Davey Johnson: Mets Will Pay The Price If They Slash Payroll To $100MM

23 Comments + Add Comment

• Original Mets Fan September 3, 2011 at 12:00 pm

  Johnson should have been the Mets GM instead of the Nationals manager. Wasn’t he there Asst. GM or something before becoming manager? There’s someone who knows about putting together a winner.
  • Des September 3, 2011 at 12:17 pm

    Your assessment may be on the money. However, Johnson has some skeletons in his closet regarding his tenure with the Mets. Read (if it’s still in print) High and Tight by Bob Klapisch . This book is nominally an exposure to the lifestyles and attitudes of Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry. But it’s much more. Taking the book at face value, the reader sees what Johnson did and what he didn’t do on bus rides, plane trips and the ballfield. Johnson and other Mets officials treated abuse as a tolerated activity.
• NJ stuck in TX September 3, 2011 at 12:07 pm

  Simple answer is no, not next year. They do not have the players in the system to completely fill Jose’s shoes, should he leave. They have multiple holes to fill, which we are all well aware of (BP, LF, 2B, C, SP, 5+ RPs…). And they have financial restrictions, again, which we are all well aware of. Therefore, the possible choices to fill those holes become limited.

  I know that throwing money around does not guarantee you anything, case in point with Mr. Old Bay. However, there is a great propensity to get a worth-wild plug to fill holes when you have the resources available, which opens up the possible options. Have 1 million, you’re rolling with Cap. Have 100+ million, you can roll with CJ Wilson. Now, could CJ suck major and Cap be amazing? Sure, the possibility is there, but the probability isn’t.

  Can the Mets compete next year? Sure, anyone can. There is that possibility, assuming many “if’s” become “are’s”. There is, however, not the probability.

  Also, in order to compete with a limited payroll every year, well, you have to have good, young, cheap players. Sandy is building that, or attempting to, now. We have to be patient, unfortunately.

  Nice piece Craig.
  • oktoday September 3, 2011 at 6:12 pm

    I feel that if they come back healthy they will be able to get into the playoff’s just
    about as is.

    SS Jose can now be signed up for a lot less $. And he, along with the teams position
    wants him to stay in NY.
    CF Pagan has now started to look like he played last year.
    3B Wright May still be hot or not, but he is much better now then the last few
    years.
    2B Murphy should be a good 300 + hitter. Like improving on his long ball, along with
    his defense.
    1ST Ike can be the long ball, with a good BA.
    RF Duda perhaps can come close to Beltran. Who knows, for he can really bust out.
    LF Bay can be a problem. But/team does have some nice replacement that’s playing now.
    Turner/Tejada/Evans
    Thole He is improving enough at both Offense and defense.

    And there is enough replacement players who will be on the bench next year, to show
    that they will not only be better then most teams have, but could even start for them.

    Santana, Young (healthy) Dickey, Gee, Niese, Plus those coming up from the minors or
    trade/FA

    Byrdak, Acosta, Parnell, Beato Plus from the minors, and what they can pick up on
    a trade/FA

    Isringhausen,

    I feel with what they have, or even close enough to it, in order to be able to
    trade/FA to make up the differences.
    • NJ stuck in TX September 3, 2011 at 7:48 pm

      I’m with you on Murphy, though I feel Havens is knock knock knocking on Heaven’s door.

      As for Pagan, talk about a roller coaster. If he’s riding the highs, he’s an allstar. If riding the lows, he is, well, a candidate for cement shoes and pier down in Asbury.

      Thole is showing he’s pretty much in the “not good” column. His D is pretty awful, his stick is non-existent and if you don’t have those 2, what do you have as a catcher?

      For the SP, you’ll have Niese, Dickey, Gee, Pelf (unfortunately), Santana (hopefully) and most likely someone they sign as insurance. Young was on a 1 year deal, so he’s gone.

      For the BP, you’ll have Parnell, Beato, Herrera and whole cast of newbies. Byrdak is about 114 years old. Could he come back? Yeah. Will he? My 2 bucks are betting against that. And Isringhausen is not coming back. Just a feeling based on salary, age and health.

