Even so, $10 million less is chicken feed compared to the overall scope of the financial situation facing the Wilpons and Katz. And no matter how one calculates the infusion of new capital, the cuts in salaries, revenue generated from attendance and elimination of that $65 million (no typo this time), combined it will not be enough to offset the club’s financial losses from 2009 through 2011, the continued loss of attendance and what has to be paid back for Citi Field and the loan used for dividends pertaining to SNY.

And that is without considering the Madoff decision and other losses suffered by Sterling Equities along with Mr. Met demanding a raise.

Then last March we were told that the financial state of the Wilpons had no impact on the operations of the general manager’s office.

This summer we were told that the money saved from Krod and Beltran could be used to re-sign Jose Reyes.

This fall we were told that the question was whether or not we should re-sign Jose or use a major portion of the money saved by the above mentioned to spread out among other players instead.

Then we were told that the Mets lost $70 million this past season and had little money to spend on anybody, period.

We were also told to expect further reductions in payroll over the next few years.

Now one does not need to be a CPA to figure out some basic rules of finance and ask if the Mets lost $70 million this past season, how could they expect not to repeat that again this coming year? Yes, about half that amount has been covered by the reduced roster payroll. Now, assuming the remaining approximately $35 million is covered by cutbacks in all facets of overhead having already taken place and to be implemented based on the recommendations of CRG. Then, what about repaying the $25 million and $40 million loans? Would not that just about offset the Mets chances of breaking even, assuming there will be no drop-off of revenue from last season ? And nobody is counting on the Mets having less empty seats than they did last year.

And how much of the $200 million infusion from new minority owners will go to offset other debts instead of adding to the teams liquidity? The Mets owe more than just that combined $75 million mentioned above. There’s Citi Field, SNY, etc.

So taking all the above into account, where does this present the opportunity to aggressively re-invest in the free agent market and trades in the immediate future? Even without the salaries for Santana, Wright and Bay the Mets are committed to those upcoming payroll reductions and this includes the CBA guaranteeing salaries for rookie and second year players going up plus many of our young players becoming eligible for arbitration There will still be those other debts to payoff and we must also project continued losses in box office receipts.

Unfortunately, I don’t see how the Mets will be able to go after free agents of any worth with the situation to remain as it is. I don’t even see how they will be able to retain the status quo even if that doesn’t include Wright, Bay and Santana.

Again, even a layman can see there are many dark days ahead with the Wilpons.

I don’t think the Wilpons can count on increased revenue this year causing them to either break-even or even make a profit.

Attendance will be less and so will be the box office receipts. But even if they are able to break-even or make a profit, it will be the result of cuts made on the roster and everything else internally to enanble them to operate with much less overhead than years past and with less revenue coming in.

That might allow them to sustain the Mets like Oakland or Pittsburgh. Is that what we want for our team?

And even with $200 million in limited partnership and the Mets actually breaking even this season, we don’t know how much the Wilpons are in debt outside of the Mets, although we do know that amount is considerable. If their other diversifications were on stabler ground financiall, my guess is we would not have seen the Mets grounded into the dirt the way they have.

The Mets might be a luxury the Wilpons could no longer afford to keep. Certainly, I don’t think any of us are happy with the way things have become with the team just so Jeff can become CEO as a gift from his father.

Just have to hope that after all this time (and some seriously hard learned lessons) that he knows enough to turn the reins over someone that actually knows what they are doing.

Sure, keep the corner office, sit in on all the meetings, give your opinion. But let the operations guy handle the real work and important decisions.

There is another person whose name I can’;t recall who writes in the WSJ where his reports I don’t like cause when I have read them they tend to take the facts and he then seems to hypothesize so much as to try and create the worst case scenario for the shock of it.

The irony is that Doubleday eventually got the last laugh. He made sure there was a clause in that sale that would pay him an additional $50MM if they ever built a new park. Doubleday is the only person to make a dime on Citi Field. Smart man.

As I said in the fan post: If the Wilpon’s keeping this team is inevitable, then it is in MY best interest for their financial situation to improve.

As a fan, you cannot complain about their lack of spending. They spent to win, they just didn’t win.

The problem is involvement. Fred & Jeff’s biggest flaw is that they think they are baseball men and not baseball owners.

So if they get their $ in order, let them sign the checks and let the baseball men make the baseball decisions

- he wanted to sell his half to someone not named Wilpon and MLB forced him to offer it to the Wilpons first.
- The last straw seemed to be he wanted to revamp Shea, he never wanted a new stadium.
- Parting words were something along the lines of ‘Jeff is going to take this franchise down’.

Oh boy….I have no idea if there was a multitude of decisions that both sides couldn’t agree on that made Doubleday decide to get out or if the bad blood was strictly between Jeff and Doubleday and if so….was it justified.

Still I am pretty sure he knows a tad more than just what he reads despite him say to the contrary.

“I think a bridge loan makes perfect sense given the investments that are expected to close in January.”

http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/mets/post/_/id/37184/alderson-minority-owners-close-next-month

The bridge loan was through opening day, that’s when BOA expects to get paid back. All these early January, mid January, late January deadlines never came from Katz or Wilpon only Rubin and Martino’s sources who have been wrong throughout most of this process. You would do better to pay more attention to Sandomir whose had his pulse on this going back to the days the feds arrested Bernie.