19
2012
Wilpon’s Jolly: It’s A Brave New World For Mets Owners and the Fans
An article by 
As most of you now know, Mets ownership and trustee Irving Picard reached a settlement for $162 million this morning, as was first reported by Richard Sandomir of the New York Times.
In the light of this news we have also learned that the Mets will not pay anything for three years because their net obligation could end up being around $29 million after the total accounting for net loser funds is completed. This is a coup for the Mets owners.
And even when they begin paying back that $29 million three years from now, they can spread the payments out over four years.
This is quite a departure from the original $1 billion dollar lawsuit that many speculated (and reported) would lead the Mets owners to bankruptcy, financial ruin and scandal.
“This litigation is behind us and I want to thank everybody,” Fred Wilpon said outside the courthouse. “I am very, very pleased. As we said from the very beginning, we were never willfully blind and always acted in good faith. I can’t wait to get back to trying to bring the New York Mets back to prominence.”
Co-owner Saul Katz added,
“We have done no wrong and have always acted in good faith. This settlement bears this out. I thank everyone very much for their faith in us”
So, what started out as a $1 billion dollar claim against the Mets owners, ended up being a guaranteed $29 million dollar net loss for the Mets as the “willful blindness” claim was dropped by Irving Picard, perhaps because Judge Rakoff told him he had a snowball’s chance in hell of proving that to a jury.
For those of you who wish to read about the agreement, ESPN New York’s Adam Rubin posted the actual Settlement Agreement here.
The bottom line is that this was a HUGE WIN FOR THE METS OWNERS.
Put away all that folly about bankruptcy and selling the team that has pervaded the Mets blogosphere for the past 12 months.
The Mets lost $60-70 million last season. They have slashed payroll $51 million, cut a minor league affiliate, slashed 10% of the workforce to stop the bleeding. Most of this came from the recommendations of CRG whose services were retained for the purposes of turning the team around and generating positive cash flow, which is what I maintained on MMO all along.
It turns out that as I’ve tried to point out for almost a year, that much of what was being speculated under the guise of reporting was mostly overblown and widely misrepresented, and in many instances it was one-sided and not objective. Mostly because fans are unobjective by nature and make for poor reporters.
Wishful thinking clouds everything including facts and the reality of a situation.
Some folks are hearing about “net loser funds” for the first time today, except for MMO readers who have known about that for quite some time.
Today was a reality check for a lot of people…
The good news is that this is all behind us now and the team, the players and the fans can enjoy the season without this negative cloud of uncertainty hanging over our heads.
This settlement spared us months of more bad news and years of appeals. It was a great decision by Fred Wilpon and hopefully one of many more in the years to come.
No owner in the National League has invested more money on payroll to try and field a winner since 1995 than Mr. Wilpon. No owner has made a bigger financial commitment to their team than Mr. Wilpon. If you wanted an owner with deep pockets, you already have one. No other NL Team owner could keep pace with Mr. Wilpon and that won’t change.
If you are unhappy with how the team has responded in light of all this spending and sizable commitment by the Mets owners, than blame the ones who purchased the groceries like Steve Phillips or Omar Minaya.
If you think hiring Sandy Alderson was a terrible decision, than blame Mr. Wilpon. But if you think it was a wise decision than give Mr. Wilpon credit.
Finally, if you love the Mets than I urge you to support your team. Refusing to support the team because of some belief that it will serve as a blind protest of the owner, is not Wilpon’s folly, it’s yours.
As for myself, I’m looking forward to Mets baseball.
I’m looking forward to seeing if Ike Davis, Lucas Duda and Jon Niese can become core players.
I’m looking forward to seeing if Zack Wheeler, Matt Harvey and Jeurys Familia can mimic the success of Dwight Gooden, Ron Darling and David Cone in the years to come.
Baseball’s back… And we have today’s settlement to thank for that.
About the Author: Joe DeCaro
I'm a lifelong Mets fan who loves writing and talking about the Amazins' 24/7. From the Miracle in 1969 to the magic of 1986, and even the near misses in '73 and '00, I've experienced it all - the highs and the lows. I started Mets Merized Online in 2005 to feed my addiction. Follow me on Twitter @metsmerized.
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And you know EXACTLY why this was done right? the mets had no shot at proving they did not know that maddoff was running a ponzi scheme, therefore a settlement was thrown in as first option before anything else and they court allowed in in order not to spend tax $ on a trial for these crooks. Now, imo they WILL have to pay the $83 million first assigned, making the total of $240+ million…
http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/mets/post/_/id/40344/rapid-reaction-wilpons-settle-for-162-million
actually, based on how stubborn Picard has been all along (and he gets paid by the hour), this was an admission on his part that he had no case. If he thought he could win, he would have gone for it.
For the Mets, it makes sense to get it over with, since even if they were 99% sure they had the best hand, you never really know what a jury will do.
Agreed.
No way PIcard settles if he thought he could get more than that.
Ok, corretion, The $162 million sum is the entire obligation. The $83.3M was never formally awarded. The precise figure was to be determined later.
Huge win for the Wilpon’s HUGE!!!!!
Doesn’t look like they didn’t get 100% of every single thing they wanted in that settlement. The 163 M figure is just window dressing. The reality is Picard filed a suit for a BILLION dollars, settles for 29 M, gives the Wilpon’s 3 years to even begin paying and 7 years to pay it all. That reduces the final amount to about 20 M in present day values.
Think about it. Picard voluntarily goes from 1 BILLION to 20 M. Victory isn’t usually of complete landslide proportions but considering this was a SETTLEMENT it’s off the richter scale and considering how Picard tried the case in public and sullied the defendants reputations with accusations he then didn’t even try to substantiate it’s tantamount to an UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER.
From my point of view I’m glad this is no longer hovering over the team as I was sure it would for years to come through endless appeals and delays but I’m also happy for the Wilpon’s since I thought they were victimized once by the swindle, secondly by the betrayal, thirdly by an unreasonable lawsuit and forthly by accusations the accuser never even sought to prove and then again with various piling on by all sorts of people with all sorts of agendas.
Congratulations are in order as well as apologies from some of those quick to pile on. Now go get us some future All Stars instead of former ones and we’ll all have what we want.
have to imagine it would include the 83. Hard to think the Mets would settle for not much less than the total at risk from the trial.
saddest thing is, they should have done this a year+ ago, saving everyone a whole lot of time and money. the only party coming out ahead the way this played out is Picard and his leech lawyer buddies.
Alex posted in the other thread that the Mets will still be able to collect from the fund. I don’t remember the actual #s, but IIRC a lot of areas of the empire (such as retirement funds) are actually net losers, so when you account for all the different pockets in the sterling/wilpon pants, they aren’t forking over nearly as much as it may seem in net.
Stick, when Howard Megdal wrote his book, I took issue with fact he didn’t mention Net Losers suit the Wilpons filed and are entitled to, to the tune of $160 million. I referred to that odten while many others chose to sidestep that fact.
Thanks for bringing it up. I’m working on an update with all the details of that.
Picard wanting to treat the “net losers” after dealing with the net winners when the money to off set the losers was likely to be all gone is what led to all this litigation in the first place. Then he got some stooges to try his case in public before the trial instead of just coming to an equitable settlement right from the start.
Good fees for his law firm though and that’s what the attorneys job is. Generate money for his firm. Mission accomplished but huge win for the Wilpons who no doubt would have taken this settlement without a single brief being filed.
the 32 M Bay is owed should go into the “net losers” accounts
bernie’s team
Mets owners will not have to pay anything for three years, buying them time to steady finances. Reasons for continuing austerity: $25m loan to MLB, $40m bridge loan to B of A, $430m loan against team due in ’14, $450m due on SNY in ’15, and Plus, $600 million, due in $25m increments every six months, on the ballpark.. From rubin and kaplish
SNY is saying the mets really only have to pay 29Mil as the rest will be covered by thier victim share of the madoff clawbacks.
Funny to see Picard’s attorney fleeing the press. That’s not the behavior of an attorney who’s just won his case or settlement.
It really just depends on what the payments on those loans are and if they can roll some of them over if they come due before then.
So the 200 mil from the minority investors covered the whole ball of wax.
Finally this is over. so it’s $162M but the final number will be about $29M cause of their own recoveries as Madoff losers which they don’t have to pay back for 3 years.
3 Years to pay off debt, with time to recover lost fund from madoff, they did pretty good in my opinion.. I guess they took the easiest way out which was settlement, piccard really did not wanna drag this longer than it should’ve…
The talks of the Wilpons being willfully blind and looking the other way on the Madoff scheme in the end was something Picard probably realized was just going to be too hard to prove.
picard did already drag this way out. He was bascially bluffing all along, and finally folded his hand when the other side effectively went “all in” by taking it all the way to trial.
In any case, excellent news for the Mets (the team). Wiplons were never going away, so this gives the team the best chance to stabilize and move forward now, and takes them out of limbo that they could have been in for a while yet.
Actually better that both sides settled, instead of going to trial.
If they went to trial, no matter which side ‘won’, the other would probably appeal and this could have dragged on for years.
At least it’s better for us Met fans in that the Wilpons will be able to but a freakin’ budget together going forward.
that’s the key. Getting the unkown lifted.
The wilpons likey were never going away 9or at best, after a long, protracted death spiral). So if you accept the fact that Mark Cuban was arriving next month to buy us out of this mess, this settlement has to be the best thing for the team.
How long until we hear Picard spinning this into a run for office the way Spitzer did with his “Sheriff of Wall Street” myth?
You stand correted.
Happy days are here again. Well, almost! It’s soon time to move on and see the effect on the Mets selection of personnel.
Thanks go to Judge Jed Rakoff. His actions cut off the endless litigation of Irving (Pick Pocket) Picard, who was skillfully padding his own nest with legal fees.
Rakoff deserves some credit for saying what he did last week. I think him saying that gave Cuomo the juice he needed to finally break the deadlock!
Picard gets to save face, Wilpons get resoltion to thier being the main topic of the news for the rest of the year…
Biggest loser in all of this? Sandy Alderson!
Because now all the focus is going to be on the baseball and if the team still loses money at the end of the year there will be no madoff to blame for it.
‘Because now all the focus is going to be on the baseball and if the team still loses money at the end of the year there will be no madoff to blame for it.’
That doesn’t make much sense to me. With or without this trial, revenues are likely to be down again this year and that doesn’t bode well for the fluid operation of this team paying for itself.
It’s not like all the Wilpon’s Mets debt went away either here today.
Right SRT, Revenues are going to be down this year! Regardless of how much the Wilpons wound up paying madoff!
As I have said from the outset of the madoff subject…The problem was NEVER madoff!
The problem was ATTENDANCE which has gone down. will continue to go down unless they start winning and they are going to win less with the payroll purge not more!
And this year they won’t have the “Hands Are Tied because of potential Madoff losses” to blame!
Truth of the matter is this…Madoff was nothing more than a DIVERSION to the actual problem the Mets have LACK OF INTEREST!
And now that the diversion is gone the focus will be on the REAL cause of our money problems!
When the attendance figures come in at the end of the year and they see the team still lost 20-30 Mil even after cutting 55 Mil from Payroll there won’t be any madoff discussion to deflect the conversation….it will all be targeted at Alderson and what he is going to do to solve it!
And that does not bode well for his Lets just draft until we win methodology!
He’s going to have to start buying or pull off some cheap miracle by Jly of next year or he will be gone faster than you can say Omar Minaya!
Thats why I say Sandy is the biggest loser thanks to this settlement!
He lost his diversion!
Now it will be about what he does not what people thought was holding him back but really wasn’t!
The Debt is only relevant in regards to if they are not making money on attendance the pressure will be on Sandy even more than it is now to fix that attendance and Unless you think Wheeler is about to pack them in next year he really has limited options other than abandoning the rebild you all like now and going and bying some star power!
So much for the rebild and goodbye future!
Sandy will be just as much in the NOW as Omar was in 2005!
Why? Because the funny thing about the future is it becomes the now very quickly and fans will buy future on a three year term in NY but not much longer than that!
And now that there won’t be stories about Madoff floating around and it is CLEAR the mets didn’t really lose a penny there all the stories will be about what Sandy has or has not done to solve the financial situation!
Wilpons didn’t know until they hammered out this settlement just how much money they were or were not likely to lose b/c of Madoff.
‘And this year they won’t have the “Hands Are Tied because of potential Madoff losses” to blame!’
