Note I didn’t just talk about 87 did I? I waas talking about 88 and 89 as well!

After Knight was gone they were no better than any team Omar built!

Because they lost one of thier leaders who was key in getting that team to fight to the last out and the last roller through Buckners legs!

And then he was gone and no more World Series wins….

Most important, hope everything went well with your tests yesterday at the hospital.

As far as the Wilpon/Alderson dispute, the one thing we all know is that the Wilpons liked to spend – recklessly perhaps for some, unwise for others, – but they liked spending.

Spending is part of their behavior. Sandy is the complete opposite of Fred and Jeff.

We can agree that perhaps this marriage of the odd couple was a shotgun wedding forced on them by Bud Selig thus born out of necessity. That the necessity might now be over, as you contend, it can then be looked at in terms that they just simply cannot head toward divorce court with two-years remaining on that prenuptial agreement (with an option for a third).

You give as clues:

“Bringing back the GCL team, giving Wright the richest deal in team history, the refinanced SNY loan, money pouring in from Madoff settlement that has dropped their net liability… These are not all fabrications, they are factual, tangible and very real.”

Amazin’ Avenue also agreed with your assessment a few months back PRIOR to GCL came back and David was re-signed.

http://www.amazinavenue.com/2012/9/26/3405872/mets-crg-finance-bankruptcy

But there are other pieces of tangible evidence that can also lead to other conclusions as well. As we know, sending off David Wright would have almost guaranteed Citi Field being a ghost town this coming season – though it’s going to be close to that anyway. But that, I will admit, is conjecture only. What we do know is:

- With both the CRG audit completed and across-the-board re-structuring having been put in place by Sandy, the Wilpons had to turn to SNY for re-financing after the Mets were rejected by financial institutions who deemed the franchise too much an investment risk.

- The Mets lost $70 million in 2011, estimated $23 million in 2012, had to take out two loans totaling $65 million and Fred Wilpon had to put $38 million of his own pocket into the team during the 2011 season. That totals approximately $190 million – just about the same amount they got by selling minority shares.

The shares made up for the losses and loans (both by MLB and Wilpon himself) and thus did not infuse any new money into the organization as it did decrease the added debt and wiped out the annual financial losses.

- Getting back to the Mets now being on more firmer fiscal ground, how much of that has to be due to the cost-savings measures that Sandy implemented with both roster payroll and non-baseball matters which must now be adhered to considering the limited revenue brought in by attendance?

- If majority ownership of SNY brings in the real money for the Wilpons as far as owning the Mets is concerned, then WHY DID WE HAVE TO GO THROUGH THE PAST TWO YEARS TO BEGIN WITH? As the attached indicates, teams base their fiscal investments on the money they get from either the selling of television rights or owning their own RSN. And, what Sterling Equities wants to do with it’s portion of the profit share is their own business, not that of Time Warner and Comcast (or is it is necessary to re-invest a portion of those profits back into SNY?).

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/sports/regional-sports-networks-show-teams-the-money.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

- And Sandy still works for the Wilpons, not the other way around. With it becoming evident within the organization last Fall that their financial footing was becoming more stable with the re-financing negotiations, the CRG audit, better returns on other investments outside of just SNY, it appears Fred and Jeff were in agreement with the way Sandy was handling the team, Sandy and his people did not go into the free agent market to try to get those players that could help the team in it’s current position. Recognizing a mini-gold mine with the relationship R.A. had with the fans, they could have also told Sandy to re-sign Dickey instead of having it known that R.A. was available to the highest bidder.

Is a question of the general manager now controlling the owner? Again, being the type of people they are, the last thing the Wilpons would want happen if they had the fiscal means to prevent it was to go into spring training with the outfield and bullpen that we have now. And it’s not like their financial turn-around suddenly happened overnight – we know things turn upward on a slow but steady curve.

Is it possible Fred’s recent public statements were more for show and that our skepticism comes from the Wilpons possibly still needing Sandy – or at least now needing to adhere to the operation he put into place?

Cashen didn’t trade Mazz until after he had 5 top 5 draft picks in his system.
He also went after Foster and Kingman to try and get attendance up.

Hojo was NOT an ingredient in 86…Knight was the man that year….After the WS Cashen DID pull an Alderson…Your too old to pay, I’ll play Hojo, and let a leader of that WS team go and they never won another WS after that.

Yeah, Phillips was SO terrible that I’m sure you were thinking about this while buying your playoff tix in 1999/2000.

What a bad, bad, bad, BAD general Manager. how DARE the Mets be exciting to watch from 1998-2001 during his tenure. TERRIBLE

He should DIE!

AS PHILIPS WAS SO MYOPICLY & DELIBERATELY BLIND TO FARM DEVELOPMENT; HIS ABJECT FAILURES @ WHICH HAVE BEEN FELT STILL ALL THESE YEARS HENCE.

BAY, UNLIKE MANY HERE I DO NOT HAVE A GOOD “PLAY BY PLAY” MEMORY; HOWEVER MY CONTEXTUAL RECALL IS NEAR FLAWLESS ESP S IT REGARDS AN AREA OF IMPORTANCE TO ME, PERSONALLY.

