(Updated) More Good News For Fred Wilpon

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• Joe Diaz January 17, 2012 at 4:16 pm

  Good news for the Wilpons means bad news for us Met fans.
  • Metstheory22 January 17, 2012 at 5:14 pm

    Good news for them, means they keep team longer. NOT sure if good news for us fans.
  • paul nassau January 18, 2012 at 11:47 am

    Thats ridiculous. When the Wilpons had no money problems they spent like crazy, just not on the right players. The Wilpons with money intact, plus an intelligent Alderson, should be only good news for Mets fans.
    Pops
    • Rich S January 18, 2012 at 12:53 pm

      Amen! in 2006 they were 1 game away from the world series with a $93 million payroll. to improve they acquired players and by 2009 they had $140 million… only to have 74 wins.

      So people who either complain about Wilpons not spending money or that the Mets should up there payroll are foolish. I am not sure that even if the Wilpons weren’t having financial issues things would be much different. the last 5 years proved that they needed to take a different approach.

      6 out of 8 teams that made the playoffs had similar or lower payroll than Mets will have this year. And the two that had more were both out in the first round.

      If the Cards can win the World series w/ that team, Mets can be competitive with this team.

      It’s PERFORMANCE no pedigree.
      • Alex68 January 18, 2012 at 12:55 pm

        Rich, i love your optimism, good luck being competitve though, this team will win 69 games.. and i am being generous…
      • trs86 January 18, 2012 at 1:01 pm

        I keep saying this as well. As much as it sucks, regardless of financial issues I would have made many of the same cuts. I loved Jose Reyes and hate to see him go but… I am a huge Wright fan but if it takes moving him to get the Mets back to a competitive team in the future? So be it. The Mets are now paying for going all in and having nothing to show for it. There will come a time in the near future that the Phillies too will go through something similar just as the Cubs are now.
        • Alex68 January 18, 2012 at 1:04 pm

          I am a huge Wright fan”

          TRS. i am sure we are ALL aware of that.. he’s your man crush, you’re probably one of 3 or 4 more people who still think he’s clutch.. good luck with that fan club!!
          • trs86 January 18, 2012 at 1:06 pm

            Yeah and if you notice I said I loved Reyes too…. Oh how bad of a fan that I am that I enjoyed watching David Wright. Of course you gloss over the fact that I am also ok with trading Wright as well. It’s funny but perhaps I am more old school than you. I root for the name on the front first, then the name on the back.
          • Alex68 January 18, 2012 at 1:20 pm

            I love wight too.. but all of that changed when a single comment made about the golden boy turn into a massacre.. i’ve criticize all players in mets uniform, from bums to superstars on the team, i have always respected you when you in rational mode, but sometimes you let your emotions get the best of you and become a dussssh… then i have to put you in your place..
            i love reyes and will continue to root for him, matter of fact, i think he’ll have an MVP type season for the marlins and along with ramirez and stanton i think they’ll win the WS this year… wright will be traded, and that’ll be the end of the minaya’s mets..
            • trs86 January 18, 2012 at 1:28 pm

              Come on Alex? Love Wright? That is a huge joke. I can still be respected by saying that I loved Jose. He had some major flaws but I will truly miss him. You can’t expect any of us to believe that you can even tolerate Wright much less “love” him.

              Also, you putting ME in my place because I let MY emotions dictate? Seriously? That is if nothing else your worst flaw. You seem to have no ability to separate your personal displeasure with the Mets current situation and the reality as to why it happen.

              As for Reyes now, while I hope he does not get injured and plays 162 games a year I hope he is the biggest rip off of a contract the Marlins have ever signed and they regret the day thus purging the entire team (which they will do win or lose). (Alex before you go off, the paragraph above was only meant to get you… LOL).
• srt January 17, 2012 at 4:31 pm

  More money Picard can win back, more money his firm stands to profit from as well. It’s not all about restitution for Madoff’s victims.

  ‘It was that motion that Rakoff rejected Tuesday, meaning that the trustee would have to wait for the trial to be held and completed before he could formally appeal Rakoff’s interpretations of the law.’

  This could conceivably drag on forever…..
  • Joe D January 17, 2012 at 4:48 pm

    Many lawyers predicted that most of the lawsuit was frivolous. Nobody was surprised when he dismissed most of it and nobody thought going to a jury trial was a misinterpretation of the law. To overturn a verdict you have to have overwhelming evidence of misconduct or miscarriage of justice. There is no smoking gun and Rakoff has dotted all his i’s and crossed all his t’s.
    • srt January 17, 2012 at 4:59 pm

      I always thought the bulk of that was frivolous too, but what do I know?

      No matter what the outcome, I hope this is over with sooner rather than later. At least then the Wilpons will have some bottom line on what they owe/where they stand.
      • Joe D January 17, 2012 at 5:10 pm

        I asked Sandomir if there was any chance a verdict will be reached before OD and he told me Rakoff warned this 3/19 trial wont be a quickie.
    • Des January 17, 2012 at 8:07 pm

      Joe D — “Nobody was surprised when he dismissed most of it and nobody thought going to a jury trial was a misinterpretation of the law.”