What do you mean by this year?
Now?
Mid season?
This off season?
I don’t think you’re going to see much before Opening Day and mid season.
Off season…..again, depends to some extent on revenues.
This offseason!
trade Deadline as well!
Going to have a hard time making the case to trade Wright unless they get a spectacular package which no one is going to give them for a rental!
They also will not have Madoff as an excse to cheap out on extending Wright!
You want to know what I’m getting at jst look at the last year’s worth of comments that mention Madoff anytime signing players has been the subject!
All of that is gone now so what will be the story when they don’t spend, resign or trade Wright?
Won’t be Madoff!
But again that will not really take affect until next off-season. They could not trade Wright and not sign anyone the rest of this off-season and you would still not know how Sandy will deal with having payroll flexibility or even know if he has it to start with.
So your admitting all his PAYROLL FLEXIBILITY moves led to no Payroll Flexability?
The what was the piont?
Guess yor saying if he doesn’t have it by the end of the year he failed!
“So your admitting all his PAYROLL FLEXIBILITY moves led to no Payroll Flexability?
The what was the piont?
Guess yor saying if he doesn’t have it by the end of the year he failed!”
Nope, that’s not what I am even close to saying.
I have no idea if he has payroll flexibility and neither do you because neither of us know the budget amount he was given. Every GM, even Cashman is given a total line. Without knowing that then how do we know how much Sandy has to spend? We knew how much Omar had because he ALWAYS spent right up to the threshold. We know how much Cashman has because they come out and say it. What was Sandy’s budget this year? What will it be next year?
so you have no idea about if we have it or not yet claim not signing Reyes gave us payroll felxibility you can’t even say we have!
Yeah thats logical….ROFLMAO!
Picking up pieces mid season won’t make any sense unless we’re in the mix. Hope we will be but I’m not holding my breath.
I’ve gone on record saying I believe Wright will be here the entire season, no matter what kind of year he has or the Mets do.
Not so sure. If this happened, say in October and the Wilpons financial situation became more clear then and there WAS some extra cash and it was obvious Sandy’s hands weren’t tied in terms of total or length of contracts then the blame would rest totally on Sandy. Finding this out when the last 3 names are Oswalt, Damon and Pudge?
I’m not in favor of bringing in Pudge. His only motivation is the 150 more hits that he needs to get to 3,000. That’ll take him a bare minimum of 2 years. He’s not going to be mentoring anyone.
It’s only OBVIOUS Sandy’s hands were tied to those who really don’t want to face reality that Sandy doesn’t spend has never spent when the final decision on spending was ever up to him!
Can you say 100% that Sandy’s decisions were not affected by the Wilpons financial situation? I never said it was obvious that they were. I said that you can’t say that it obviously was not.
Yep I CAN!!!
it was all about the 70 Mil they lost….had nothing to do with the 300+Mil the Wilpons MIGHT have lost!
Wow, so you are saying the Wilpons did NOT give Sandy a budget and he could have spent a ton of money and chose not to?
No I’m saying Sandy created the conditions of the Budget by his lack of raising attendance last year!
Just when people started coming back out to see them he pulled the rug out from under them and stopped the increase in attendance that caused the budget to be what it was at the end!
Now can you show us what the overall impact of trading those guys were? How much more money Sandy would have had to spend? Can you then value the overall cost of that money towards how much it would have cost to just go out and purchase a Wheeler and the money saved by trading Beltran and Krod?
Yep just look at the ttendance trends from May TO July and August to September!
Did that months ago before you got here!
So you actually took that amount from lost ticket sales (assuming that people would have came at the same rate once the Mets were out of it and they would have been out of it) and compared it to how much Beltran would have cost the rest of the year, how much Krod would have cost not only the rest of the year but in 2012 and how much it would have cost to go out and purchase a Wheeler?
I got to see that.
Yep Attendance went down drastically after Sandy pulled the rug out from under us!
Another 200K tickets would have reduced the losses last year and stopped some of the losses from this year!
Especially if they had kept on winning (like the cards did) when the braves collapsed!
If we had ended in 2nd place in the division we would not have lost 70 Mil maybe only 50 and we wouldn’t have had the drop in sales we had this year!
I also love the cherry picking. The years when Oakland was spending he gets no credit and the years they weren’t was because of Sandy and not because the owners demanded a slashed payroll.
I already addressed the A’s of the 80′s!
Sandy wasn’t in charge of baseball decisions….
Got some proof he was? Post it!
I posted mine and showed the guy in charge of baseball didn’t report to Sandy he reported to the president!
All Sandy did was the contracts and paperwork, Much like Harazin did under Cashen!
OK Buddy.
I’ve always found it so odd that people complain about not wanting to overpay for professional baseball players.
We’re all fans and we often here “these guys make too much money.” Yet now when it’s convenient we’re mad that we don’t pay more guys more money?
If the Mets have a payroll of $90-$110 million consistently, can they win? The answer is yes. And the answer to building a successful and consistent franchise is not overpaying for free agents passing their prime. It’s building a nucleus of young talent and using the market to fill in the holes so that when those free agent contracts do expire, you have more young talent in the pipeline to replace them. Why are people so against that?
It’s not how much you spend it’s what you spend it on. Collecting high priced junk has gotten the Mets where exactly? Why do people here think the way to fix the problems of the past is to do the same thing that got the Mets into trouble with bad contracts to begin with?
Why is it so bad to have a GM who wants to be smart about how and where he spends rather than just throwing money at anybody and everybody?
Everybody loves Reyes or loves Wright and the #1 reason is “homegrown” and yet we all want to go spend $ on 30+ year old guys which at the end of the day takes the focus OFF of homegrown talent.
I want the Mets to develop talent and then KEEP that talent here and use the free agent market to fill in spots where development fell short.
I don’t see why that is something to be mocked on this site?
You should notice it’s the guys who don’t want to spend that complain the most!
They get paid commesurate with what the job they do gets paid!
The Market sets the pay! The more you contribute the more you pay!
If you can find guys who contribute as much and pay them less no one has a problem with that!
But thats not what is happening here!
We are paying less for LESS!
and calling it more!
Right. Alderson believes that his job is to get as many wins as possible with the Majors lowest payroll and he’s just here to conduct an experiment with the Mets.
The Mets current on field product is because of the spending on the team the last 15 years and not getting anything other than salary relief after the guys they spent it on bombed out.
What about signing Beltran causes Tejada to hit .250, pelfrey to give up runs wholesale, Thole to hit .250, Davis to hit .217, Wright to be hurt…
Sorry but you attempt at making the signings the reason for or sucky players now just doesn’t hold water!
We suck now because we don’t HAVE those good players not because we had them three years ago!
Where do you play a re-signed Beltran?
Beltran wasn’t signing here. Did you hear his interview before that Cards game the other day?
Money wasn’t his bottom line, a chance to win a ring is now.
Anywhere because he is an improvement over EVERY OF we have!
better fielder than Duda
Better Hitter than Torres
And just flat out better than Bay!
Oh I got you. We should have left Duda in the minors and re-signed the oft-injured Beltran. That would have made a huge difference and would have been a great use of resources…. If the Mets were going to give out a multi-year contract for that much money? Should have been on a starting pitcher.
oH did I say that? Please post the quote where I said keeping beltran makes Duda history!
Could have replaced Torres!
Could have replace Bay!
That never occurred to you did it?
Or is it that it did and you couldn’t mention it because it is an option better than the one Sandy presented us with!
Yeah sign Beltran to multiple years and put him in CF with Bay and Duda flanking him. Great investment.
Or Sign Beltran and then release Bay.
Logical.
Again, the fact that they had Duda make Beltran and his risky health status expendable.
again short sighted lack of thought on your part!
Never occurred to you to put bay in CF and beltran in LF?
or do you think Bay and Torres are better players than Beltran?
Is that it because if so then I can take any opinion you have about how great Wheeler is going to be as bull!
Bay is an average LFer. He would be a terrible choice to put in CF and flanked by a gimpy Beltran on one side and Duda on the other?
Man take about a nightmare.
LOL Metsie.
Biggest loser in this settlement is Alderson. Good one. Fact is Alderson is one of the biggest winners in this thing being resolved.
When he got here the Mets were on the hook for somewhere between 83 M all the way up to 1 Billion. Now with the off set and the time value of money it’s been settled for next to nothing. How can that possibly not help Alderson do his job?
He’s probably thinking if it got settled 6 months ago he probably could have Reyes here.
Tag why do you keep on insisting the METS=WILPON?
Yo know full well thats not true!
Wilpon hasn’t soaked the franchise of a single penny but the franchise has sucked up some of Wilpon’s money!
And how long do you think Sandy has to fix that before he gets fired and they get someone who can get folks to the stadim?
I think Fred put money into the Mets and sometimes got money back and other times didn’t but your right that he hasn’t raided the Mets, if anything the Mets have probably cost him money but numerous times Fred has said he’s learned his lesson that spending doesn’t equate to winning but then he’s gone and gotten a guy who spends for short term results, crashes, Fred re states he’s learned that spending doesn’t equate to winning and then does the same thing all over again.
Based on his history I’d say Alderson only has another year and a half after this one and Fred will once again be short circuting the process in order to import some big names to stimulate ticket sales by trading the farm for A-Rod, Vernon Wells and David Ortiz and spending our #1 and #2 picks on the next generation of John Lackey, Chone Figgens and Adam Dunn and perhaps bringing back some guys he successfully avoided the best years of like Nelson Cruz, Jason Vargas Scott Kazmir and Heath Bell just like he did with Bay, Burnitz, and Izzy.
That’s been his history, the way things have been done around here under his ownership why would anything change? Not unless he actually HAS learned that spending doesn’t equate to winning, but I doubt that.
You seem to take all spending as the same thing…..
They are not!
The quote you broght p which was 20 years ago on thre best team money could buy was a very different type of spending than what Omar did!
MUCH MUCH different!
That team didn’t bild the minors, Omar’s did as is evidence by all the gys you gys are hanging your hope on now!
Omar bought to fill the seats! Mission Accomplished! Filled Seats meant he didn’t have any of the budget constraints Sandy has with all his empty seats despite the mass reductions he made he is still probably going to have red ink at the end of his budget report!
My proble is everyone wants to pin the blame on Wilpon despite everything he has showed about his willingness to spend, the fact Madoff cost the Mets themselves ZERO and caused ZERO losses in the Mets Ledger….
Ask youself WHY wold they be so insistent on stating a case that was not a cause?
To hide the REAL cause! We only lost 50 Mil in Minaya’s last year and with massive cuts last season we lost even MORE than that!
And stand to lose more STILL!
You can say what you want about what Spending did for the teams chances of winning and it’s current financial situation!
But the history shows we won MORE when we spent, Drew MORE when we spent and it wasn’t madoff that caused the mets to lose money it was the lack of attendance that has gone DOWN since Sandy took over not gone up!
How much money did we lose in 2009 without all that winning people say is required to draw fans to the stands?
Answer NONE!
The only trly unwise spending that has any effect on the past two losses is perez’ 12 Mil and Bay’s 16!
That cover 28 Mil of the losses, please show the cause of the other 42 Mil from a contract perspective!
If you can’t then this crap about past spending casing the current financial problems is just phoey!
It was NOT spending on something good and settling for bay that caused the fans to lose hope in 2010!
And it was Beltran and K-Rod’s trade plus ZERO moves when Sandy took over that killed last year’s attendance!
And the Reyes situation will only make that worse!
As if you didn’t see that one coming. Now, it’s all on SA, saying that this Madoff situation has/had nothing to do with the biggest decrease in payroll in MLB is just naive.
So kay why don’t you tell us how much the Madoff suit cost us in terms of money that couldbe used on Payroll and Attendance at the stadium….
Got some numbers to support this wildly inaccurate and false claim?
Show us the numbers of how much Madoff cost Sandy in the budget please!
Who dictates the Budget? Do you think the Wilpons said “Sandy – I want you to spend $180 million this year” and he said “No, no, I only want to spend the bare minimum to just get by”
Revenue has been down 30% since 2009, this didn’t happen the day Alderson walked in last year. So there are many variables as to why this is all happening, and to turn a blind eye to the financial situation of the Wilpons, is again, naive.
no Kay all they said was stop loosing money, thats all! We can’t subsidize you we have our own problems and we shouldn’t have to, make the business profitable!
It was then Sandy’s choice to cut spending as opposed to increasing Revenue!
