“Just when I wanted out…they pull me BACK IN!”
Michael Corleone said it best in the Godfather III as the Don of the family who finally wanted to go legit and leave behind his life of crime, murder and corruption. I felt the same way this past MLB draft when the Mets once again – as they have the past few years- proved that the best place to save a buck is telling a young, promising, did I say YOUNG- kid that he’s not worth a few hundred thousand over 3 or 4 years- and decided to reign in spending, placing themselves 20th out of 30 amongst other major league teams.
Here I was thinking, hoping, that just possibly through some minor miracle, or a winning powerball ticket, that the powers that be of the New York Mets would have an epiphany and sign all their draft picks. Like Joe D said, perhaps it’s time to back off the Kool-Aid and wake up.
Earlier this year I wrote a piece on MMO regarding the Mets state of minor league affairs and sadly to say, things never change with this motley crew. Not to come off as a nattering nabob of negativism- and send Bill Safire rolling in his grave- but the Mets are truly becoming as Jeff Pearlman recently stated- the worst franchise in Major League Baseball.
How else can you compare a business that is valued at almost a billion which acts more disjointed and at times laughable that doesn’t have a broken oil rig in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico? Didn’t BP’s CEO say at the time that the oil spill wasn’t really THAT bad in comparison to the big ole’ ocean? Here I thought the sun didn’t rise in England. The Mets are one more embarrassing story away from becoming a TLC reality show.
Now before you say it, the Mets did sign many of their top picks including top pick – pitcher Matt Harvey – albeit at the very last minute- and went over slot on him. Before you pull out the smelling salts you have to weigh it with the rest of the pack that they didn’t sign.
Somehow the brain-trust thought that offering somewhere in the neighborhood of $400 thousand for a high schooler was just too rich for their orange and blue blood- the same blood that was apparently flowing like a hemophiliac at a Twilight convention when Ollie Perez was up for free agency last time. The really sad part about this is that you can’t even blame the Madoff scandal for the Mets paltry draft budget. This has been going on for years.
So once again the Mets find themselves outspent this MLB draft by that powerhouse of a franchise, the Pittsburgh Pirates. Just on principle alone that should make the brain-trust want to pummel a player’s father in law to a pulp but they digress.
I hear that TLC has offered the Mets a prime time slot right up there with Cake Boss and Toddlers and Tiaras. It’s titled 24 Years and Counting. Move over Howard Megdal I hear Jon Gosselin is up for Minaya’s job. This could get ugly.
