These are the actions of a legal and financial architect. Looking back at his career with the commissioner’s office, his being the CEO at San Diego, what he was first hired as with Oakland, plus his entire career and educational background prior to that, it is hard to picture him as one qualified in the knowledge, depth and insight required for the professional field of baseball as it is the executive level caliber required for the business side of the game.

Why then would he be given the authority to oversee baseball matters at least with the Mets? Could be a question of who you know more than what you know – plus not having the insight to understand the game enough resulting in the ones he hires who agree with his way of thinking. An example is the owners themselves. The Wilpons thought they understood the game too and until they had to agree on Sandy Alderson, they routinely enforced their way of thinking as an imprint on how the organization should be run. They have now given that to Sandy and that is why we have a general manager alluding to taking one less pitch every twenty plate appearances as the reason the run production went down. He’s still looking for statistics to give him the answers – like they do in finance and legal precedent – and that just can’t be done without an astute knowledge of the game in order to appreciate those findings and recognize their limitations.

Now, if you could organize a boycott of a regular season game where there was total fan support that would be something! Then again there would always be a few jerks who would show up and manage to do something to gain attention for themselves!

Might you be better off reading what Joe D has said here about the owner’ s ability to raise additional money by refinancing the SNY loan. You have to face the facts that the Wilpon’s were precariously close to losing this team but by bringing in Sandy Alderson they have managed to keep the sinking ship afloat. It was a no brainer that with a new ballpark that Citi Field would get a shot at hosting the 2013 All Star game and that in itself was going to be a financial windfall for the Mets. Sandy has slashed the payroll as needed and has been the orchestrator of all decisions that have started to reshape the entire structure of the entire organization. Fans, however are never patient in rebuilding especially in NY.

If indeed the loans can be refinanced there will be extra operating revenue available. How much, no one knows yet but it stands to reason that the brass knows that if they do not resign Wright there will be hell to pay.with most fans being furious. Most would feel the same about keeping Dickey too. The consensus of the so called experts is that the Mets will look to quickly end all the questions and get these guys resigned. That alone will be a good sign for the fans and that there will be some extra cash to be available to make a few moves to add talent for 2013.

That extra money will be offset by losing the contracts of Santana and Jason Bay later on!

I think it took a long time for many reasons.

Since it is a matter of when banks would feel it would be in their own best interests to re-finance that loan. The question must be asked if such re-financing been available before the civil suit was settled?

I don’t believe anything could have been worked out until the financial lenders knew what the outcome of the civil would be.

Since it involves SNY it has to meet the approval of the Comcast and Time Warner. Both those other parties are not in desperate need to raise cash as the Wilpons are. The Mets would be the ones to generate and develop a proposal to submit to SNY and then work with out an agreement suitable to all parties involved and that includes the financial institutions they seek to re-finance the original loan with.

Considering this is a big corporate move and not a small business loan seven months after the settlement does not seem like an unreasonable amount of time. I am sure Sandy was working on such a plan in advance of the civil suit settlement so he could then modify it and begin taking the necessary steps to get it to be acted upon.

Or maybe it took so much time because Sandy was hired to get the Mets to be competitive and he had to devote all his legal and analytical skills to that problem first? Considering the complexities of both, it would seem impossible for one to be able to handle both.

I’m not saying they should go out and spend like a drunken sailor on leave, but we shouldn’t have to endure the penny pitching we’ve been seeing either.

If I’m understanding correctly, does that mean that the Mets will have money now that could (doesn’t mean it will) be spent on the team which they didn’t have the past two years?

I can understand that happening – for that is why many of us suggested what Sandy Alderson was hired for. Certainly an Omar Minya could not have been able to negotiate ways to re-finance the team.

If I’m riding the Mets horse in a big race, say the NL race, I want it to be as strong as possible — including financially. So more power to the Wilpons in their effort to reduce debt.

Unless, of course, they want to sell – which would be my fantasy.

What was an original $450M loan at lets say 6% interest and let’s further say $15 M a year in payments just for purposes of this example. These are merely numbers to illustrate to you what is happening here.

Now they can refinance at $450M or higher again, plus pocket the equity. And keep the payments the same but at lower interest rate. The extra $40 million in potential interest payments gets cashed out too.

So basically they have a new loan, with the same payment, and a cashout near $50 million.

Found money and all it takes is a boardroom, a long table, a dozen different pens and about 50 signatures. Not bad for a day’s work.

Mets Seeking Banks’ Help With Heavy Debt

As it states in the article:
“They’re moving the debt from one side of the ledger to the other.”
“You still have the debt,” he said, “but at a lower rate.”
The Mets have an uphill climb before they can spend as freely as they did before Madoff’s collapse in 2008 devastated Sterling’s finances.

Yup, still heavily in dept but will refinance to lower the interest rate of that debt. Much the same as folks who take advantage of lower interest rates to refinance their mortgage loans.

Anyone still want to claim the Mets are solvent and have money?

They’ve HAD money, they HAD money at the trading deadline and now suddenly they have money to sign Wright and Dickey?

Alderson could have made moves at the trading deadline if he wanted to.