low minors but how about our early round busts going all the way back to the end of Mcilvaine’s run.

You don’t think that has anything to do with us not being able to develop a 2B since Fonzie left? A RFer since Strawberry left? A LFer since Cleon left?

We are drafting people but we’re not getting the kind of talent out competitors are getting. We’re then forced to go big dollar/long years to fix it and whether it’s by trade or free agency it cost us prospects or draft choices.

Why not make a concerted effort to address your needs 4 years ahead of time rather than every off season when the choices aren’t as many, the players are older, cost more and frequently aren’t as good as they were before?

You could make a solid legitimate All Star team out of the guys Philly, Atlanta and SF have drafted in the first 100 picks of the draft. We could add Wright and maybe down the road Davis and who knows maybe Pelfrey but that’s not enough and Pelfrey doesn’t equal Lincecum, Cain or Hamels yet anyway. SF has a 1st basemen from the 9th round named Brandon Belt who looks like the heir apparant to Pujols as the NL All Star 1B. It’s not a good situation. It’s much better than it had been but still much worse than most teams and the single biggest area of improvement needed in our entire organization.

Atlanta has 5 pitchers rated in the top 100 prospects, we have one. We’re behind and getting farther behind all the time.

It looks like to me we have a lot of young talent in camp this year that’s ready to help the Mets right now. And that’s not counting Ike Davis and Mike Pelfrey.

He didn’t draft Neil Allen…someone else did. Thats who got him hernandez!

You seem to think Cashen did it all by himself but he did not He had those 7 years of massive losing draft picks in his farm that was not his and then traded some of that away to get other things he needed.

And how long did he sustain that? As long as the Braves and Yankees?
Why didn’t he have his decade of dominance?

And tel me what was the first move cashen made when he got here?
Was it stay away from the big contract?
Explain Kingman and Foster then please!

You see he didn’t do what you think is possible either.
He had a 7 year loosing franchise that had a decent farm already that he was able to improve to the point where he had some core.

Count how many core players they had from that and tell me it was 8 guys…

Best I can count is maybe 5!
Gooden, Backman, Dykstra and who else?
Santana?

Omar had to basically start from scratch aside from Reyes and Wright. He could have gotten the exact, or better, or much better play id he had signed plan B free agents instead of plan A. Plan B free agents don’t cost draft choices. In many cases we could have have gotten better play while spending less money and making less of a commitment in time.

That would have led to more attendance.

Instead of Alou (2/15) lets say he drafted Mike Stanton (RF taken care of for 6 years, no commitment avg salary 2 M per year)

Let’s see 6 years at 12 M for a player in his prime or 2/15 M for a 40 year old? Tough decision.

Instead of drafting Kunz Vineyard, Moviel and Rustich in 2007 if he had drafted Tommy Hunter, and Jordan Zimmerman we would have had 2 good young arms in the rotation right now.

Instead of 2 years (out of 4 at a cost of 44 M) for Wagner we could have had Kyle Drabek for the next 6 years at an avg salary of 2M.

Instead of K-Rod (3/36 – 4/54) we could have Mike Trout in CF for 6 years starting in 2013 at an average salary of 2M.

Going back further if we had drafted Brian McCann in 2002 instead of forfeiting the pick for 2 years of David Weathers we would have saved a lot of money and been much much better behind the plate from 2006-2012, at least.

We wouldn’t have suffered the poor play of Brian Schneider and almost guaranteed would have won one more game in 2007 and two more in 2008. That would have put LOADS of money into the Met coffers.

You cannot make up for poor drafting by going out and giving up a draft choice without it seriously effecting the team down the road.

If your going to give away so many draft choices you damn well better draft well when you do keep your picks and you have to go out of your way to pick up some picks by letting guys go here and there. The combination of us doing/not doing those things is the reason we always have so many holes to fill.

You cannot every single year put the cart in front of the horse or by the time you fix RF, LF and 2B you have to turn around and fix C, SS, and 3B. You can never fill all your positions with competent players at the same time unless you got them all at the same time.

The chances of being able to spend 10-20 M for 8 roster spots in the same free agent year is very remote and highly unlikely from a financial standpoint and in and of itself is as bound to produce good play as it is bad play or time on the DL.

I challenge you to come up with any team who has those 8 guys in less than a decade. Braves didn’t produce 8, Phillies 7 at best, Yankees had 4 or 5.