And with 55 Mil of cuts in a business that lost 70 Mil last year (with 2.35 mil Attendance)
that means he has not accomplished that mission is still 15 Mil short ASSUMING attendance stays at 2.35 Mil and didn’t drop even further meaning not all of those cuts have actually cleared losses!
Split hairs much? It’s all related. Attendance has gone down every year since 08, not since the day SA was forced to cut payroll.
Yep attendance went down…
What has Sandy done about that but trade away or let go the two biggest draws to the stadium?
Has he stopped the injuries that caused the problem?
Has he brought in someone who can replace that lost draw?
Is he going to increase attendance this year?
Are we going to win more games than 2009 even?
Is cutting salary the only way to solve financial difficulty and losses?
Or is generating revenue a much better tactic?
If no one comes to buy in your store does cutting your salary change that?
Or just ignore the real problem….NO CUSTOMERS!
Metsie — “Biggest loser in all of this? Sandy Alderson!”
Please Metsie. He’s a winner and he’ll come out on top. This gives him a clear path to rewarding Mets fans with a competitive team. Hail to Sandy!!! lol
BTW — I wonder if Sandy’s job of seeing the beleaguered Mets franchise through perilous times is now viewed as completed by Commish Bud Selig.
Uh no. Still a lot of work to do.
No, I think Alderson is ehre for the length of his deal. No more, no less. (assuming of course, the Mets show improvement over the coruse)
Is he a winner his year? Next year? pray tell how long do you really think a guy on a 4-5 year contract has to accomplish the mission?
You think generation K Redux is really going to change the playoff aspirations of this team?
If so I guess you missed the original movie!
You have a 1B playing RF and 3B playing 2B, No CF but an often injred Kirk, No Catcher! a 3B who may be wearing a new uni by July and a Pen that is cobbled together from failed closers from other teams on one year contracts two at most!
No indication of increased attendance yet and more likely a decrease in it!
How long do you really think Sandy has to change that?
He’s in year Two and if he isn’t extended in the next two years he’s done!
And he’s not going to be extended ntil he wins and like I said when do you think that is going to happen?
As I said all along he gets until the end of 2013 and if they are not showing signs of his plan paying off then he will go quietly into the night.
So you think e is going to win something in 2013 is that it?
And if he doesn’t will you admit he failed?
The Wilpons have 3 years to suck money out of Mets fans while they dream up other ways to not pay this $162 million settlement.
They’re criminals and do not deserve your money.
http://www.facebook.com/BoycottTheMets
Actually, your libelous and slanderous allegation is more criminal than anything the Wilpons did. Actually, we should boycott this type of misrepresentation and also writing books ensuring outcomes based on faulty information, speculation and wishful thinking. In the end, America is still a country of laws and people who believe in their personal freedoms. It’s what separates us from tyranny and anarchy.
Joe D,Whole point i think he’s trying to make is that the fans shouldn’t increase revenue (by attending games) to the mets unless they show the fans they’re committed to winning instead of slashing payroll to pay off their debt..
Since 2000, no NL team has spent or invested more in their team than the Wilpons. If that’s not a commitment to the team than what is?
If you want to blame someone for Mets troubles, blame the ones who bought the groceries like Omar Minaya and Steve Phillips.
I much rather believe they are more to blame than the owners who simply gave them the latitude to spend their money freely.
If anything the Wilpons have always shown to blindly trust their friends with their money to the detriment of their name and money.
I am not debating them as owners, you’re right they have had open wallets for minaya and phillips, although not as much with phillips, and that’s what got them into trouble to some degree, but it’ll be interesting to watch if they keep the same phylosophy they have now to act as a small market team to pay the debts or start acquiring and bidding for the good players in FA… if not, selig SHOULD STEP IN and ask them ro sell!! Wouldn’t you agree?!!?
For Bud to step in you would have to prove that Fred is raking in tons of cash and putting it in his pockets at the detriment of the MLB team. Considering that Bud did not step in when the Marlins were doing that, I don’t see him doing it to the Mets.
Not only that Bud even allowed the Marlins to give us their best players which is the only reason we even made the playoffs at all in the last 25 years.
Bowie Kuhn wouldn’t have allowed this type of non compete attitude of actually assisting your division rivals at the expense of your own team.
If that’s OK then what isn’t.
And signing players to contracts that are obviously geared towards dumping them in 2-3 years thus profiting majorly from them while they are there and then dumping them when that margin wears off…. but hey go Marlins.
I’m not boycotting the Mets for many reasons, most importantly the Mets are my team. That simple. Even in bad years there are good reasons to go see your team play. This year it’s to see the younger guys. May not be as fun or exciting as a pennant race in September but for real true Met fans it’s about the team. It’s about bringing your family and friends out for a fun night, having a burger and a beer and seeing what Duda looks like in RF, Tejada at SS, Murphy at 2B and Thole behind the plate. See how they improve or if they do and support their efforts.
Tickets are plentiful and very cheap, a whole evening out for two could set you back less than 50 bucks total. Where the hell else in NY can you do that?
Don’t worry when the team is good again the bandwagon will be full and the so will the stands.
Yeah, if I didn’t boycott in the late 70s/early 80s, I certainly won’t be doing it now.
I didn’t boycott the late 70′s early 80′s Mets either SRT although I certainly could understand someone doing so but this edition of the Mets brand of bad ball isn’t due to the owner being cheap, it’s actually due to the owner trying to fix things after the fact when the chances of being able to do so are very limited and completely unsustainable.
Same result but different in how we arrived at the same place.
LOL…kind of my point. If I didn’t jump off the ledge disgusted with that Seaver trade – and to this day it makes me angry – I won’t now.
Shea stadium was a virtual ghost town during those years. ‘Grant’s Tomb’……
LOL well you both know what I did in the late 70′s so you know my feeling on boycotts!
Truth is the only ones who ever claim they are boycotting are the same folks who never go anyway and merely use the boycott as an excuse for their continued lack of ticket buying!
If they want the Wilpons to spend money they have to give them the money they want to see spent!
All they are doing is FORCING the team to not spend by refsing to go!
While true, we mentioned this earlier but how much will the average ticket sales help unless they can get some of those corporate tickets sold?
Not a lot and tat is the key to the problem!
Winning this year might help next year’s season ticket sales, but once the season starts and the winning is evident all it will do for this year is add to the one off day of game purchases that will only hold if the winning continues!
So if they don’t win this year next year will still be a “Can’t Spend” year…And winning next year will only help the following year as far as Corporate season sales go…
And that might be too late for Sandy to survive becase by then if he hasn’t been extended he most likely won’t be!
So he had better start the winning this year or he won’tbe able to spend until 2014 and by then who knows if he will still be the one who decides on spending at that point?
I guess that is still not getting to the overall question. Those cooperate seats, are they not being filled due to lack of star power, lack of competitive team or just the situation of the NY economy.
A combination of all three!
Signing a star can have an immediate effect! because signing a star gives people immediate hope at the time the season ticket sales are sold! That star gives hope for a winning season even before the season has started and a single win is recorded! And once they do those tickets are bought and paid for regardless of the outcome of the season!
Winning ball games only affects next season with a minor uptick in day of game sales, no one buys season tickets in July which is about the time winning actually starts convincing someone to go!
And since the mets can’t control the economy all they can do is build a team that someone thinks a client of theirs might want to see to justify buying tickets when Season tickets go on sale! Which means even if the mets make the playoffs this year the corporations won’t be buying this year just next year!
So let me get this straight, you think that a cooperation is going to buy a block of seats because the Mets retained Jose Reyes or brought in say uh… CJ Wilson?
Yep! Especially if they do a lot of Business in Latin America!
Admit it or don’t, Jose Reyes was a draw! Beltran was too!
In fact the only real draws we had on the team from 2009-2011 were:
Beltran
Santana
Reyes
Wright
We lost two of the biggest contributors to winning of the four, are ready to lose another 3rd largest contributor in July and all we will have left is Santana who is ten times the re-injury risk of Beltran and Reyes combined!
And Reyes and Beltran combined only cost about 3 or 4 mil more per year than Santana!
But at least they help you win EVERY game not just one in 5!
So keeping Reyes would have sold MORE cooperate seats? I guess we will disagree again.
Yu can disagree all you want!
Season ticket sales are already down from last year!
And Sandy knew it was going to happen as they decided to move up the ordering date for tickets before reyes was able to re-sign with someone else!
it didn’t work!
They simply waited!
Well if the Mets could find about 10-12M in the closet now they could make some changes here. (AGAIN, assuming that any of these players would come here instead of searching for a contending team).
Sign Oswalt, send Pelfrey back to the minors to await injury.
Sign Damon to pair with Bay and play emergency CF.
Sign Pudge to mentor Thole.
Net cost you would think would be in that range?
Don’t expect any signings because of this settlement…
We cut salary based on Revenue not Madoff.
True, but I think the Mets COULD see a return on the 10M. In other words would spending that 10M on those 3 player net more money in return?
Obviously they cut spending because of revenue but I think that they cut it that much because they could not afford to invest any of their own money. Perhaps now they can? Not sure. Do I expect them to pump 40M of their own money in? UH no and they wouldn’t get a return on that 40M anyway. Could they get a return on 10M if they brought in those 3? Hard to say.
It depends on the player they sign…
Damon? Doubt it upticks ticket sales…
Oswalt? Maybe but people will wait and see on that one…
I can’t think of anyone who would make up even for the loss of reyes let alone enough to turn a 20 Mil shortfall (the remaining balance from the 70 Mil loss that was not accounted for by salary cuts).
But it would not be about the player as much as the results as well. Would adding those 3 guys make the Mets semi-competitive enough to profit 10M from their signing. Not only that but you have to factor in that all 3 would most likely be tradeable so you could dump them at the deadline and only be on the hook for around 6M.
Well ask yourself if signing those players was enough to make us competitive then why did we dismantle the team in the first place?
If a Damon was going to make a difference wouldn’t a guy like reyes make an even BIGGER contribution?
Truth is nothing short of a very good starting pitcher is going to make a big difference!
It’s been our biggest weakness and the area we have ignored the most!
That leaves you with Oswalt who you can hardly say is much better than Niese or Dickey at this point!
MAYBE he replaces Pelfrey or Gee but thats about it!
Even half a Santana is better than a whole Oswalt!
Well a couple of things. First Oswalt had a mid 3′s era last year pitching for the Phillies so I am not sure he wouldn’t be one of the better pitchers here if healthy. Second, I did not say it would make us win… I said that it might keep us in the mix until the deadline and then you could reassess. Not to start the Reyes thing over again but it was never about the cost of 1 year of Reyes it was about the long-term cost of Reyes. Lets really, really, really not get into that again.
Do we need yet another Mid 3 Pitcher or do we need a solid #1 or #2?
Seems we have plenty #3 pitchers around here already! Adding one more is a mere lateral move!
Sounds very similar to the Bobby Bonilla contract.
I am wondering if this means 3 years of pure slashing of payroll and not signing good players to pay off this debt? or, acquire good players even through FA to create a winning product on the field to increase revenue ? it’ll be intersting to see what steps forward they take..
Well it just depends on how much they actually still owe during that time. If it’s just the total from this they are worried about then the investors should take care of that.
Now your second question, much like everything else, in the gray. I think it will be a combination of both.
I don’t think you will see anymore Omar type Jason Bay/Oliver Perez deals. I think you could see them overpaying in terms of years and cash for guys that they believe are franchise players. Did that label really apply to either of those? Would it apply to Cain and McCann? I think again on of the primary things Sandy was seeking was payroll flexibility to be able to spend on those types but also to have the player flexibility not to have to go out and bring in a Jason Bay.
As I said consistently slashing more payroll isn’t going to help them pay the debts they have.
Only INCREASING attendance will do that!
And I don’t think a buy at this point will do much, but a buy at the trading deadline if they have a shot at the wildcard or playoffs might do it.
(to answer TRS’ point above)
I am just not sure that IF there is some extra cash lying around that it would not pay to gamble on some of those guys IF they would come here to start with. Again, would people flock by the 1,000′s just at their name? Maybe not, but it would show that they are ready to move past the issues and perhaps keep them competitive. Then like I said worst case is you could trade them at the deadline for prospects and only be on the hook for 6M.
