Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports conducted a comprehensive interview with new MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred spanning a variety of topics and sensitive issues including a question about Mets owners Fred and Jeff Wilpon.
Rosenthal: Another issue — and I know this one is sensitive. The Mets play in one of the biggest markets in the game. I know Commissioner Selig was close with (Mets owner) Fred Wilpon and that you just appointed Mr Wilpon head of your finance committee. Yet this team’s payroll is lower than some lower-revenue teams, certainly projects to be that way again in 2015. How do you justify to their fans the Mets’ inability or reluctance to spend more on players?
Manfred: I’m a huge fan of Sandy Alderson. I think Sandy Alderson is as good a general manager today as there is in the game. You could go back 20 years and argue that he’s one of the best. I think they have developed a strategy with respect to the Mets they’re going to try to grow from within so that they have a team that can be competitive and sustainable, and I have no doubt that as that process continues and it requires the owners of the Mets to invest additional dollars in payroll that they are going to be willing and able to do that.
That’s as close as dodging the question as one could get. Manfred completely steers the conversation to Sandy Alderson and offered nothing at all on the real problem which is ownership.
Manfred, who is looking more and more like a Selig puppet, failed to address the point of Rosenthal’s question which ponders why a team in MLB’s number one market is operating with a bottom five payroll.
Sadly there was no followup question.
I would have asked: Why have low revenue teams like Miami, San Diego, Kansas City and Houston spent most of the $28 million dollars they received from the new National TV contract that kicked in this year, while the Mets enter 2015 with basically the same payroll as last year?
That $28 million is found money that all teams will get annually each January, beginning this year, a virtual bonus that most teams have invested right into their roster this offseason while the Mets pocketed their portion.
One report speculates that the new average MLB payroll will near a record $130 million in 2015 due mostly to teams investing a great portion of their new National TV money. The Mets are at $92 million, a mere $3 million more than last Opening Day. If they trade Daniel Murphy at the deadline as most expect, payroll will actually be less than last year.
The sad reality is that Mets ownership and management prefers that the fans do all the new investing and that it is our responsibility to put up our own money before they spend a dollar more to improve the product on the field and support one of the best young core of players this team has had in a quarter century. What a crying shame.
Hopefully we can win in spite of the creeps that control this team. But it sucks that the Wilpons and all their shills run this team like a second-rate franchise instead of the first class operation it should be.
By the way, I’d suggest reading Rosenthal’s entire interview, he did a fantastic job overall and there is lot’s to digest.