Not even the 86 Mets had that many developed players.

and even if it WAS possible no GM would keep his job long enough in NY to see that plan through.
Even if it took only 8 years (a player per year) that’s 8 years. Omar got 6! and he DID get close to a WS! Made a team that was competitive 3 out of 6 years yet he got the sack!

The problem is NOT the plan I keep telling you that.
The problem is NY will not wait that long for your plan to work!
Before it can work the guy implementing it will be gone!

And even if he got the 8 guys in 6 years there would be no money to spend because no one would be going to the games while he was getting them!

We should always have a good strong bench that can actually do something. We should also have a number of arms to pick through for the bull pen.

Making a mistake in the IFA market might cost you 1.4 M (Fern) at the absolute most. Cost you no games, take up no roster spots and doesn’t detract from your ability to win now one iota. Either does drafting players who are good enough to make the All Star team. Not only does drafting players who have the ability to make the All Star game help you win, they also ATTRACT people to come see them play.

Having a revolving door of players coming in and out of here, most with expectations second in size only to their paychecks only to get hurt, play poorly or both doesn’t allow your franchise to move forward and grow a fan base. Winning and continuity do allow you to grow a fan base. Which comes first? Who cares.

If we had drafted Brian McCann instead of forfeiting the draft choice for two years of David Weathers, he would have helped on both ends. Same with Pedroia. Two guys here for at least 6 years each costing ownership a total of 10 M each and either recycled for 2 more picks (each) or hopefully resigned for 4-5 more years. Now you have players who A) play well, B) Help you win and C) that people get to “know”, like, root for and want to go see.

Ubaldo Jimenez. We tried to sign him for 20K. His family declined because of school. Next year Colorado got him for 50K as long as he could finish his last 2 months of school.

For what we paid Oliver we could have signed 720 Ubaldo Jimenez’s. What do you think was the better value? Even if Oliver had turned into Sandy Koufax we would have been better off with the prospects. So far Jimenez has earned 2.4 M in 5 years.

Instead of signing Alou we could have drafted Mike Stanton and FINALLY had a RFer and 6 years of him IN HIS PRIME would have cost 5 M less than 100 games of Alou over 2 injury plagued seasons in which just one or two more wins would have made all the difference in the world.

Shea stadium has drawn over 3 Million fans 5 times and 4 Million once. There are 20 Million people within a 2 hour drive of Citi Field. It’s already been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that having a winning team (and a little continuity) would bring sell out after sell out. Where are you getting this fire sale nonsense?

How much you going to pay for that ticket?

Pirates do that have they won?
Nats do that have they won?

Does anyone go see them?

NO!
Then doing what they do will make us go bankrupt faster than buying a 100 Mil FA because at least someone will go see that guy!

If we had drafted all those guys you say would have been good choices how many would still be here if we were watching our pennies each year?

Answer NONE they would all be traded so we could develop three more guys we would trade after one good year in the majors so we can get 9 more guys we doi the same thing with.

The mets already have that business it’s called Buffalo!

I know you believe that drafting is the key to winning.

But it is not the only thing you need to do.

NO TEAM that has ever done what you propose has won!
EVER! Cept maybe the Marlins one year…and what happened right after that?

FIRESALE!

You don’t think that Utley, Rollins, Hamels and Howard were slot selections do you?

Were you under the impression that Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez, Bumgarner, Wilson and Bumgarner were slot selections? Wrong again.

Why would any business allow their competitors to get the best players while they continue to draft one washout after another every single year? Except of course when they forfeit the pick for a someone who will soon be on the DL.

That’s why attendance has gone so far down. Shea was a dump, Citi is a palace compared to that place yet people went to Shea. Yeah it had it’s disapointments but nothing like this place. One old decrepit former All Star after another.

Why not put some REAL money, time, effort and resources into BUILDING a team instead of giving us all these old Blue Jay’s, Cardinals, Pirates, Red Sox, Royals ect ect ect.

It’s just the same old crap with the Wilpon’s. Save every dime now and pay a fortune later so you can disapoint the fans one more time. 1993, 2003, 2009, it’s all the same. Top payroll in the NL and either 90 or 100 losses during the season and after each collapse they claim they’ve learned their lesson and then just go out and do the same thing all over again.