The Wilpons are no fools and neither is Sandy Alderson. Both are on record as saying good attendance is a byproduct of the performance on the field which is a byproduct of payroll. I wouldn’t worry about Mets not adding key players when they get to the point that they’re a player or two away like they were in 1985. What good would giving someone a $100 million dollar contract do for this current team anyway? Even if it was Albert Pujols? We have to build the core and foundation first, then we can worry about bringing Donn Clendenon, Gary Carter or Mike Piazza.
Absolutely agree.
Right and unfortunately even Reyes alone would have done nothing for this group unless the kids are actually something useful. This year will tell a lot with Davis, Duda, Murphy, Tejada, Thole, Niese, Gee… lots of questions may be answered this year and give Sandy an idea what direction to go in next.
Right, and where those players you name are concerned, it’s going to be gun watching them develop and seeing if they will become core players.
On Reyes, I was a HUGE fan, I’m gonna miss his energy. But his presence wouldn’t have change our fortunes this season, and with speed his biggest asset, would he still have it by the time the team is relevant again? That’s what I tell myself to get over his loss, lol.
Oh I agree and IF Tejada develops into at least an average SS and they use that Reyes money to go out next year and sign a real catcher? That is a win to me.
A real catcher. I’d be on board with that.
Going to be tough competition though considering good, established catchers are sparse.
Yeah, but if McCann and Miguel are both available I would be upset if the Mets did not make an offer on one of the two. Unless Thole has a Lo Duca type year that is.
The Braves have a 13 M option for 2013 on McCann and I can’t see them not exercising it. Montero would be a Godsend but there might be quite a bit of competition for him. Boston, LAA, Dodgers, Seattle, Texas, even Pittsburgh and KC could be big players for him since they both have many of the pieces already in their systems and they’ll all be at contained costs for the period of time that Montero would want which brings us to how many years?
I’d spend a #2 on Montero but the years he’s going to be looking for will be a problem. Catchers are very difficult to produce and are always highly sought after. SD, SF, Toronto and the NYY have excellent depth behind the plate and i think our best chance of ever getting a catcher here is to trade for one currently in the minors by helping them out with something at the trade deadline. One of the Giants trio would be nice Joseph, Sanchez or Susak.
Sometimes you just need a veteran though and with all the kids coming I think they will need a proven catcher behind the dish.
I couldn’t agree with you more about a veteran catcher with the kids on their way.
I like Thole but don’t think he’s that guy. If he does improve this year, I don’t believe it will be enough to have any kind of confidence he can be ‘that guy’ for those young arms.
You know we need a Carter like deal. I won’t be holding my breath on that one though.
Problem is there are not a lot of Carter’s out there right now.
That is the problem, there are very few catchers out there and fewer still Gary Carter types.
Catchers are at an all time high right now and are bringing back Aces and #2 starting pitchers in trades.
Some of the best catchers and catching prospects were signed internationally from 2000 to the present and many more drafted in the early rounds during those years but we were busy throwing away all our draft choices on the short term fix so if your not going to sign catchers internationally or spend any 1st or 2nd round picks on them you have to trade for one like Washington and Cleveland did with deadline deals for Ramos (Matt Capps) and Santana (Casey Blake) This is a good example of a team being proactive to address a very important position ahead of time rather than just seeing whoever is hanging around every off season and throwing bushell fulls of cash at whoever is “available.”
“Right and unfortunately even Reyes alone would have done nothing for this group unless the kids are actually something useful.”
Except maybe maintain the attendance from last year!
Remember reyes took a pay cut for the next two years! That wopuld give Sandy an All Star at reduced rates until those kids everyone thinks is going to save the attendance day get here!
So you assume that the Mets would have been able to get Reyes at the same contract AND that people were still buying a large amount of tickets just to see Reyes without the team being competitive.
Yep and I also think they cold have gotten Reyes on an even cheaper deal if they had bothered to make a deal at all!
They didn’t however, Sandy wanted the Picks not reyes!
And I think they could not. Oh well, I guess both are just meaningless opinions.
Well since someone DId get reyes for that contract you really have no supporting evidence the mets couldn’t and I have spporting evidence to say they COULD!
Because someone DID get him for that amount which means we could have also!
Care to say no one could have prove it!
For the ost part I agree with this….
“I wouldn’t worry about Mets not adding key players when they get to the point that they’re a player or two away like they were in 1985″
I certainly have never suggested Sandy would not spend if the team ever got to the point where spending was worth doing…
But I do suggest that he isn’t going to get there in time, nor solve the financial problems, to stay in the job long enough to get there!
You see he has to get to the winning to increase attendance thinking the way he does!
I believe making a big buy might get him there qicker but he does not believe so!
So his tortise approach to rebilding will take longer than the patience of the fans, press and Wilpons and will be relieved of duties before he ever gets to the point where he thinks spending is worth doing!
This is year two! He made about as many cuts as he cold but might STILL lose 20-30 Million this year….
If he trades Wright then how much further down in the attendance hole will he be?
And who is going to bring them back?
Rookies Harvey, familia and Wheeler?
When? Next year? A year from then? Two Years?
If the winning hasn’t started by year 4 of his tenure he isn’t going to be here when all those kids finally get here to cause the winning that cases the attendance that allows the spending!
This is the point I have been making for qite awhile that the Sandy side ignores because they refuse to live in the reality of NYC!
He had time the first year to do what he wanted…He is now at the ‘Benefit of the doubt” stage!
next year he will be in the “Questioning the Plan” phase and right after that comes the “He needs to win or go” phase!
Once he gets there, nothing but a playoff will save him!
Patience will run out on a plan that only works if your patient!
Not a common trait in NYC baseball fans!
“I believe making a big buy might get him there qicker but he does not believe so!”
Here’s the point that we all keep coming back to. How do you know there was money to bring in the big buy this off-season?
How do i know?
How do you know there wasn’t going to be when Sandy threw in the towel in July 7.5 games back and attendance was on the rise only to go back to the decline once K-Rod and Beltran were sent packing!
How do I know there was money there?
They SPENT it on loser BP arms who have been fired from their previos jobs and cold have sed that money on one player who would have contributed a hell of a lot more!
I know it exists becase they SPENT it on multiple turds!
OK Metsie, I am not going to blow up this thread with rehashing the same ludicrous points. My final comment on this. Rauch and Francisco =15M Reyes=120M. The end. I know your point, you know mine. Lets move on.
Too late for that….
Oh and your a bit fuzzy on your math comparing a 6 year contribution to a one year one aren’t you?
Yes Reyes cost 106 Mil! For 6 years!
This year he only costs 10 Mil!
So you paid 5 Mil more for guys who do nothing to help you win than you would have paid for a guy that does AND sells tickets!
Nice try though!
Remember you thinki we are going to spend in two years so that means Reyes’ 20 Mil over that time is a bargain compared to the guys you signed!
you LOST payroll flexibility because in the end you will pay 30 Mil for the next two years instead of 20 Mil for an allstar!
Joe D: What I’d be curious to know is out of the settlement how much of that would have been spent on legal fees from the day of settlement to end of the trial?
To me, and maybe this is my rose colored glasses view… I think the Wilpon’s won this. There was NO WAY they’d come out of this without paying a dime. None. This was all about either a settlement or going the distance in trial.
And frankly if Picard had a $1billion case, he wouldn’t settle for 160mil etc. Which 160mil is nothing to sneeze at for you or I, but when comparing it to being sued for a billion dollars? It’s a gigantic difference.
And frankly on Megdal… if Picard who clearly had more info on the Wilpon’s than Megdal did/does would settle at 160 ish million, then it only furthers the point that Megdal’s “book” was not accurate.
If Megdal wants to claim he’s a reporter, then he should do what reporters do and type up a retraction.
LOL, I’ve been talking with Howard now on Twitter. He’s at a loss for words thus far.
The Mets won’t even come close to paying $163 million, the agreement guarantees them a 3 year wait until their net losers money comes in estimated to be about $135 million.
That means the Wilpons will pay $29 million at most and not for another three years.
Remember they raised $200 million in owner shares.
Plus recall the road map I developed myself in earlier posts back in January, that mapped out their path to profitability in 2012. This morning, Howard is having a hard time understanding that the Mets have stopped the bleeding.
The 50 Year Anniversary will be a moneymaker for the Mets plus the payroll savings of $50MM, cutting a Minor League Affiliate, slashing workforce 10%, and everything else I’ve pointed out in the last 90 days.
Big win for the Wilpon family. They are having a better Spring than the team is.
Plus recall the road map I developed myself in earlier posts back in January, that mapped out their path to profitability in 2012. This morning, Howard is having a hard time understanding that the Mets have stopped the bleeding.
Hey Joe can you do us a favor?
Link to that story again and provide us what Howard the Duck is saying about all this. I can’t access Twitter at work.
To me there are 2 views on this as a Mets fan. Some will be mad because they want the Wilpon’s gone. That’s fine, frankly, I wouldn’t mind them gone also BUT you cannot deny that when there was $ to spend they spent it, and you cannot deny that if this thing went the distance… the franchise itself would be dug into a deeper darker hole before any new owner ever came to Flushing.
To me, this is a win/win for Mets fans IF they can put the past behind them and realize Joe Reyes isn’t coming through that door. (Let it go) The lawsuit is gone, the timetable is set, and we have an opportunity to focus on Mets baseball rather than impending financial doom.
Will they have a smaller payroll next year? Maybe. But it won’t be because they are trying to save their butt, it will because they will be trying to find the best places to spend their $.
Heres my 2 cents on $$$ and how it affects your team.
The Tampa Bay Rays play in one of the worst markets in baseball. They also play in the most expensive division in baseball, with the Yankees and Redsox annually being top 5 in payroll.
And yet they compete, with a payroll that dwarfs not only teams in their division, but most of baseball.
Then you look at the Wilpons who have spent tons of money, yet have no idea what they’re doing with it.
If its up to me I’ll take 70 million with intelligence over Fred Wilpon and whatever $$$ he brings to the table.
But you are also assuming that Fred has learned nothing from those mistakes and will continue to make them in the future.
If they haven’t learned something about building a consistent contender – bare minimum getting the right people in here who can do just that – then I’ll lead the ‘WILPONS MUST GO’ brigade.
Agreed, I guess we will get to see how much control Sandy actually does have next off-season.
Agreed, I guess we will get to see how much control Sandy actually does have next off-season”
One more year??? so he basically gets a pass for this awfull offseason? AGAIN????
My point is that IF this situation cleared up the Wilpons financial uncertainty and IF they increase the budget available to Sandy and he still doesn’t spend then we can surely say that he is the one making the decisions. If they go out and sign Oliver Perez and Jason Bay part II? Then the Wilpons are making the decisions again and that is MUCH MUCH worse than having Sandy make them.
You don’t have to give him a pass Alex but regardless it doesn’t change that the GM will most likely get 3 to 5 years. It definitely was not going to be 1 season.
For example an owner with some baseball smarts would have realized after the collapses of 2007 and 2008 that the Mets were more than just one player away. They would have realized they needed to shake up the core of the team, change some coaches ect….
What did the Wilpons do?
They signed KROD, Jason Bay, and resigned Omar Minaya and Jerry Manual. That tells you all you need to know about Fred and Jeff. And what they know about this game, which is not much.
Seriously, in a sport with no salary cap, where teams in a big Market have a HUGE advantage, has any team done less with more?
Hate is a very strong word and one that should not be thrown around lightly. But it somehow is not strong enough to describe my feelings toward Mets ownership.
Last week when Judge Rakoff ruled on the $83M the Wipons had to pay Mr Megdal soon after tweeted, “Fascinating news: judge gives Picard floor of up to $83 million, but leaves open door to litigate for less.”
http://twitter.com/#!/howardmegdal/statuses/176704449979494400
I was surprised to see no tweets of fascinating news after this mornings settlement.
BIG WIN FOR JOE D TOO!
You called it Joe, down to the penny.
Joe D for GM!
Thank God this is finally out of the way. If the 29 million is the correct figure in 3 years, it’s almost like another Ollie Perez contract without the roster spot. Now let all the Met focus be on baseball and nothing else.
What an awful day for Mets fans everywhere. For two decades we’ve watched Fred and Jeff run this team into the ground. With this trial it looked like we had a shot at getting some new ownership in here. Possibly some owners with knowledge of how to run a baseball team. Unfortunately were stuck with Dumb and Dumber.