      So, in summary, with a re-signed Reyes, yes, they certainly could make a run. But the “if’s” of Pagan playing up to his supposed potential, the SP doing miracles and not imploding (I’m looking at you big poof), obviously injuries, Bay playing like Bay of old, not Bay of new and Ike still having 2 feet… Yes, they can certainly make a run at both the wildcard or the division title. But again, that’s with all the “if’s” coming true.

      I do like your thinking. No need for negative waves, Moriarty.
• Hodges14 September 3, 2011 at 12:41 pm

  I’m still not convinced that these rumors of $100 mil payroll are true. I think we can all agree $145 was too high, but $125 sounds more like a realistic and manageable payroll number for this team. Whatever it ends up being we’ve all seen that high payrolls do not necessarily lead to titles.
  • metsguppy September 3, 2011 at 1:50 pm

    Don’t you know that spending huge amounts of cash gives you World Series trophies? Thats why the Mets have so many after being at the top of the league for payroll year after year after year. HA!
• metsguppy September 3, 2011 at 1:27 pm

  Davey Johnson should just shut up. He was a big part of why the Mets fell into the toilet during the late 80s. He let his players do drugs, drink, expose themselves to women in the stands, etc. Thats why he will never be Mets manager again. Maybe he matured a little since then but he let the team run wild and we fans paid for it. He was never a GM for the Mets. They hired him to manage the team on the field. He didn’t even care what the players did off the field and didn’t care that they did coke and didn’t discipline them and we had to live with Doc Gooden and Strawberry snorting the team into the dirt. Could he have stopped them? Maybe not but his complete lack of action certainly made things worse.

  The Mets (and us fans) know the team won’t compete for a few years anyways. Its just the way the game works. Hardly any teams turn it around in ONE year from horrible to top of the division. It takes time and as a Mets manager who was around during a rebuilding era he should understand that. Maybe he should just crawl back into a bottle and leave managing big city teams to the guys that know what they are talking about.

  The Mets would be stupid to waste an extra $50 million on a losing team next year. They are smart to work on rebuilding the team while not wasting tons of extra cash on a product that won’t produce anyways. This is the worst economy since the great depression, you have to live with the fact that this isn’t the past where the Mets could just throw money around and still not win. No owner would just throw $150 million out there knowing that they can’t compete since they still won’t win because they don’t have the pitching to do it. Every other team laughs at the Mets for wasting money every year on a team that hasn’t won in 25 years. Other teams rebuild, the Mets throw money away and now that they finally realized what the rest of the league realized years ago the fans are crying about it. Grow up, thats what the other teams have done and the Mets are just years behind and have to play catch up.
  • Little Nicky September 3, 2011 at 2:06 pm

    Davey Johnson should just shut up. He was a big part of why the Mets fell into the toilet during the late 80s. He let his players do drugs, drink, expose themselves to women in the stands, etc.

    You could say the same exact thing about Sandy Alderson in the mid to late 80′s.

    Alderson had rampant steroid abuse during his tenure, cocaine abuse, a player rape of a minor, other assorted sex scandals including wife-swapping with one player, homosexuality, an alcoholic drunk for a manager, a player who Fedexed a live rat to a female reporter, etc.
• MetFan Lou September 3, 2011 at 1:27 pm

  They’re going to get a wake-up call when 2012 season tickets and single game tickets go into the toilet. They’ll have a hard time selling them at any price.
  • metsguppy September 3, 2011 at 1:46 pm

    The Mets had a wake up call when they spent $145 million (or whatever their payroll is) and still stunk it up this year and last year. Fans need to realize what the team did, that they need to be patient.
• Jason Pafundi September 3, 2011 at 1:03 pm

  $145 million isn’t too high. This is the NEW YORK METS. Not the Kansas City Royals or the Oakland A’s. This is NEW YORK. Money should never be an issue when you have your own TV network cash-cow and are in the largest market in the world.