Robinson Cano cost 250,000 to sign and lived right next door to our top international scout. Ubaldo Jimenez cost about the Rockies 50 K. We offered 20 K the year before, got turned down and never went back.

How many tickets would you have bought (if you could even get them) if the Mets had spent a total of 5 M on Jimenez, Cano, Pedroia, Stanton, McCann and Lester compared to how many have you bought with them spending 150 M on Bay, Castillo and Perez?

They are constantly running out of players because they get them when their on their last legs.

From 1983 the attendance went from 1.1, 1.8, 2.7, 2.7, 3.0, 3.0, 2.9, 2.7, 2.2, 1.7, 1.8, and finally 1.1 in 1994 after the debacle that was 1993.

See any correlation between winning and tickets sold?

The Mets used to ALWAYS outdraw the Yankees. This town was known as a NL town. The Yankees talked for years about moving to Jersey. The reason the Yankees sell out every year is because of their huge fan base. The very thing we used to have.

The Yankees have the huge fan base because they have gone to the post season 15 years out of 16. The Met Fan base used to be younger than the Yankees, no it’s older because 90% the kids born between 1985 and 2005 are all Yankee fans. Why? Why do you think?

The Met business plan has been to raise expectations by spending huge dollars on other teams players who then dissapoint and oftentimes embarrass the team. The Yankees have strong continuity because of their homegrown stars who seemingly have been here forever. Many of our memories of the last 20 years are of Bonilla, Saberhagen, Coleman, Burnitz, Henderson, Vaughn, Alomar, Wagner, Castillo and Bay as well as 2 blown postseasons followed by 2 losing seasons. ELEVEN LOSING SEASONS IN THE LAST 20 YEARS.

Every business owner in the world knows you have to GROW your business if you want to be successful. That means putting money back into it to provide for continued success later. Pizzaria’s purchase NEW ovens, Accounting firms purchase NEW computers. They don’t buy OLD ovens or OLD computers. They don’t take other firms leftovers, they look for the best and the brightest, not the oldest and most decrepit.

Your assertion that the Mets cannot sell enough tickets to turn a profit in NYC is as laughably ridiculous as George Steinbrenner’s assertion that “now one wants to come to the South Bronx.”

Also, you’re not getting rid of the minor league system anytime soon. And you can’t. The NFL has the the crooks and hypocrites of the NCAA to act as their scouting and farm system.

football fans don’t care much either “Go ahead and accumulate brain damage, WE WANT HITS!”

They also don’t have to pay to support a minor league, The games that no one shows up to do not get nseen on TV, You can only buy the ENTIRE season when you buy season tickets not the 10-15 game special, You only have to pay for travel 8 out of 16 game (soon to be 9 out of 18).

And the majority of the money is paid as a signing bonus which lets them cut a player anytime they deem him not worthy of keeping and do NOT have to pay him the remainder of his base salary! (ala Olliver Perez!)

If Ollie were in football he would have been cut already and that 12 mil could be put towards some other player!

How did Football get that way?
because they were strong when they dealt with the union and didn’t capitulate the way the baseball folks have.

As a result they also have the strongest Roid testing of any league and can calculate how much they need to make every year because their salary costs are KNOWN!

We don’t even know how much we owe K-Rod in baseball. How can you plan for money when you don’t know how much you need?

The reason football is profitable is they faced head on the union and won.

But the baseball fans don’t ever care about what is right they just want their sport and don’t care how much it costs someone else!

If the mets won the WS would you buy a full season plan next year?

Probably not cause you can’t afford them!

So even if you like what they did you can not REWARD them for thier efforts enough to offset the cost of that effort!

AQnd if that is the case you can’t complain they had to use cheaper ingredients due to the fact you can afford to eat there everyday!

All because they believe in the Unions!”

Actually, most of the vitriol I hear tends to be directed at the players. Not scientific, just my POV.

“Why is Football doing well? Two words SALARY CAP!”

And better revenue sharing, marketing, community outreach, embracing technology to be more accessible to fans…the NFL does a lot of things better than MLB.

All because they believe in the Unions!

Isn’t that pretty much what is going on in the rest of the country right now?

I have always been a union guy but some unions ask for TOO much and get too much and once the cost of producing becomes too great the business as a whole fails and has to look towards cheaper ways of doing business.

Oakland is an example and I am sure the Union hates them for the moneyball things. Screwed up their whole salary grab!