Too many comments to read through at this point (took the day off and slept late LOL) but with all the drastic financial cuts and steps the Mets were making and projecting to do irrelevant of the civil suit (as mentioned by Sandy) the settlement is most likely going to change the landscape all that much for I doubt the Wilpons took all these measures just in anticipation of losing that suit. They were already in a financial mess and all this means it won’t get any worse. Judging from the state of Sterling Equities, etc., it’s still not going to get any better.
Gregg — Dumb and Dumber. Let’s continue your fantasy. The Wilpons may not be perfect but events prove them to be pretty adept. BTW, if you go out to websites covering other teams, you’ll find similar doomsday posts concerning their teams. But to me it’s’
IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE !!!
No, I don’t expect miracles overnight. No I don’t think we’ll be better than 4th place this year. But it’s a great rebound and a new phase in the Mets fortunes.
For that person who is basically saying how tampa is sooooo smart NOW, it’s always good to remember how much they SUCK from day 1 till 2007… just saying, they piled up on draft picks, never sign anybody and lucky to have it, they’ve striken gold with good players lately, funny how 5 or so years ago nobody could’ve predicted that.. but of course, now they’re smart and do things the right way.. SMH
What about your Marlins Alex?
They follow a similar path. Stink for years, collect top picks, save your money, buy a bunch of stars to go with your picks, trade all those star players AND you draft picks off, start the cycle again.
Marlins 6-0 Postseason series, 2 WS rings… likely add a 3rd this year
Tampa 2-4 Postseason series, 1 WS appearance…
Not the point Alex, the point is that they follow similar paths. Stink for a long time, build up picks, become a little better, dump those players, stink again. If anything at least the Rays are showing an ability to stay relevant during the process, something the Marlins were unable to do. With the Rays we will get to see what they can do without having a top pick every year. Marlins? We will most likely never see that for as soon as they get through this 2-3 year period they will trade everyone off and be crappy again.
You have to wonder…..even with those 2 recent WS rings, the fact that ownership has a pattern of selling of dismantling a WS team b/c of money might very well be the reason they don’t have much of a fan base.
If you listened to that Sampson link MrNJ provided on TRDM, he says he knows what brings in fans – i.e., committed to bringing in players needed and winning a championship – but right after they do that, they’re headed on a train out.
Right because profit not only plateaus but starts to decrease as those young players have to start being paid. So how do you make the most money? Win the championship then while there is still that high and tickets are bought, unload everyone.
The Rays also changed ownership and pursued a different. Stuart Sternberg became controling partner in 2005, cleaned out the front office and then look what happened.
So they players they had acquire through drafting high etc in previous years were gone as well???? Crawford and co?? F’ing idiot…
Niemann, Sonnanstine, wade davis, Hellickson, Delmon young (Garza), Miller, Upton, dukes, Baldelli, shields, longoria, jennings, price, moore, crawford etc, all those players were gotten before they became good.. you mean to tell me that had nothing to do with their success?? getting lucky with good players out of the draft? no expectations? no pressure? please…
Yes, drafting well helped. But, the rays were around almost a decade ebfore the sale. Wh ythe major turn around after it?
But hey, you stay classy. I take comfort in the fact that if your guppies do in fact fail to make the playoffs. you’re far too stupid to learn humility and will continue to be your usual “charming” self.
Well I’m talking about the owners. And Stuart Sternberg specifically. He bought the Rays in May 2004, and took over as managing general partner in October 2005.
So in taking over in 2005, a team that was a disgrace in a horrible market, it is remarkable what he has done with that franchise.
Also guys, being a Mets fan doesn’t mean you have to support your owners. The wilpons are and always will be awful baseball minds. They haven’t a clue how to run an organization and have absolutely no connection or understanding of the Mets fan.
I could write a 20 page essay pointing out their incompetence. Point is, you can love this team without supporting their god awful ownership.
And really, it’s freaking baseball in NY! Thats like selling water in a desert. No team, I repeat, NO TEAM, has done less with more than the Wilpons have with the New York Mets.
The Tribune with the Cubs.
McCourt with the Dodgers.
There are plenty of reasons to fault the Wilpons for the problems the Mets face, but be realistic.
They are far from the worst owners in sports. In fact, the Mets are one of the last teams to have a crazy old rich guy, which make the best owners. If the wilpons have learned their lesson and are going to let the right baseball people make the right decisions, then things are going to look a lot better in the future. Yes, that is a big “if”, but if you can’t be overly optimistic, then you shouldn’t be a Mets fan.
I see, just because i PICKED THEM to win the WS all of the sudden i am a groupie? well, think what you will, anything coming from you is worthless as we often have seen who you truly are here and how despised by MANY of us here… Point is, THEY SUCK big time and NOONE cared, which is different than in ny, that if you suck 1 year is big news, ask sandy alderson he’ll tell you how this market is than oakland and/or san diego, where his small market mentality was no big deal and if he lost it was all well….
I think thats the point Alex. This is baseball in NY. We’re not going anywhere. The Mets our crack for us.
If fans were going to jump ship they would have done so already.
The point is, if you can afford to rebuild anywhere it’s here in NY. Baseball, the Mets specifically, is in our blood.
If the owners would just be honest and tell us what their plan is, I know myself and I believe others, would jump on board and support them.
But we’ve had nothing but dishonesty and incompetence from this ownership for the past 20 years. What makes you think it will change?
Given the fish references, I think the proper term for you would be “grouper”.
I love your bizarre rants where you make like there is some army of people behind you. Seriously, if you “hate” or “despise” and want to threaten some guy who does nothing but have a different opinion of a team you used to root for, then the problem isn’t with him, no matter how many voices are in your head cheering you on.
I think some Mets fans don’t understand the difference between a fan and a cheerleader.
I am a fan. But their seems to be a lot of cheerleaders on here.
No matter, we’ll all be alcoholics by the end of this baseball season.
Alex, do you even realize that Tampa Bay has a different owner and different front office than they did from Day 1?
Their new ownership changed the culture and strategy in Tampa Bay, they changed the entire franchise’s way of thinking/planning etc.
Tampa actually used to spend $ on overpriced old free agents (see Fred McGriff) and they dug into a deep hole because of that strategy.
Point is, ALL THOSE PLAYERS they acquire in the years they were SUCKING big time developed to be good players and helped this “new regime” to be playoffs caliber team for 3 of the past 4 years… Wouldn’t you agree?? or is this ALL on the new regime??? would you ONLY GIVE credit to sandy alderson for the mets if they make the playoffs within the next 2 years with OMAR MINAYA’S players at the helm? knowing you, probably will… SMH
I suggest you read a book called “The Extra 2%” Alex. It’s a great look into the Tampa Bay franchise from start to World Series.
You’ll learn about how the new regime put a premium on young talent, and locked Longoria up long term before you even knew who he was. He was drafted by the new regime in their 1st real full year by the way.
How they hired an analytical Manager that had been passed over for job after job after job. And who at least in my view is easily a Top 5 Manager in the sport today.
How the owner Sternberg bought the team in 2004, brought on Andrew Friedman who was an investment banker to run the team.
Sternberg, Friedman and Silverman changed the CULTURE of Tampa Bay Rays baseball. Seriously go get the book, it’s a great read.
Don’t ask Alex to read a book. He may actually learn something new. And Alex doesn’t like learning new things. He likes being right!
Greg, the books i needed to read are the one that make me get pay the way i do… When you hit the books they way i did to become who i became you pass on reading books about things you SEE with your eyes…
Jesse. i am not saying the story of the rays is not fascinating or whatever it might be, but my point is they SUCKED and noone complain nor form a mob to bring up a player from the minors to sell tickets etc.. they developed good players, they stayed in the minors, and slowly but surely they panned out and went on a run.. also, i give them props for hiring maddon, i think he’s a good manager.. very underrated imo…
I don’t see this settlement making things any better for Sterling Equities as it simply prevented things from becoming even worse. For if Fred and Jeff feel the overall settlement is a victory for them in that they can handle it financially, how come trying to re-sign Jose Reyes was something they could not?
The Wilpons never lost money due to the Mets. Whatever losses appear on the ledger books for the franchise were more than offset on the revenue owning the team generated via SNY, merchandising, the rental of storefronts in Citi Field, etc.
Fred, Jeff and Saul have been losing money due to catastrophic events in the real estate market, the loss of a half billion dollars to Madoff and the drying up of profits still envisioned by what was to be found was a Ponzi scheme. The Mets generating profit as a stand-alone operation was, of course, their goal but not something that if not accomplished would have caused the mess they are in. That is an understood. I mean, if the parent company Sterling Equities having to pay back approximately $130 million total is not considered a major burden financially, then how could $70 million in losses from one of it’s holdings be considered so in return?
So despite the smiles this morning, all this means is that Fred and Jeff have one less of a multitude of very serious financial problems still facing them. They are still in deep, deep trouble for the Mets are only one slice of the pie, not the most of it.
Good to hear. Hoping they will still have to end up selling.
I think that right now Fred is probably positioned to be a pretty good owner. A better owner than he’s ever been and one thing we do know about is that he has spent more money on the ML payroll than anyone else in the NL for a long time.
The most important thing is that the FO is actually insulated from him and even more importantly Jeff has been quarantined.
Fred’s gone through all of the rookie ownership mistakes, mistakes in meddling, making decisions for business reasons, putting his son in charge of the team, fraternizing with the players, making hires based on personal relationships, trying to emulate the wacky and wild spending of the ’80 NYY’s.
Now perhaps after presiding over three crashes precipitated by the quick fix of FA he is actually showing some signs that he has learned a thing or two. Our draft last year while being only 21st in MLB was a marked departure from our usual 29th place spot and instead of losing a pick or two we actually gained one for a change and we didn’t settle for the safe medium floor, low ceiling choice that we usually bust on anyway and we didn’t take a lot of one tool college guys in the later rounds either. That is a monumental shift from prior years.
We also were sellers at the deadline for probably the first time since 1995 when we traded Bonilla for Ochoa and Buford. All the other mid season deals have been about recouping salary instead of adding talent. It was basically a baseball version of a ponzie scheme.
Seems to me that the lessons Met ownership may have learned and re learned a number of times may finally be sinking in. If that’s the case than Fred could very well wind up being a pretty good owner and that’s not as far fetched as it seems. No one could have been viewed as more of a bumbling buffoon than George Steinbrenner but at some point that changed and he came to be viewed in a much more positive light. What happened? He stepped aside. That and his kids were doing something else and that gave Gene Michael the time to do the work necessary that laid the groundwork for the NYY’s current run of 15 postseasons in 16 years including 5 World Series Championships.
Fred has never been even remotely close to the George Steinbrenner of the 1980 NYY’s. Fred is viewed more in the prism of the most mismanaged sports franchise in North America but nowhere near the institutionalized buffoonery that Steinbrenner was renowned for with suspensions, convictions, digging up dirt on his own players, Bobby Meachem, the side show of hiring and firing Billy Martin 5 times and the near constant turmoil and seemingly endless change of direction that marked his first 20 years as owner. If George could put the right people in place and stay away why couldn’t Fred?
To me the whole key is to keep Jeff quarantined and keep him from fraternizing with the players and undermining the chain of command. If Fred allows all decisions to be made solely on sound practical baseball principles everything else he wants will just fall into place but he has to be patient about it.
It worked for George why not Fred?
Agee, Don’t forget George stepped aside because he was suspended, not because he wanted to. Had that not happened who knows if the Yankees ever go on that run. He may have traded away kids like Jeter,Bernie,Pettite, who he almost did and maybe even Mo Rivera, all for aging has beens. I know you know the names of very good players he gave away. McGriff, McGee, Tewsbury, Drabek, Jay Buhner,etc…
From what I read, they did offer Mo in a trade in his very young career. Can’t remember the details on that but obviously, it didn’t go through. I think it was before he took over the closer role with the Yankees.
Mo,Pettite and Bernie were discussed in trades and George finally deferred to Stick Micheal.
Ya, George wanted desperately to ship Pettite out for some reason.
Hey Donal, didn’t you provide a link a few months back showing exactly when Alderson started with advanced statistics/sabermetrics. Some here think he didn’t start until 95, when Haas died and ownership changed and cut payroll but from what I’ve heard him say during interviews he began early in his GM career. I thought it was you but I’m not sure and I don’t remember the thread.
Not sure what you are referring to, but, I remember reading that Alderson was looking into alternative methods of talent evaluation prior to Haas dying, but was forced to embrace them fully when his payroll got slashed.