  If the Wilpons don’t want to spend the money to compete in this market and in this league with the Yankees, Phillies, Red Sox, then it’s time for them to sell the Mets to somebody who will.
  • metsguppy September 3, 2011 at 1:49 pm

    This is why the site is having problems. Even the bloggers on here are blind as to why the team sucks. Everyone else in the world (exaggerating but not by much) knows the team needs to rebuild not just waste more cash.
    • NJ stuck in TX September 3, 2011 at 2:31 pm

      Makes cents.

      Anyway, understand your point at not just throwing cash away, but would you consider re-signing Reyes as wasting cash?
    • Joe D September 3, 2011 at 2:49 pm

      metsguppy – The site is not having problems attracting readers, we’re having problems because our growth is through the roof over ten thousand different readers daily and on some days half a million page views! Our problem is not people dont like our site, they LOVE our fan site!

      Also, if by now you haven’t realized that we are not a blog but the #1 Mets Fan Site on the web, I don’t know what else to tell you.

      What’s the difference between us and a blog?

      Diversity in opinions… A representation of all opinions whether you agree with them or not… a real live view of the total Mets fan base and not just a portion of it.

      There are plenty of niche Mets blogs out there if you like saber, old school, just minor league coverage, just historical, just news, just feel-good stories, just Mets art, ranting or raving. We provide ALL of that.

      The problems I referred to were that we have become so HUGE that our monthly “dedicated” server costs and fees have now increased to $225 a month!

      Most Mets blogs you go to are free or pay $10 or $15 dollars a month in fees, not us.

      If we had traffic problems our fees would be going down, not skyrocketing. Fees are based on bandwidth.

      We are looking for a sponsor to help cover these fees just like our big brother MetsBlog has his operating costs and more covered. Until we find a major sponsor, we rely on our friends and readers for some help.

      To that end I am happy to report that we raised $350 dollars in the last 24 hours from some wonderful generous Mets fans who love this site. Thanks to all of you. That was enough to pay for September and more than half of October.

      Thanks for your inquiry.
      • theonlymaskman September 4, 2011 at 10:27 am

        Joe, If financials is an issue for the site, could you share with us the arrangements you have with the various advertisers that we see from day to day here. My guess is that you don’t let them advertise for free do you? With half a million “hits” per day, I would think you are more than qualified to charge rather decent advertising rates from them. I would think that $225 per month is easily obtainable from your already existing advertisers. What don’t I understand about that? Thanks in advance for your reply.
• Rob September 3, 2011 at 2:55 pm

  The Wilpons are fools, especially Little Jeffery. They put an even bigger idiot in charge and Omar really screwed things up. Now we have to suffer thru a rebuilding period and a 100 million dollar payroll with the likes of the pirates and royals. What a disgrace. I’m not saying throw money away but this team shouldn’t be constrained by such a low payroll while playing in New York and charging outrageous prices for tickets, concessions, parking, etc. I know it is wishful thinking but I really do hope that wilponzies are forced to sell the team to an ownership that knows what they are doing.
  • SirPall September 3, 2011 at 3:34 pm

    Call me simple but nothing is going to change till the Wilpons are gone
  • theonlymaskman September 4, 2011 at 10:32 am

    The way things are going, in 2 years, they’ll be talking up $50M for an annual budget. The franchise is in a declining cycle of diminishing expectation inflicted upon us by the Wilponzies. When is Freddy the Freeloader going to call it quits and sell out already?
• Matt September 3, 2011 at 10:26 pm

  Wow…the Mets won’t be able to compete with a $100 million payroll. News flash: The Mets couldn’t compete with their $142 million payroll in 2009, their $127 million payroll in 2010 or their current $142 million payroll either.

  It’s going to be a long and bumpy road back from the abyss.
• gary s. September 4, 2011 at 8:43 am

  Just an observation and a question.There are two Jose Reyes.The JR who played like an MVP till he hurt the hammy and the JR who has been a shadow, performance wise since he returned.If u pay him big money for 3-5 years, does anyone know which one you get?
• Donal September 4, 2011 at 9:38 am

  So, the manager of a division rival thinks the Mets should cut lots of big checks this winter.

  Well, if you can’t trust a guy who directly and immediately gains from your messing up, who can you trust?
• tlagee September 5, 2011 at 12:53 am

  No