They wouldn’t allow contraction because that would mean fewer idiots bidding up players salaries to well beyond their performance worth when if the market were allowed to work as normal those business’ would close meaning salaries would be more sustainable for the rest.

At what point is enough enough?

Why is Football doing well? Two words SALARY CAP!
Say that to a ML union rep and you will get a 44 Oz louisville logo tatooed across your face!

What does it cost a player to do his job each year? How many hours a week do they put into making the product better? How much of the stadium costs and medical staff do they contribute to?

Sure people go to see the players and they wouldn’t go if there were no teams that marketed and laid out the money to open and staff the stadium so they could go.

Football they are arguing over 9 Billion Dollars! and how to split it!
And there will likely be a strike or lockout until it is resolved.
and you know what the end result will be?

Higher ticket prices to fans, More expensive concessions and souvenirs, A price jump on season tickets and in the end the ONLY one who gets hurt is US!

You have to either be crazy or egotistical to want to own a professional sports franchise.
So thats why thats who owns them!
because you pay too much for staff, your profits are tied to performance and even when you win the profit you make is barely above break even!
And thats just what the guy who won the WS does!

You keep going, same result, but again, it’s right around the corner. You might not go as often but you still go. Sometime around 1993 every customer that bought the sandwich gets violently ill and the owner is forced to speak out publicly on the matter. He states that he was buying the most expensive meat but that he know realizes that there is no correlation between what he spends and how good the sandwich turns out. He resolves to embark on a program to ensure he provides only the best product but as any business owner will tell you it takes time to rebuild the reputation and regain the clientele. He decides to short circuit the whole “new approach” but uses some of the remaining stock along with some of his old connections and the results are pretty good, for a while. You think he’s finally figured it out.

Well it isn’t long before the lack of handpicking the produce and buying the most expensive, but end cuts, of meat lead to another breakout of food poisining about a decade after the first.

Once again the owner steps up. States how he is “painfully” aware of how spending a lot for the ingredients doesn’t mean their going to translate into a winning sandwich. By this time you’ve had sandwiches at other deli’s and you realize that most of them know how to do it. Their sandwich is consistently deliscous. Not always the best but no where near what you’ve been getting from your deli. The one you grew up next to. The one that in your youth was usually good, occasionally great and always fun. The one that was boarded up for a while when the original owner passed away but still retained the great customer goodwill because of the amazin’ sandwich it occasionally provided. The one that turned it all around and recaptured it’s former prominance after someone who knew nothing about the business bought it and turned it over to true professionals who knew how to run a deli.

After a great run it was bought out by the new owner who soon forced the guy who turned it around out and here we are all over again. Two outbreaks of food poisening in 10 years But this time he’s learned. “painfully” as he put it.

They turned to a professional from the neighborhood, a guy that had worked for them in the past when they had been good for a time. An energetic former employee with some really good ideas and new connections. Everyone knew him, everyone liked him, everyone knew he was going to make good.

He soon had the place humming again, the neighborhood buzzed, he brought in some top quality counter people and before you knew it, it was SRO out into the street, just like the old days. Three straight years of SRO. The owner couldn’t have been more pleased. His Deli had recaptured the place it had held in the neighborhood as the place to be.

In a nod to the once again thronging crowds the owner and GM decided to spend even bigger on the deli meat, raising their customers expectations with every new variety they brought in. Once they offered only the basics but now they had more exotic offerings from all over the globe something that had been sorely lacking around here for way too long. Prosciutto, Arroz con pollo, Pernil, Southern smokehouse BBque, salmon steaks from the great Northwest, Arepa, culinary favorites from NJ like the Schowenputz, Ropa viejo, Maine lobster, Camerones de Culican, Georgia pulled pork. Finally a breath of fresh air around here. Someone who got it, someone who knew what we wanted but still there was something…..You couldn’t quite put your finger on it but something wasn’t right. Some meals were good right up the end before they dissapointed, others were bad right from the start.

