Mets 2012 predictions

The new year 2012 is upon us, and I have a few predictions for the Mets for this year.

1. I will not win the Banner Day competition, but I will have lots of fun creating a banner and participating. And that's what it's all about.
2. The Sterling Equities partners will no longer control the New York Mets (by year's end). They will not get enough investors to loan them money in exchange for usage of Mr. Met and a Citi Field parking space (which I heard is actually only good when Citi Field's lot is used as a park-and-ride lot). They will have to pay more money than they can afford in Bernie Madoff-related lawsuits. And other owners in MLB will force Bud Selig's hand over the liquidity issues and loans from MLB that they'll basically kick Fred Wilpon out of the club. Sterling Equities real estate will also crumble over the weight of what Fred Wilpon will owe (remember, separate from the Mets, they made money from Madoff that will have to be given back).
3. The 2013 MLB All Star Game will not be awarded to Citi Field. Same with the 2014 game or the 2015 game. It won't be awarded until new ownership is firmly in place, though I expect to see it as something thrown into the pot for a new owner (sort of like how the Astros deal had a condition on them moving to the AL West).
4. The Mets will have a bad product on the field in 2012. It won't be fun to watch. And attendance will dip, again. That will cause the Mets to lose $100 million in 2012. It's kind of the opposite of "it takes money to make money".
5. The most attended event at Citi Field will be a concert and not a sporting event.
6. The NHL Winter Classic will not be at Citi Field in 2012 (or probably, ever). Reason - it's not Yankee Stadium. We just have to live with it.
7. David Wright will be traded before the trade deadline.
8. Johan Santana will be healthy enough to have trade talks centered around him during the season until a season ending injury (though it'll be something freak and mis-handled, and not related to any of the other injuries he's had with the Mets).
9. R.A. Dickey will be the Mets representative at the All Star Game
10. Howie Rose will be paired with Jim Duquette on WFAN. It should be fun to listen to.

Happy 2012 Mets fans! Mets 2012, rejuvenated at 50!


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Writer's Block And Some Other Thoughts

I realized that I haven't written very much on the blog in the last 6 months, outside of some news pieces about the NY Sports Emmys, some sound bytes, and my Spring Training trip. At work, I had a busy few months that started right after the season ended (thank goodness it wasn't during the season) and ended right before Spring Training started. And frankly, there wasn't a whole lot to say that hadn't already been said.

I also think I've had a case of writer's block for some time. Facebook has sort of ruined me in that respect. If you don't follow my blog on facebook, please do so. I post a lot of smaller items (small enough to fit into a facebook status update) there, that just wouldn't work as well as full blog posts that follow my style of blogging, and I've found there is more interaction on facebook. Of course, I like comments and dialogue on the posts written here as well (and as always, thank you all for reading/following my writings). I just noticed that I had exactly half as many posts in 2010 as I had in 2009 when there was so much more original thoughts to speak. At first, I looked at this as a sort of therapy for following the Mets. It's helped, but I think I need a little more. I'm actually getting a little bit of inspiration by sitting in my Shea seats watching Billy Joel Live At Shea Stadium for the first time (buy the DVD, CD, and/or BluRay, and the documentary).

The Mets were utter failures last season. Changes in the GM's office and the Manager and coaching staff were made. I really didn't know enough about those new guys (and still don't) to write anything insightful. With this blog, I like to write some sort of unique-ish feature article and commentary. You may realize this, but I don't post news, game previews, or game recaps. I leave that to the professionals who have the inside scoop, and to other blogs. Anyway, there just wasn't anything to write about that hasn't already been said, either by me or by someone else.

All that being said, we're in a new era of Mets baseball. It's the 50th season, and the first time since 2005 that there is new leadership at the top two levels (the "top two" being one and two levels below the owner, where the ownership is a whole separate issue). I like the overall change in direction that the Mets have made. These changes should have been made during or after the 2009 season. But they weren't, and maybe it will work out for the better.