That is the reason you bring in an Alderson, or a Frank Cashen, or a John Daniels. A sort of outsider with a different perspective and new way of looking at things. When you are full of life time insiders all from the same place, you get stagnant and just keep doing the same old thing because “this is how we always did it”. Bring in guys from outside to ask “why” and “does it work” and force people to look long at hard at their traditions.
I know that Fonz. Had he not been suspended the NYY probably never embark on a sustained period of excellence and there is a very good chance that without the convergence of Maddoff, real estate downturn, stadium debt and unrealized stadium revenue perhaps the Wilpon’s just continue to shovel **** at the constant “holes” and we never embark on a sustainable model of success.
The fact is both events may not have been planned but one could wind up changing the course of the Met Franchise for the better and one definitely changed the course of the NYY Franchise for the better.
If that what it takes to end monkeyball then fine with me.
Tampa was terrible for 10 years. Most expansion teams are especially if can’t go with the short fix of free agency. Before FA even existed it took us 7 years of futility before we became good.
Tampa had some bad luck with two of their high draft picks too in Baldelli and Hamilton and then again the bad luck to be playing Boston, Toronto and NYY 18 times each year.
If they played in the Central they would have won 105 games last year and they did win 91 AFTER having lost Qualls, Benoit, Soriano, Hawpe, Balfour and Crawford.in a very tough division with a 40 M dollar payroll so obviously this is proof of Monkeyball’s superiority over all other philosophies of putting together a team right?
After all in the last 23 years we each have just 3 post season berths and strangely the Rays only play one first basemen on the field at a time.
Their all f******ed up.
Well I’m talking about the owners. And Stuart Sternberg specifically. He bought the Rays in May 2004, and took over as managing general partner in October 2005.
So in taking over in 2005, a team that was a disgrace in a horrible market, it is remarkable what he has done with that franchise.
Also guys, being a Mets fan doesn’t mean you have to support your owners. The wilpons are and always will be awful baseball minds. They haven’t a clue how to run an organization and have absolutely no connection or understanding of the Mets fan.
I could write a 20 page essay pointing out their incompetence. Point is, you can love this team without supporting their god awful ownership.
And really, it’s freaking baseball in NY! Thats like selling water in a desert. No team, I repeat, NO TEAM, has done less with more than the Wilpons have with the New York Mets.
This is a bad day for Mets fans.
Also lets not bring the Marlins into this. They are a joke of a franchise in a joke of a major league market.
Take a look at Reyes’ contract. He’s the Yankees starting SS in 2014. I have no desire to emulate the Marlins. But what Sternberg has done with the Rays since he took over in the fall of 2005 is incredible. In the AL East no less!
We as Mets fans would be very fortunate to have him as our next owner.
Whatever, I’m just happy I’m a football Giants fan at least. I get to root for one organization that knows how to run itself.
Whatever, I’m just happy I’m a football Giants fan at least. I get to root for one organization that knows how to run itself”
SB in the past 5 years due to EXTREME LUCKYNESS and all of the sudden that’s an org that knows how to run themselfs?????? wow… neither baseball nor football….
You don’t win 2 championships in 5 years on luck alone.
Do you need luck? Absolutely. And the Giants have got their share of lucky bounces.
But no team has ever won a championship based solely on luck.
EXTREME LUCKYNESS?
Cmon give the Giants their due they are a class organization.
“I’m just happy I’m a football Giants fan at least”
What? When did this happen? Because the day after the superbowl, you were mad at the Giants for beating your Pats.
Hell, you’re probably debating between a Redskins or a Broncos jersey right now.
like i said, EXTREME LUCKYNESS on those 2 super b victories, to call the giants a class act org is a little beyond me just because they won 2 SB in those 5 years.. it took the LUCKIEST escape (should’ve been stopped) from the QB to throw a prayer, then the LUCKIEST PLAY IN ALL SPORTS HISTORY to win the first SB, then, a football that wasn’t call against the niners and that welker dropped, i know i sound like agee, but come on, that team was ready to shipped out the coach at 7-7 now they’re class act? Spare me please…
And if not for Mo Lewis, the tuck rule, the refs losing count of downs in a playoff game, and some cheating, where would your Pats be?
haha look at us on the same page at the same time
So then the Pats aren’t really a good franchise they were just lucky Drew Bledsoe got hurt. Everything else kinda happened because of that no?
Also, the Giants are referred to as a class act not for the winning (although that helps) but for the way the organization is run.
They were a class organization long b4 those 2 victories but that’s just my opinion due to the respect I have for the Maras. If Luck means putting yourself in a situation to take advantage of an opportunity when it presents itself then yes I agree most teams that win championships have luck at 1 point or another to thank for winning Championships.
Taking the long term view for a sports franchise often results in getting better performance in the present as well as the future.
Last off season NYG GM Jerry Reece was being given all kinds of grief because of losing guys to free agency and seeing the Eagles buy every expensive FA on the market and guess what?
Eagles don’t even make the playoffs and the NYG win the super bowl as they did 5 years before.
The most successful franchise’s are the one’s who properly balance future needs and present needs, not one’s that always go one way or the other.
If there was training camp instead of a lockout the giants don’t even smell the playoffs… give it a rest, yes they won, congrats, but enough already, they were a 9-7 team who somehow got ALL THE LUCKY BOUNCES (Fumble by bradshaw not a fumble, packers with 9 drop passes, Welker dropped, gronk hurt) TO GO THEIR WAY… people, 9-7… this year coming up once again, THEY ARE NOT the favorites… enough ….
If there was a training camp, maybe the Giants don’t suffer all the early season injuries that kept their defense in pieces until the playoffs.
Yes, the Giants got lucky calls against the Pack and 9ers, but they had plenty go against them, too.
And big deal, Gronkowski got hurt. What happened to both of the Giants Tight Ends? What if Cundiff hits the chip shot? what if Lee Evans catches that touch down pass prior?
Luck is the convergance of opportunity and preperation. All teams get opportunities. the good teams capitolize on them.
The Giants played in a weak division. That is a huge help in getting to the post season in any sport. Remember the 2006 NL East? That was lucky but going up to GB, out to SF and beating the Pats? That wasn’t luck.
I wouldn’t say often!
I wouldn’t even go so far as to say most often…
It depends on the long term view!
Pirates have had a long term view where is their success?
A’s were the inventors of long term draft only what has it gotten them but yet another purge of talent and nother LONG term to their record?
If you know what your doing it doesn’t matter what TERM the plan is!
Short term works just as well as Long term!
The only difference is if you can win in the short term then you can ALWAYS win! Case there is always a SHORT TERM!
There isn’t always a long term and if you can’t win save doing it long term your winning will be short and unsustainable in SHORT TERM after it is realized!
The Pirates had no view and no clue until just 4 – 5 years ago and that simply isn’t enough time to fix a decade and a half of no plan.
They have spent a ton of money in the draft lately and currently have a number of the best prospects in baseball. They also identified a recent graduate of their farm system as a vital piece of their future and locked him up for up the next 7 years and did so at a pretty reasonable price. That’s something we could have done with Reyes instead of letting his deal run out at age 28.
Laugh all you want but the Pirates are positioning themselves for a good long run all of it based on the work they’ve done the last 4-5 years and it’s not all based on top 5 picks either.
KC, Toronto and Tampa have done things the same way both starting around the same time and are now poised to enjoy good long successful runs themselves and none of these teams are planning to have more than one first basemen on the field at one time either.
I’m still not sold on KC. their FO never seems to do right by the big club. They are the other extreme end of the spectrum. They need to achieve balance.
Alex-
You are completely and utterly insane.
Debating with you is like arguing with a 4 year old. There’s always gonna be a scene. And no logic is required on the child’s end.
I think we got into a debate like this about Baseball America a few months back.
I could tell you a penny has a 50 percent chance of landing on heads and you’d argue me their too.
Enjoy the rest of your day.
You must be new here. Get used to it, that’s all you’ll get from him.
Coming from a you i am not surprised…
alex would totally give the giants credit, if only their QB had the right last name…
Desmond L — We need a Poster ID here because I don’t agree with you, whoever you are.
This is horrible news. What it means is we get an 80M mid-market team of prospects, while the Braves and Nats dominate the division. Yeah…good times.
the mets are spending right around what the braves always spend, and about what the Nats are at now (after increasing). So i don’t think that is the issue.
We just always just consider what a player has done the last 5 or 10 years instead of trying to figure out what their likely to do for the period of time we have them signed for then start with the whole “who could have known so and so would fall off the cliff right after we signed him.”
Some seriously slow learners.
Except the braves didn’t spend that on one season and done rotisserie roster signings…
They found REAL cheap as in under control talent to keep salary down, not by prging their best players like Jones for kids or one year bandaids for their bullpen!
As opposed to a $140 million team of wash outs and has beens? It keeps getting brought up: Look at the playoff teams over the last 20 years or so. Payroll is not the deciding factor.
Its not what you spend, its how you spend.
If the Mets win the world Series with say, an $80 million payroll, are you going to be happy?
I know someone who won’t be. You know who, he’s a habitual liar here. Take a guess. He wants stars.
My point exactly. I’ll take 75 Million of intelligence over 150 Million of Wilpon incompetence any day.
Thats why I brought up the Rays ownership.
What I don’t understand is what is 150 million dollars of Wilpon incompetence? Are they the ones choosing what players to sign? No. Have they ever given an opinion? I’m sure they have. But it’s the GMs who are making those decisions and not the Wilpons.
And as for the remark about a 140 million dollar payroll of has beens that makes absolutely no sense either.
Now if both of you are referring to the mid to late teams of the 2000′s, the Mets had the horses and they simply lost out to the Phillies and lost out to the Marlins and Nats who prevented them from getting into the players.
But make no mistake that they had the horses, but unfortunately for Mets Nation they simply just lost the games.
I don’t care if the payroll is 150 million, 110 million, or 86 million. Naturally anybody would want the higher payroll but what I want most of all going forward is for the Mets to field teams that, when in the hunt, they can get the hits in big spots, make the big pitches and close out games instead of heart-breaking late inning HRs – and as Mets fans you SHOULD be very familiar with lost opportunities whether they come in the form of lack of timely hitting or blown saves.
Because if those things happen again than it doesn’t matter if the payroll is 80 million or 140 million. They would be lost opportunities – again.
oh and if the Wilpons DID suggest to any previous GM they would like to have a certain player, the Mets STILL had the horses and STILL blew the opportunity they had for the post season by lack of timely hitting and blown saves, bad basrunning (timo perez) or guys suddenly disappearing in September.
The fact that if the Wilpons helped select a player on any of those teams the Mets still blew the big games when they had their chances.
Perfect example.
I think the Jason Bay deal was 100% ownership decision. And it was a stupid one at that.
Also part of the Wilpons being incompetent is hiring the wrong GM’s. Omar has done nothing in baseball to suggest he knows how to build a team.
Also the decision to trade Kazmir for Zambrano. That was umored to be Jeff and Peterson stepping in and going against the G.M.’s wishes.
Also don’t agree we had the horses. Our SP was never that great and the bullpen had holes.
Random note on Kazmir trade:
While he never became the all star we thought he’d be, in 2007 he pitched 206 innings with 239k’s and a 3.24 ERA. In the AL. Do we make the playoffs in 2007 if he’s on our team?
Do we win the world series if he’s pitching for us in the 2006 post season. All interesting questions, and ones the Wilpons never have to answer.
Gregg, I agree on Bay. Anyone who didn’t see this coming, well, maybe they need to get their eyes checked. But disagree on Kazmir. I think trading him was the right decision. Clearly it was…look how his career turned out. I think the problem who the Mets got in return.
I think if Omar had been given the chance to scout other teams, he would have gotten something useful. Either a crop of prospects that would have filled the holes Omar had to spend foolishly on later, or at least someone at the major league level better than Zambrano to help in ’06-’08. Omar had always been pretty good at evaluating young talent, but he was overruled on what to get back from Tampa.
The Mets have had their chances here and there over the last 23 years most notably 1998-2000 and 2006-2008 but sadly these opportunities have been far too few and haven’t lasted for very long.
17 times in 23 years we were out of it on September 1st despite having the Leagues largest payroll. Those are piss poor results and only a world class spin meister would seek to disagree.
Even in years in which we did compete we frequently sported one of the worst pitching staffs in Franchise history.