Instead of just the stale Reingold he offered Presidente, Bud, Polar, Guinness, Buccaneer, Coors, Corona. I sampled them all, even the God awful Medalia light (in the 10 0z can, the ultimate indignity)

The owner expanded into the space next door and built out a beautiful dining area. The takeout business was doing well but to help pay for it all he had to start skimping on some of the ingredients. Day old bread, a cheaper mayonaisse, 2nd rate spices, listless lettuce, sidewalk ripened tomatoes, olive oil imported from the former Soviet Union. The customers started noticing. Business fell off. Luckily layoffs weren’t necessary as many employees were out on workers comp. Shortages of ingredients became more and more common. The Breadman stopped delivering, sometimes the customer had to have his sandwich on a thin wrap, unripened tomatoes became a fixture. Soon a 3rd round of food poisoning hit the deli’s customers, causing a violent outbreak of nausea with all the accompanying symptoms. There was no longer a line at the takeout or the sit down, in fact there were very few people there at all.

A full investigation ensued, the same exact menu had been wildly successful elsewhere. What was the problem? The health Department looked into the matter and concluded that the owner (and his son) had been purchasing the leftovers from other deli owners as they diligently rotated their stock. Weeding out the soon to expire top shelf ingredients and replacing them with fresh ones and palming off the soon to be rancid ingredients on the owner who passed them along to you and I.

The other deli owners then went off to the new produce market and carefully sifted through the various bins for the freshest and best ingredients for their customers. The owner and his son of our neighborhood deli went home to Locust Valley and Greenwich and went to bed.

The ingredients were all past their shelf life, that’s what caused everyone to get sick…. for the 3rd time. Now we have the owners son talking about how “those who fail to remember the past are condemned to relive it.”

Hmmmm. I think I’ve heard that one before.

But there are other reasons why the Network would not sell. (and this is really my expertise subject) SNY’s worth is calculated based on the contracts it has with MSO (the cable companies) and their number of subscribers. So SNY has no value outside of the market it has those contracts in. You couldn’t just move SNY to say toledo because they still have to honor the contracts with the cable companies for the channel space. That means that unless the team stays in NY there is no reason to buy SNY which is going to be a stopping point to any sale. What would the Wilpons do with a sports network that has no team (Can you say MSG in the summer?)

Now more about SNY profits….
All the ad revenue goes to SNY, the only thing the mets get is a fee for the broadcast rights. Probably a little more than they would get from say MSG but still in the range of what that contract is worth. SNY can only pay so much as watching is no different than going to a game only the difference is how much the advertiser will pay to get his advert on the air.

Yankees have the highest payroll in the league, watch a Yankee game on yes sometime. Even the introduction by the announcers are sponsored because they need to generate as much money as possible so they can pay the team more to sustain the salary.

SNY has tried but if no one wants to advertise they can not contribute more.
And whatever money is made we call BLUE money. It doesn’t really ever get paid it just shows up in different books.

so if 10 Million people watch every game the club makes the same amount of money from the network as it would if only 10 people watch the game. The only affect is SNY loses the money not the club!
SNY still has to make it’s contractual payment for the right to broadcast.
It doesn’t get lower based on the ratings nor does it go higher based on the ratings. And while Wilpon family owns it and makes some of the profits the profits are not theirs to do with as they wish. There are many other investors (Time Warner being one of them, why do you think that are located in the old CNN studios of the Time Warner building?)

Thre bottom line we need to consider is this…

Fact one! the team is LOSING MONEY!
fact two if someone were to WANT to buy it are they going to buy a business that LOSES money? Are they going to spend another Billion on the stadium and Network to make up for it?

OR

Are they going to buy JUST the team and see if they can’t try and turn a profit and if not take it someplace where it can make one?

SRT you may be able to get to every game if they sell the team! Because whoever buys it will not also buy the debt and costs associated with the Network and the stadium! And without those being bought it is highly unlikely they will bother to keep the team in NY.

Especially not if it can’t make money in the largest market on the planet!

If you support the team without ticket sales though you really have no right to complain they don’t spend enough of THIER money to keep YOU (who doesn’t spend any) for your own personal amusement.

Should Movies be free too? Just because there is no theater showing it near you? Does that mean you should be able to get it for nothing or complain they didn’t spend enough on special effects when you saw it on TV when commercials payed for it?

I don’t claim that you have to be a seasopn ticket holder to be a fan but if you really want to have a say in how much they spend then you should be ready to hel;p pay for that expenditure. Now your circumstances prevent you but they should also prevent you from demanding they go spend on this or that!

If I was your neighbor should I have the right to tell you to spend a couple of million on your lawn because I see it and despite the fact I can’t really play on it I do enjoy looking at it from my house?