The Captain is on the deck… Oh, how I thought I’d never hear those words again… Luckily, this time I don’t have to drop whatever it is I’m doing and come to immediate attention.
But the Mets’ captain wants your attention… He has a message for you… He’s all in and he still loves “The Plan”.
“I’m all in for this organization,” Wright said told reporters on Thursday. “Everybody has said with the money coming off the books, with the job that our minor-league development has done, we have some valuable pieces and some money to spend. I’m obviously expecting this team to be a lot better next year than we have been in previous years.”
Sounds like Wright is drinking the Koolaid doesn’t it? Or does he simply know something we don’t know?
Do you believe Fred Wilpon shares his most inner financial thoughts with David Wright?
Last year, Wright kicked in $8 million of his own money, interest free, in the hopes that it would be invested in the team last offseason. It wasn’t.
Payroll was actually $2 million less in 2013 than what it was the year before. But thanks anyway, David, and shame on the Mets for pocketing your well-deserved and hard-earned millions.
“Hopefully the front office got everything they needed to see with who they want to move forward with and those tough decisions to either trade or not sign or whatever those tough decisions that need to be made,” Wright said.
Yes, but hope is neither a plan or a strategy or a game-plan… Hope is one notch above despair in the grand scheme of things.
The Mets will have roughly $40-45 million to spend this offseason, but already there are rumblings that they won’t target any high-priced players and won’t target anyone that will cost a draft pick (first or second round).
You see, this team does not belong to you or David Wright or Sandy Alderson.
Neither you nor them call the financial shots around here, and the one that does is already sending out his feelers as to what the Mets can or cannot do this Winter.
This is no different than what we’ve seen since 2009 – the day the music died.
The folks at SNY are already gearing up to tell you that the Mets are interested in Hunter Pence and Shin-Soo Choo and Carlos Beltran and any other name that might appeal to your sensibilities. They want your interest. They want your money.
After his tear-jerking “I believe in 2013” sentiments when he said “the time for evaluating was over” last October, Sandy and SNY treated this season no differently than the two previous seasons.
The only difference was that we had Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler, Juan Lagares and Josh Satin hit the ground running and embracing us with that wonderfully warm feeling of hope. Oh, what a sensation…
Over at SNY’s MetsBlog, they say that “Alderson was right to let 2013 season play out.”
Here we are, three full years later and we still don’t know who our first baseman and shortstop is. We still don’t know who our three starting outfielders are. We still don’t know if second base is settled. And for all of you who think the bullpen was solid this season, they are still ranked 13th in the NL and we have no idea if our best reliever, Bobby Parnell, will be ready next Spring.
We have more questions surrounding this team than we did at the end of the 2010 season and that is an indisputable fact.
Lets stay grounded in facts, shall we?
What facts do you see that leads you to believe that the owner of the New York Mets will approach this offseason any differently than he has previously?
Have you seen any statements confirming that payroll will be at or around $100 million dollars?
Aside from saying that he will spend this offseason, have you heard Sandy Alderson say “how much” he will spend?
Factually speaking, Alderson spent last offseason and the one before it as well. So how much he will spend is very germane to this conversation, isn’t it?
Lets face it and lets call a spade a spade. You’re all just hoping things will be different and that things will be better… But the truth is you have nothing tangible other than that hope, do you?
David Wright is hoping too…
Hey, I hope I’m wrong. But unfortunately I’ve seen this Broadway show too many times before, and I know how it will end.
But we’re Met fans, right? We gotta believe, right?
I’ll believe…. I’ll believe it when I see it…
Basically, I just go into every new season rooting for my team to do the best they can do with what they have. I love watching every game and celebrating every win and every great moment.
But I’m no fool and I fully understand that every offseason is simply a propaganda campaign to sell season tickets.
The Mets will be interested in every marquee player out there. MetsBlog will be churning out those Mets rumors like nobody else because they need to create the Grand Illusion that things are different.
Every offseason we’re told that “this time it will be different.” But alas, they ultimately remain the same. The year is different, but as Robert Plant once screamed, “The song remains the same.”
Change always starts at the top… That’s where Fred and Saul and Jeff reside… And SNY is their megaphone…
#SellTheTeam