1999 – 4th worst runs against in franchise history since 1966 (at that time)
2000 – 3rd worst runs against in Franchise history since 1966 (at that time)
2006 – 5th worst runs against in Franchise history since 1966 (at that time)
2007 – 3rd worst runs against in Franchise history since 1966 (at that time)
2008 – 9th worst runs against in Franchise history since 1966 (at that time)
2009 – 2nd worst runs against in Franchise history since 1966 (at that time)
1998 is actually the only time we’ve had a contender worthy pitching staff in the few years that we have actually competed for a post season berth and that staff under Apadaca was basically Rick Reed, Al Leiter, Yoshi, Bobby Jones, Reynosa, Franco, Wendell and Cook. After that the pitching turned to crap leading some to the conclusion that the offense is to blame when actually it’s been the pitching that’s to blame all along and it’s been consistently getting worse and these are the actual on field results in years in which we had our best seasons.
Basically we’re setting new top 5 Franchise records every year in runs scored against us and doing so in what have been our scant few competitive seasons This is indefensible.
“What I don’t understand is what is 150 million dollars of Wilpon incompetence? Are they the ones choosing what players to sign? No. Have they ever given an opinion? I’m sure they have. But it’s the GMs who are making those decisions and not the Wilpons.”
That is the problem. You are probably wrong here. One of the biggest criticisms of the way the Wilpons ran things, especially over the last several years, is the perceived break down in the chain of command. The ‘pons making baseball decisions, Manuel dictating what players he wanted promoting, older players orchastrating trades and undercutting the manager, coaches making personnel decisions etc etc Plus, the cronyism and cover ups.
to me that doesn’t matter because it still came down to the plays on the field
And as for that other useless information provided by the site’s resident Second Guesser the fact where the Mets pitching stats from 199-2008 had nothing to do with the final result. They simply lost in 2006 and we all have covered this. They choked in 07 & 08, lost the World Series in 2000.
Those statistics that the guy who is having a “draft pick breakdown” has nothing to do with those final results.
And i’m not even going to get into 2009 because we ALL have discussed that a million times. we ALL know that almost the entire team was hurt that year but yet he still brings up that stupid stat as if it means anything.
Anyway..moving forward.
It doesn’t matter to you because you’ve already made up your mind that it was all the offense’s fault when nothing could be farther from the truth.
The reality is that even when we had successful seasons that either resulted in a post season or came up a game short we did so with s**t pitching. If you can’t shut people down you cant close the gap or lengthen the lead and your chances are going to be random. One win, one loss which is basically what the 2007 and 2008 teams were. Marginally over .500 teams that had they made the post season were even more vulnerable to the randomness of 7-6 type games and the wear and tear they put on the bullpen.
Phillips and Minaya had their best seasons from a pitching standpoint in their first year and got progressively worse and as they say, pitching is 90% of the game.
Then why did you even go down this path? Why do you keep saying these big, empty, things and when they get easily dismissed, you take your ball and go home? Just admit you’re wrong. Don’t try to wave your hands to change the subject and pretend everyone else is stupid.
and the play on the field is a product of the way it is built. If you don’t build it well and maintain it even worse, you can’t be shocked when it all crashes down.
lol, Omar Minaya wasn’t on the field when the Mets lost big leads the last few days of both of those years.
You’re just SECOND GUESSING. I’m not. There were good enough, they had the horses and choked to lesser teams.
With your stupid logic when the ball went through Buckner’s legs it was the Red Sox GM’s fault – maybe it was the game itself? What I mean by that is maybe it was….Buckner’s fault? Or a normal human being can discuss strategy and say that the Red Sox usually put in a defensive replacement for Buckner in those spots but I believe, if i heard correctly, they left him in for the celebration. Is Carlos Beltran taking a called third strike Minaya’s fault? No.
Same with the collapses of 07 &08. They had the horse. You are just a complete idiot and wouldn’t know what accountability from a competitive standpoint is if it hit you in the face
and let me add a couple more things. With your logic every result is on the GM. Every one. What happened to “The playoffs are a crap shoot” Isn’t that Billy Beane’s excuse?
So the Mets could not have gone cold at the wrong time? Just like any other sport that happens. NO excuses, The Mets were good enough in 07 & 08 and the choked and it was NOT the GMs fault, it was on the players, coaches, & manager. Yes a GM CAN build a team that’s good enough to win and maybe even be built that way through the farm…. and then lose to another GMs team who is not that good and was built by free agency. IT does not matter.
OK let me follow. Last year’s team had Reyes, Wright, Beltran, “the kids that Omar built”, the basic rotation that Omar built, the bloated players that Omar signed in Perez, Castillo and Bay and yet they did not win because of Sandy. Yet the 2007 and 2008 teams did not win because the offense choked and not because the pitching was awful.
Got it.
you have to attempt to compete first. Sandy has not even attempted to compete in MY opinion so yes it’s on him.
NOW..if he made all these great moves with so little money like what was anticipated by his minions and use all this magic sabermetric crap to find value where nobody else can and he got some nice players to help the Mets compete in September and they blew it? Then yes i’d probably put it on the players and not Sandy. But hey, you never know.
The point is – they didn’t even attempt to compete and THAT i have a problem with.
Now you can come back with your unabashed support of all things Sandy. And be happy that I actually addressed you this one time because to be quite honest your posts make me sick. You already know that i don’t like you so that’s that. No more replies for awhile – but i know you’ll stalk me every day.
and make no mistake. If Sandy had good off seasons and the Mets DID compete in 2011 and Chris Young and Ike were both healthy and the Mets competed in 2011 and did well you can bet your entire bank account that the saber goons would’ve have been buzzing and bumbling and bragging about how “you see? Saber DOES WORK”
Oh make no mistake about it this site would’ve been BOMBARDED by that.
But it didn’t. Now it’s the Wilpon’s fault.
LOL, yeah whatever there buddy.
Now back to baseball. You are the one that deems if they are trying to compete or not and the only way you determine that is by how much money they spend. So did Omar try to compete in 2010 when he just added Jason Bay and did nothing to an awful rotation? Where would you have ranked LF in terms of priority after 2009?
So basically Sandy actually did as much/more to compete this season as Omar did before the 2010 season right? Unless, Escobar, Jacobs, GMjr, and Jason Bay would be considered “trying to compete”? Especially coming off a year of devastating injuries and tons of holes developing.
Selective memory I see. Why didn’t you bring up that Omar also signed R.A Dickey and H Takahashi? And at that time everyone liked the Jason Bay signing. Signing him was trying to compete because at that time he was one of the most productive hitters in baseball.
So the biggest weakness was pitching and you filled that spot with a knuckleballer who had never had success and a 40 year old rookie. Yeah, Omar really expected those two to be great. But then spent 100M+ on Jason Bay.
Well just because you think signing Bay was a great move doesn’t mean “everyone” did, I know hundreds of people who said “here we go again.” when the talk came to signing Bay. One more albatross of a contract, just what we needed.
I’m sure you recall all those teams we were competing with for Bay’s services that off season as well don’t you? Lets see there was the Mets,,,and,,uh….oh yeah, no one. That’s who. Once again the right call was made. Everyone in MLB was wrong and the Mets were right
These Omar fans are like the people in North Korea. Their God can do no wrong.
What I am curious about is why it has to be a good decision because the fans wanted it? A lot of fans wanted the Mets to sign Manny, would that have been a good decision? Sandy was brought in to be the adult in the room and not make decisions based on fan whims, unfortunately Omar and the Wilpons had been guilty of that for too long.
Yes, Jason Bay definitely fits in the trying compete folder, despite the fact that we are saddled with two poor years by anyone standards and still on the hook for two more, at least.
The funny thing is those who were so in favor of that move are now trying to defend the move with saying everyone was in favor of it when that isn’t even close to the reality and no one else was even after Bay. He was just another in a long long line of guys we got because we were shorthanded and he was available and this just a couple of years after spending a #1 pick on 100 games of Moises Alou and F***ing ourselves out of a catcher as well because he was “available” and just a few years after getting Cliff Floyd for a #2 because again, you guessed it, he was “available.”
Screw the starting pitching though and who needs a catcher right?
I am not going to say I was up in arms about the Bay signing but I think all of us around TRDM had determined that starting pitching was much more of need. I think my point is that the Bay signing was more about doing what the fans wanted to sell tickets than it was about trying to compete and making good baseball decisions.
We didn’t need a GM to play fantasy baseball. We needed a GM who properly evaluate the risk/reward of bringing in guys like Bay and lets face it, when a team wants to lock up one of their really important pieces going forward they do so at least two years ahead of time. The 2010 off season should have been about Reyes, not Bay. Up the middle baby, that’s what’s important in the NL. Not us though, we’re all about spending big and giving up draft choices to take care of LF and then seek to put all of our 1B/LF/DH types everywhere else.
Very strange philosophy. But hey, at least LF is all set.
Takahashi was decent, Igarashi wasn’t, Dickey was fantastic, Escobar never healed, Jacobs, Mathews Jr., Cattalonotto, Cora all got canned mid season. Mejia and Tejada lost development time and half a year of service time and didn’t contribute, Francouer was yet another in a long, long line of salary dumps and Arias dumped right after the season ended, Barajas sold for cash to LA, Blanco Reyes going into his option year and Bay firmly entrenched for another 3-4 years when the season was over and Castillo and Perez on the books for one more.
Seven game improvement over 2009 and just another of the 17 times in the last 23 years we were out of it on September 1st.
Fans of the monkeyball concept will point out the brilliance behind some of these moves but by with year 6 in the books I was left thinking that I expected more by this time, much more. Especially out of a guy who made his bones as a talent evaluator.
Nobody wanted Jason Bay?
http://metsmerizedonline.com/2009/12/latest-buzz-jason-bay-rejects-bosox-offer.html
” According to Rob Bradford of WEEI Sports, an unkown team has offered Jason Bay at least a five year deal.
According to Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports, free agent outfielder Jason Bay has rejected the latest Red Sox offer.
Bay’s agent, Joe Urbon, sounded like he wasn’t hopeful that the Red Sox would get something done, but left open the possibility for further negotiations.
“We don’t agree with their evaluation of the player,” Urbon said. “Frankly, we have other offers on the table that are of greater interest to Jason.”
He went on to say that Jason Bay “was prepared to move on.”
I am assuming he turned down the widely reported 4 year $60 million dollar offer.
The Mets who reportedly offered $5 million dollars more, received no such rejection which would bode well for Minaya and the Mets.
On Friday, John Tomase of the Boston Herald reported that Joe Urbon made a counter offer to the Red Sox that was for six years and about $16-18MM annually.”
“The Angels and Mariners are among the other clubs showing interest, but they reportedly haven’t made any offers yet.”
Amazing how people make up their own facts.
“What I am curious about is why it has to be a good decision because the fans wanted it?”
No, my point is that nobody disliked the contract when it happend. Only now people dislike it. It’s just 2nd guessing. And the Mets did properly evaluate Jason Bay. Didn’t they do a whole big statistical analyisis on Jason Bay? And it showed that Jason Bay’s power would traslate into Citi Field. It didn’t work out for whatever reason, but the Mets did do a lot of research on Jaso Bay.
Once again, you refuse to look at the big picture. You are so focused on the instant that you can’t see everything that led up to and followed said instant.
Buckner’s error came in the 10th inning of game 6 in a 7 game series. The Red Sox had a 2 run lead with 2 out and no one on. Buckner’s error finished the game, but it didn’t lose the game.
And Buckner’s error had nothing to do with the Red Sox blowing a 3 run lead in game 7, either.
Beltran striking out had nothing to do with Cliff Floyd being o nthe playoff roster. Or Aaron Heilman, Steve Trachsel, Moises Alou, Scott Schoennweis, Oliver Perez, Jason Bay etc etc etc
Not with those pitching staffs. Every game was Russian roulette. Not that it couldn’t have worked just that the chances of it working were so few. The collapses almost pre ordained. Every day it was a chore to see who would start, how long they could go, who had to have a day off in the pen. Humber making emergency starts, Kunz brought up to see if he could get anyone out, David Williams, Brian lawrence, Carlos Munoz, Jorge Sosa, Claudio Vargas, Chan Ho Park, Luis Ayala. Anyone to try to stop the bleeding. Anyone at all from where ever you could find them.
Now it’s one thing to have these sort of options available because lets face it, the whole team was in disaray when Minaya arrived but you have almost no chance if this is who your backing all that age in the pitching staff with.