      Nobody Joe, except for the Sandy and Fred haters who try to spew venom on many subjects we deal with on your great site. They’ve been waging war in their own minds for months.

      The original sign that Picard’s suit had little merit was Judge Rakoff’s decision to remove it from bankruptcy court and put it into his federal court. The evidence that the feds demand is more thorough, not just hearsay for example.
  • any January 17, 2012 at 5:29 pm

    Picard actually double dips. He gets paid a cut of the winnings, plus he bills for his time.

    so it is actually in his favor to drag this out before winning the exact same amount he could have settled for months earlier.

    You have to think in any normal situation they all would have read the teas leaves and settled this out a long time ago.

    If nothing else, it makes it easier for CNG to formulate scenarios, since it seems pretty clear about how much the Wilpons/mets will be on the hook for.
  • Rich S January 18, 2012 at 12:45 pm

    what a lot of people don’t realize is that the meter is running on every battle Picard fights… whether he wins or looses. It is in his best interest to shoot for something that he can’t get but have it locked in a legal battle.

    He has already been paid over $400 million.

    It reminds me of Peter Angelos (owner of Orioles), he made hundreds of millions in asbestos lawsuits… poor victims did not get rich.
• Joey D. January 17, 2012 at 4:33 pm

  Like this afternoon is dreary enough.
• Joe D January 17, 2012 at 5:22 pm

  I updated this post due to an error in my timeline.

  Howard Megdal @MetsMerized Yes, Einhorn deal. Came apart end of August, finalized on 9/1. Rakoff’s opinion came 9/27.

  I do still wonder if the Wilpons had any prior info that the Rakoff decision was coming down?
  • Pedro January 17, 2012 at 6:05 pm

    And I thought Alex Jones was a conspiracy theorist. WOW.
    • Joe D January 17, 2012 at 6:12 pm

      Two things… 1. I loved Conspiracy Theory 2. Who the heck is Alex Jones?
      • Donal January 17, 2012 at 7:15 pm

        Look him up on YouTube and despair.
• Metfan Lou January 17, 2012 at 7:06 pm

  As an American and a Met fan, the Wilpons are entitled to a fair hearing and their day in court. Regardless of the outcome justice is the winner.
  • Des January 17, 2012 at 7:47 pm

    Metfan Lou, do you think you can sell your equanimity and fairness to the Mets haters?
    • Metfan Lou January 17, 2012 at 8:00 pm

      There are things that transcend baseball and the haters cannot separate being a baseball fan and real life. I would like to see the Wilpons sell the Mets, but not because I hate them but because I believe new ownership can bring new assets to the Mets but if the Wilpons want to hang on I can’t blame them. They deserve fairness and respect as businessmen. As far as I know they conduct their businesses in a legal manner.
      • LongTimeFan January 17, 2012 at 10:13 pm

        Very well said, Metfan Lou.
      • Squidoo January 18, 2012 at 10:11 am

        Well said Lou. Some of the comments I often read on sites like this are filled with such vile and venom for Wilpon. Despite some of the bad decisions he’s made in choosing a GM, it was with the Mets best interest in mind. Offering Minaya a GM job was a no-brainer. At the time he was considered the number one GM available by all the baseball talking heads and everyone raved about him even before he took over the Expos which only solidified his standing in baseball circles. The same with Alderson.
• Des January 17, 2012 at 7:44 pm

  Is an enemy of my enemy really my friend. NO.

  As I’ve been saying for months, the Picard lawsuit is just another attempt by a money man to grab a rich payday despite being worthless. The maximum exposure of the Wilpon’s is now about ten cents on the dollar. The other ninety cents was an attempt to rip off Fred, Saul and the rest of the Sterling bunch. The set of facts determined by Judge Rakoff doesn’t mean we should love the Wilpon’s, but it does mean that Sterling will have more money going forward.

  Let’s go Mets!!!!
  • Donal January 18, 2012 at 7:41 am

    I’m with you, Des. It is no secret Picard is just trying to squeeze every dollar he can out of someone. He drove someone to suicide and the claimed “there was evidence to pursue prosecution”.

    I think he’s trying to do what Spitzer did and grab himself a celebrity pelt and build a political career off of it, no matter how little good it actually does.
• LongTimeFan January 17, 2012 at 10:09 pm

  I concluded a long time ago that Picard was all about power and greed and abused his position for his own gain. Many Madoff victims, including those of very modest means, were victimized a second time, this time by Picard. Collectively, they fought back, and amongst those are Mets ownership who received a fair ruling based upon the facts, and not Picard’s distortions and misrepresentations.
• theonlymaskman January 18, 2012 at 9:12 am

  Don’t overlook the fact that the Wilpons will still have to pay the clawback on their profits over the years from Madoff. The weakness in Picard’s clains only goes to the excessive penalties he was seeking, not the underlying ill-gotten gains themselves. There will still be big bucks that will have to be coughed up to pay back those who got ripped-off. That only will keep the financial pressures on the current ownership of this franchise.