Comments on: Eight Things That Mets/CRG Will Lead To

By: DaveSchneck

DaveSchneck — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 19:45:44 +0000

BMF,
It appears to me that Alderson doing his best with minimal financial resources. A 100-loss season will bury the Wilpons even if Madoff doesn’t. I think if he had $110 million for payroll this year, he would make more moves to improve the team. He may have even retained Reyes, although I think that despite what was being said there was no way the Wilpons would permit a deal like he got from the Marlins. They are getting hit from all sides – underperformance on the big player contracts dloed out, big operationing losses from a bad record/lower attendance, and no personal cash reserves due to the Madoff situation.

By: Will a Prince be Crowned in our Nation’s Capital? | Mets At Bat

Will a Prince be Crowned in our Nation’s Capital? | Mets At Bat — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:24:19 +0000

[...] a very well written post for Metsmerized Online, Joe D outlines a 5 year payroll cutting plan that would decrease payroll to $60 million dollars by [...]

By: any

any — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:22:51 +0000

quite possible. The league does seem to have been pulling the strings for a while.

so, why not make this the 1 last “prove you can stay afloat or get out” option?

By: jdon

jdon — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 11:49:59 +0000

I think CRG is here because the league wanted them here. I have no evidence of this, it is just a hunch. I thought it as soon as I heard about it. It does not seem very Wilponish thing to do. They would rather swim in their own cesspool than let outsiders look inside of it. I think this might be the last resort before the league feels compelled to step in.

By: theonlymaskman

theonlymaskman — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 04:14:28 +0000

Thanks Wasadeyo.

By: theonlymaskman

theonlymaskman — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 04:11:20 +0000

As you point out the search for partners at $20 M a pop is doomed to failure. Anyone with $20 M to invest is no fool and they will thoroughly investigate what they will be getting into. With the issues confronting the Wilpons, the state of the Mets, and the problematic state of Citifield, you would have to be crazy to get involved with this. We’ll know the outcome of this within the next 3 weeks. When that fails, will S&P come knocking on the door with another downgrade in hand?

By: theonlymaskman

theonlymaskman — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 04:05:01 +0000

Yes, you hit another nail on the head. Citifield was a huge gamble and wound up being a boondoggle with its flawed business plan. The reduction in capacity to reduce ticket supply for the objective of increased ticket pricing backfired badly. The forgotten component was the need to put a good team on the field. The poor plan was compounded by the stadium design with a high % of seating in the outfield with restricted views. The traditional “bleacher seat discount” was forgotten in the drive for exotic ticket pricing. Building a “pitcher’s park” without a strong pitching staff was part of the flawed startegy. The loyal Shea Stadium Upper Deck crowd was tossed overboard. Citi was intended to appeal to the elitist element that would be awed by the aura of the new park and ignorant of the baseball. Unfortunately, the business is baseball and when you forget that, you become superfluous. As the novelty of Citi wears down and the fans become disenchanted with the baseball experience there, attendance sags lower and with it the fate of the current ownership becomes increasingly bleak. How will CRG fix that problem?

By: Steve S.

Steve S. — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:56:26 +0000

Generally agree. The Wilponzis will be gone—though perhaps not before next season. Many fans will boycott (although some will accept any crappy product put on the field). The debt will choke the owners, and hopefully the bankers will force a sale of the team (even if Buddy Boy won’t). I’m thinking that even next year the attendance will be down to about 20,000 per game (under 1.7 million). And if and when Wright is traded away, it will really go down.

And don’t hold your breath about a bunch of people paying $20 million each to have Mr. Met share a burger with them….

By: Bayonne Mets Fan

Bayonne Mets Fan — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:30:30 +0000

I have a question for you Dave Schneck,

Do you think the new GM is doing what he can to win with the current resources or do you think he’s mailing it in in order to save money and in essence, kind of making it worse?

By: DaveSchneck

DaveSchneck — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:45:56 +0000

Joe D. –
This ownership will not survive on that 5 year payroll plan unles they can field a playoff caliber squad on those funds…possible but unlikely. Things are much different today than in 1980, and the Wilpons were not a controlling interest back then anyway. The Mets are in much greater debt now due to the new stadium. Also, SNY is profitable but it has large debt as well and needs a product, Met games, that rates hgh enough to entice enough advertising dollars to cover the operations and debt…hard to do with a lousy team. There are two fixes, win to increase revenue, or get a new owner with cash to invest in improving the product.

By: Joe Diaz

Joe Diaz — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:33:36 +0000

Great article JoeD. All this time I thought Sabergoon Sandy just didn’t wanna compete with whatever budget he had.

By: K Maxx

K Maxx — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:14:26 +0000

I’m kind of glad Alderson is here because his philosophy will only lead to a few more last place seasons and no matter how much CRG saves the Mets they still need revenue and Alderson will fail to provide that. Translation = Wilpons are out.

By: K Maxx

K Maxx — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:11:27 +0000

I agree on Omar. He understood how to fill the park even if injuries and a couple of bad contracts undermined him in the end. At least he understood what star power meant in the NY market. This GM does not.

By: wasadeyo

wasadeyo — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:10:33 +0000

The only problem with the star players every year was that it was cart before the horse. The system was top heavy and with being “snake bitten” the house of cards fell. This Org. needs a strong farm system to at least hold things together in case of bad luck and injuries. Omar did what he was supposed to do. The Wilpons rolled the dice and lost, now it’s time to do it right no matter who owns the team.

By: Donal

Donal — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:06:04 +0000

“The Mets are already in the process of subleasing parts of their Baseball Academy in the Dominican Republic to other MLB teams according to one report on ESPN last month.”

I remember Jorge Arangure tweeted about that, but he was just offering his own speculation that it could be considered, not that they were doing it. I haven’t seen any reports that they are in fact doing that.

Does the report say how many or what teams were in on this?

By: Paul K

Paul K — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:01:39 +0000

Big assumption that they will learn from other’s successes.

By: wasadeyo

wasadeyo — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:00:16 +0000

I tend to agree with your analysis Maskman

By: Luis Ramirez

Luis Ramirez — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 16:49:33 +0000

All these actions are necessary to fix woeful financial problems. That being said, it is obviously not a situation fans like or understand, which is non sequitur. All in all, things being the way they are, I’m kind of excited to see how these young Mets evolve, more so than after all those needless FA signings of recent history.

By: gary s.

gary s. — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 16:24:23 +0000

Excellent.I think Joe D is way off on his 60 mill payroll prediction in a few years.The business model was a small boutique type ballpark with very expensive seating played in front of sellout crowds every nite.Just one more complete failure of our thieving owners

By: theonlymaskman

theonlymaskman — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 15:03:38 +0000

Another way to look at this is to realize that Omar, however dumb he was and however many mistakes he made, new better than these guys how to keep the ship of state afloat. He knew there was a need to keep stars on the team and to have a constant flow of new ones on a yearly basis to replace the ones that went into decline. He did his best to keep new stars arriving to maintan fan interest and protect the gate. That is the only way to stay afloat in the NY market. A small market approach simply does not fly here and the current strategy is doomed to failure. This enterprise needs more revenue, but is on a path to generate less. The Wilpons went down the path of a smaller park with higher ticket prices and a reduced quality of product on the field. That was a formula for disaster and they are reaping the whirlwind now. Time is of the essence with daily red ink compounding the excessive levels of debt. The inevitable is staring them in the face. CRG is just the instrument to start the process of ending it all. We are rapidly approaching the end days of the Wilpons – Mets relationship.