METSIE IT TAKES YEARS NOT ONLY TO BUILD A MAJOR LEAGUE CONTENDER OUT OF FARMER’S STRAW; BUT ADDITIONAL YEARS IF THE FARM WAS NEGLECTED INTO A WASTELAND, POSITIONALLY, AS ABSENTEE WARLORED, PHILLIPS, PRACTICED FOR TOO MANY YEARS THEN HAMSTRINGING HIS SUCCESSOR, MINAYA, TO USING POOR QUALITY FERTILIZER(SIGNING BONUSES) THROUGH BLIND ADERENCE TO VOLUNTAREY SLOT RULES. EVEN AFTER BLOOD SACRIFICING ANYONE WHO BELIEVED THIS WAS GOING TO BE LESS THAN A 5Y U-TURN (CARNIVAL CRUISE? ANYONE?) WAS OBVIOUSLY PARTAKING IN ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES ALTERING THEIR LOGICAL THOUGHT PATTERNS [LMAO]

any player that is a SLAM DUNK is out our price range

any player that is NOT a SLAM DUNK but still good is too risky

we are then left with the players @ the bottom of the barrel …who sign for cheap…

I am coming into this discussion late in the game.
Spending wisely is cost vs. benefit.
If you have a glaring need especially CF and need speed, defensive ability and a lead off spot to fill and the player is at FNV and your not curtailing a legitimate player (Kirk is not the answer that is my judgement) then you sign that player, Victorino for only three years 39 M commitmentent who would have helped 2013 and beyond. NImmo would be ready then. That is planning.

And if Bloomberg bought the team you could forget about having a beer too!

My worry is if they are forced to sell that they will sell to someone who would rather move the team to someplace where there are no yankees instead of paying all the taxes of NY to keep a team here in a city that can’t draw enough to pay the bills.

I’m not sure the Wilpons can actually sell the stadium and Network with the team. The Network has other partners and I’m sure there are some restrictions on who and how they can sell it, possibly even giving the cable partners first rights to buy the network and match any offer.

And there is no guarantee whoever buys the team wants the stadium too. Not many people with the kind of money it would take to buy all three…

1 Player at 12 Million who can produce or 6 players at 2 Mil apiece that don’t?

Cause we have a lot of guys signed that are cheap but there is a reason why they are that cheap….
They aren’t worth paying at all!

Your hoping that we are smarter than the rest of the league and can make something out of a player someone else could make anything out of and didn’t even want to try anymore!

Usually when you think your smarter than everyone else and decide you will do better than the other guy in polishing a turd all you get are a bunch of shiny turds that are not worth having unless you have a turd museum to display them in.

You don’t have to pay one player a LOT of money to waste money….
You can pay MANY player a little money that when it is all added up wastes the same amout or MORE!

Because the one guy must be popular enough to give someone hope to buy a ticket at least.

while it may seem high for the production he had last year it’s right inline with what he was doing before the Phillie linup was decimated and he was moved around.

.275BA, 320OBP and HRs in the teens is well worth 13 Mil per, the defense is not in question, he has a bit of speed, switch hits (removing the need to platoon and adds experience and stability to the OF.

If they can’t afford a player like him at 13 Mil per the next three years then they don’t have the money to spend on anyone else the next three years either!

Which means we will not have an OF until Nimmo gets here and even THAT is a big IF!

If Nimmo comes early you can get something for a guy like Victorino, maybe not a Wheeler but if he is a piece of a trade that involves someone like Flores and some of those pitchers we have in A and AA even Stanton is a possibility in a year or two where his value will not be what it might be today.

Just because you get $100 to spend doesn’t mean you have to go buy an over priced product right?

I think that is a big misconception people are having. For example I keep hearing that “next year” the Mets will be judged on the $ they spend. That’s dumb. If we are to assume for a second (big assumption) that the Mets needed in pre-2014 are mostly OF based then have you seen the crop of OF’s avail? Ellsbury, Pence and everybody else.

Just because they HAVE money to get Bourn doesn’t mean they have to compromise their views on how to spend $ to get him.

I would have liked Bourn for 3 with a 4th option and no pick lost. But it didn’t happen. He essentially got a 5th year and I don’t think he’s going to be a starting OF for anybody in 2016 let alone 2017.

What I did find interesting is how that article ended as it seemed to suggest Sandy is more in the area of McDonald than any of the others.

“Put another way: if Alderson’s tenure turns out like McDonald’s, it’ll probably precipitate another sale of the team.”

Thats pretty telling if you ask me….That it is even considered a possibility that it could be as bad as McDonald because I been saying for awhile now the last three offseasons have been more like Mcdonald/Grant 77-79 than Cashen 80-84….

I agree and in fact said that in the paragraph to my my post:

“I expect someone to say spend wisely. That is true BUT with no good FA in 2014 this was the year some commitments beside DW should have been made. It’s on Sandy’s shoulders NOW.”

Metsie kudos to you on Victorino suggestion as Alderson should have been signed him 3 years 39 M and traded if him as you said if Nimmo develops earlier.

Many a time a I have said Sandy’s clock is running effective THIS off season as the Wilpon’s finances have recovered. I hope you realize I am neither a SA lover or hater but it is getting late early and its all on Sandy’s shoulders. Again a GM has to do both short term and long term goals. Steve Phillips did short term exclusively and SA looks like he neglected the short term and lies that he is not punting in 2013.