Pedro, El Duque, Glavine, Trachsel, two throwins in Maine and Perez, a few rookies rushed up in crucial pennant race situations, Pelfrey, Humber, Niese, Kunz and nobody put on the DL just in case they might heal by miracle before their DL stint would have ended.
Total and complete joke and we couldn’t go free agent for top pitching cause we went FA for so many regular everyday players and not everyone can be a 10-20 million dollar a year player or your payroll will be 400 Million.
The biggest joke of all is how many top draft picks were spent on the bull pen. Wagner and K-Rod cost #1 picks, Kunz a supplemental pick, Rustich a #2, Niessen, Clyne and Smith #3′s. 7 top picks for relievers, plus a couple of trades. Young starting pitchers traded were Jason Vargas, Brian Bannister, Jae Seo all for bullpen help. That’s f******in over kill especially since he inherited Heilman, and Feliciano and Bell too but that’s another story.
Pelfrey, Mulvey, Vineyard, Holt and Harvey were the only starting pitchers taken in the first 3 rounds of 6 different drafts.
total deemphasis of the value of starting pitching for some weird reason when everyone in the free world knows it’s all about starting pitching. Relievers can be bought year to year without costing draft choices so you don’t draft college relief pitchers with 1st, 2nd and 3rd round picks. You draft starting pitchers, some of those that don’t pan out might work in the pen. Catchers are a vital part of your pitching staff too. You draft them with high draft picks then you might actually get one.
Always counting on this rehab project, a few guys in their 40′s, about 10 guys Omar knew from Montreal or Texas, a few journeymen, a couple of hobo’s, some guys in their first professional season, a few more who are “day to day,” and a bunch that their teams gave up on them. That’s not a rotation, it’s a circus.
Nothing but the best for the pen though, not that it did us any good.
One question though. How can so much importance be placed on 60 innings and almost none on 200?
You couldn’t be more on point.
Jesse, Donal, MNJ here’s the difference in my argument:
Patriots: Lucky
Ny Giants: Extremely LUCKY… Beyond lucky!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Patriot lucky= Refs change the rules to help them win
Giants lucky= getting healthy and winning despite the refs swallowing their whistles when the opponents take late and high hits on Manning.
the refs swallowing their whistles when the opponents take late and high hits on Manning”
LMAO!!!!! wow!!! just wow…. When DID THAT EVER HAPPENED?? against SF??? they sure made up on that bradshaw fumble then… Roll eyes…
Does this mean Alex is a Jets fan?
So is that the excuse, the Jets aren’t just a joke of a franchise historically, they are just unlucky.
Man… you sure have a way of being entertaining. So the 86 Mets… Buckner’s play means they were just lucky right?
Jets?? Pay attention man…
Ohh, and btw, since you weren’t around by then, 3/4 years young maybe, let me explain something to you, YES, the mets were LUCKY AS-S hell, just like many other teams that have been lucky due to otherwordly stuff happened to them…
Patriots 2001, same thing…
it was actually more blatant against the Packers. Also, please, like the Giants defense didn’t force any turn overs that were called back for no reason. Not to mention Osi getting called for a bogus late hit on Rodgers that should have led to a 4th and long but prolonged the drive and let the Packers score a TD.
Every team gets good and bad breaks. Good teams are prepared to deal with them. that is true in all sports.
“Ny Giants: Extremely LUCKY… Beyond lucky!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ”
If that makes you feel better you keep telling yourself that.
Meanwhile I have the memories of 4 Great Superbowl victories to pass the time with.
Hey, the first 2 i had no problems with …. the last 2 however… not convinced they were the better team…
I’m sure the Bills were saying the same just before Norwood’s wide right.
Yet what I remember was how the Giants won with a backup quarterback and how awesome Bavaro was.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvjzArpL7Pc
Fumble THEN the whistle… Forward progress my aRss!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dJW03lou1k
This is what matters.
Yeah, at the end of the day, that is what defines a season.. a team.. players, coaches etc… Tom coughlin went from “Fire the bum” to a HOF Coach…
I’m admittedly one of those fans that wanted TC gone at the end of 2010. And I still don’t think he’s a HOF coach.
But thats the difference between the Wilpons and Maras.
The Maras stick with a plan.
The Wilpons are reactionaries. Scared of bad press. Changing organizational philosophies every 15 minutes. It’s a disgrace.
Some Met players got Willie fired because they were allowed to subjugate the chain of command. Once they did that their was no accountability on the Team anymore and no one is ever in danger of losing their job since their all on long term deals and there is never any competition for starting jobs. In fact anyone who can do anything at all is immediately plugged in somewhere cause there are always so many holes to fill.
Giants couldn’t get Coughlan fired they had to deal with him and play for him whether they liked it or not.
Well their are many differences between how the Maras and Wilpons run their respective organizations but I think the key one is this:
Sticking to a philosophy.
The Giants build their team through the draft, and occasionally make a free agent splash or two when it fits ie Rolle, Canty, Boley
They don’t worry about outside opinions much because they trust the people they have hired. And they let their plan play out.
The Wilpons on the other hand change philosophies every few years. Lets just take a look at the last decade.
2003 – 4: Jim Duquette. Don’t offer more than a 3 year deal to anyone. The Mets make 2 bad moves, trade Kazmir for Zambrano, and Sign Matsui and move Reyes to 2B. Also decide to not sign Vlad because they wouldn’t go 5 years.
2005: Minaya. We need to be relevant again and we do that by signing big name players. Sign some good and bad big contracts. Things collapse and they bail on Omar
2011: Sandy: Build through the draft and maintain financial flexibility.
I have no specific problem with any of these methods but please just pick one and stick with it. Have some continuity. The Mets are the person that decides to change careers every 3 years.
And be honest to the fans. If you’re gonna rebuild then rebuild. Don’t do this halfway thing, which is exactly what they’re doing by letting Reyes walk and holding onto Wright.
Also the genius idea to build a team around pitching and defense and not actually getting players who could pitch or play defense. Instead just building a ball park designed to take away your franchise players mojo.
Also can you think of another franchise that supposedly prides themselves on pitching that has developed fewer pitching prospects over the last 20 years?
Sorry now I’m just being random. Point is the Wilpons suck.
LMAO, Greg is on a roll.
yeah the key difference is the Mara’s actually run their organization and don’t give full personnel to their GM and the Wilpons don’t run their organization just do whatever guy they hired says to!
Parcells left because he didn’t have control of personnel!
Coughlin doesn’t even have it!
Their GM has some of it but the Maras are well into the football operations where the Wilpons show up every now and then and act like they have a clue what is being done to their team!
Gregg good points but they have not “held” on to Wright yet. Remember Reyes was not resigned after becoming a FA. Wright’s not a FA until after 2013 for the Mets and has little trade value currently. A smart rebuilding team would wait a little longer trying to make sure they get top return on their resources.
Keeping Jeff out of the decision-making process, similar to being quarantined, is important for Fred and Saul’s long term health with the Mets. They no doubt have learned a lesson from the Tony Bernazard fiasco. Maybe Jeff will grow up to be a judicious guy. All we know is that he’s not one right now.
What sealed the deal was the Wilpons giving the judge and Picard Bernie’s old Citi Field seats-Sweet!
Hi Lou,
I’m surprised you think giving the judge Bernie’s old citi field seat sealed the deal. Mr. Met delivering them to the judge’s door – that’s what did it!
Your both wrong it was the box of chocolates.
North,
Those chocolates were probably all melted by the time the Judge got ‘em.
Ha!
Fonzi,
Still looking for articles about when Sandy started with money ball and all those I come up with still reference 1995 when the owner passed away and the new one ordered he slash the payroll. Many cite the big payrolls that brought championship clubs to Oakland and it’s true that he went after high salaried players either through trades or free agency. That in itself is indicative of one paying top dollar on an open market.
Jose
Yes I said they were among the top payroll teams prior to 1995. Again Moneyball is a book about Billy Beane. Alderson is the 1st of the sabermetric GM’s. I guess because Sandy Mentored Beane people think Moneyball has to do with Sandy.
Like i said before, if wilpons since 1995 been able to put a team together with his deep so called pockets, tell me how many championships have they won, can you say we have been neck to neck every year with the yankees. Really history repeatss it’s self. The mets owners don’t know how to spend money right to get great product on the field to contend with, cus if that’s the fact than we would be world champs in 06 if we kept nagy, we did we lose evreything at the last weeks of the season in 07, and 08 to the marlins where reyes went to.. These owners who have let us down year in and year out, cus they don’t understand the true meaning of winning, being no.1, cus they don’t have faith in their players like reyes and wright, he proved that last season, cus that’s how the wilpons feel about their players, cus we should have signed reyes, you have to put him in his place at times, but he would have and we still would have a great player today, Like i siad before it’s about direction , approach and how you get players to response to you as a whole. But the wilpons don’t do that, why is it so hard to see that for the best of the mets , their fans, the city please just sell, cus you don’t have the mets as your interest to do what’s right.
Uh… can I get a translator? I am trying to figure out if he is calling us his cousin or a fan of Syracuse? Man, I read 9th grade essays as part of my job and I still can’t get through that “paragraph”.
I’m going with he’s part of the legion of Met fans who started drinking earlier today when this settlement was announced.
There is no way to say Sandy tried to compete in 2011. One does not throw in the towel in order to get a Zach Wheeler. It was that the Wilpons did not have the money to maintain paying high salaries to those who were helping the Mets draw to within five games of the loss column.
And anybody who says this club just wasn’t good enough to stay in the race should only look back to the 2010 Arizona Diamondbacks who couldn’t even win 70 games yet found themselves in the playoffs the year later. Guess Arizona actually messed up in 2011 – yes, they made the playoffs but in turn blew the chance to get Zach Wheeler.
I guess we’re going to disagree yet again Mr Joe. The D-Backs have 2 young stud pitchers, and a lot of players that had career years last year. I don’t think they’ll do it again but they do have some wicked young pitching down on the farm and they did trade for Cahill so they will be a force in the AL west barring unforeseen misfortune.
I also don’t think the Mets had a chance in hell to make the playoffs if they kept both Beltran and K-Rod. Not with that pitching staff, not with that bullpen, not with that defense and not with their abundance of bonehead mental mistakes on the basepaths and in the field.
They had no Johan, lost Ike for the year in May, Wright missed 2 months, Bay continued to suck, Pagan and Pelfrey took 2 steps forward in 2010 and 4 steps back in 2011, Thole was a disaster behind the plate, not too spectacular at the plate and the bullpen does not need be mentioned.
We got great play from our SS and he still hit the DL twice, as per usual the last 3 years, very good and unexpected year from Beltran, very good year from Murphy with the bat, terrible in every other aspect, good play for the most part from Turner, a nice surprise from Tejada, Dickey was very good, Niese was okay, the defense let him down a lot or else he would’ve been much better, Gee was good the 1st half, not so much in the 2nd half.
That to me is nothing more than a 500 team even before Reyes and Murphy went down. They hovered around 500 all year after they came back from a 5-13 start and got back to 500. They never got more than 5 games over. What Sandy did was pull the rug out from a 500 team and he got a top pitching prospect for a guy who was not coming back anyway. Keeping him and praying on a miracle for the braves to collapse and jump over the other 4 teams in front of us would not be smart thinking going forward. That was the old way of doing things around here.
Now if Johan was there and healthy ,Ike and Wright also healthy and then Sandy sold those two you have a better argument. IMHO we wouldn’t have made the playoffs even with Ike,Johan and Wright all healthy. After 2007 and 2008 I had no faith in any of those guys from those teams getting the job done. And keeping K-Rod and paying him 17.5 million would be utterly insane. A top closer doesn’t get that much let alone one that was shaky for us last year.
Ciao Giuseppe!
Well of course there are exceptions but when you have the holes that the Mets did those exceptions were not going to be us. Seriously, are you the type that any time they are within 10 games they should go for it? All in baby.
I was against the Bay signing too and was surprised that the Mets did not go after more starting pitching. Omar said that starting pitching was his “plan A”. Wonder what caused the turn around.
I am with you JoeD, time to move on and support our team.
The one sided reporting and bloging and comments made for the reason that many fans blame the ownership for the bad team just gave outsiders in the media free reign to add their two cents of opinion that was based on nothing!
Bad payroll decisions, injuries, lack of leadership and just bad luck cause the failure of Mets, not to forget the lack of certain players not stepping up at crucial times but it is 2012 and I am looking forward to my team playing and the haters can go cry or just not attend.