But I started saying this in 2009, and I was thinking it a lot in the first 3 weeks of this season -- the Mets need to clean house and rebuild. Get rid of anyone who was around for the playoff failure of 2006, the collapse of 2007, and the redux of 2008. Those players in my mind are tagged as "losers". Since they didn't clean house going into 2009, and 2009 utterly sucked, I'll go and add on players from the 2009 Mets to that list. I don't have an exact number of players (I'm not big on research like that), but it involves some real core players. They need to go. What was that line about Ralph Kiner?

On June 4, 1953, Kiner was sent to the Chicago Cubs as part of a ten-player trade. This was largely due to continued salary disputes with Pirate general manager Branch Rickey, who reportedly told Kiner, "We finished last with you, we can finish last without you."
from Wikipedia

The Mets haven't won, and have been labeled "losers" with the likes of David Wright and Carlos Beltran leading the team. Quite an endorsement, isn't it? Cut 'em. I'll admit, I haven't been high on David Wright for a couple of years now, but this is more than just him. I was throwing around the idea of packaging up Wright and Mike Pelfrey in a trade and I wasn't exactly shot down on that one.

Sandy Alderson started going in the right direction over the offseason, but he needs to make the big jump. And this has nothing to do with the money problems that the Mets face. Every time the Mets have come close to success in their 49 years, there has been a moment where it fell apart, and within a few years, it was a very low point. I wrote about it in 2009. Nothing was fixed until the team brought in a new regime and cleaned house. That's been a pattern for most of the team's lifespan.

Now, since I started mulling this part over in my head, Jason Bay returned to the lineup, his head seems to be clear, and the Mets look like a different team. 3 wins in a row now. I think the expression is "break up the Mets". Well, that's what I've been thinking. I don't think a 3 game winning streak (or however long it winds up being) changes anything in the long run. But I also have to ask the question if this is a .500 team (which is in the neighborhood of what I had predicted) that just had a bad week and things will even out, or is this a really bad team that's currently in a short hot streak. The 2008 team that suffered the franchise's second collapse in as many seasons was a .500 team that had a good stretch, not long after the manager was fired. This year's team had a good stretch after a long lost player returned from a new short-term injury from Spring Training.

Well, it's April, so I don't really know the answers. That's why they play the games.

But looking long term, the biggest factors are whether or not Sandy Alderson will listen to what I have written here (I doubt he reads my blog, or at least would have the message passed to him, and it's not like I'm sending this out to him, but maybe he has similar ideas), and how the ownership situation will play out. I wrote back in my lone post from January what I thought of the Madoff-related lawsuit and boldly said that within a year (of that point) that the Wilpon family will no longer be in control of the Mets. I even followed it up with another realization on the matter.

Since that post, where I speculated that they would have a hard time selling off 25% of the club (now that's up to 49%) without giving up some control, which has played out, we learned that the Mets needed a loan from MLB (and tried to get a second loan) during the offseason just to make ends meet. That's just scary, especially for a New York team. And the lawsuit, which really really should be on the owners personally and not on the team, hasn't even been settled/judged, so that's just a huge wildcard. And now the Dodgers are in an even worse situation than the Mets are. How ironic! MLB has even had to step in and assume control of the Dodgers. I'm sure if Bud Selig and Frank McCourt (the Dodgers co-owner) were buddy-buddy like Selig and Fred Wilpon are, maybe it would play out differently. Bud Selig needs to do the same thing with the Mets that he did with the Dodgers, and that is to appoint someone to oversee anything that goes on with the ballclub. Maybe that's what Sandy Alderson is doing in Flushing. And he needs to step up and force out owners who are bad for the game, such as the two mentioned here. Unfortuately, the Mets will have been run completely into dire financial straits before that happens.


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The Wilpons Are Victims

I think I came to a realization today - the Madoff scheme did have an impact on the Mets operations. It gave the Mets owners the impression for many years that they had the money to first buy out Nelson Doubleday and then run the Mets. I think we're seeing that without those fake funds, they can't run the club.

In that way, Fred Wilpon, Saul Katz, Jeff Wilpon, and even the millions of Mets fans in the world are all victims. The Wilpons were victims of Bernie Madoff, but instead of losing their life savings or losing their charity fund, they're going to lose their ballclub.

Now, this doesn't impact how anyone should look at the Picard lawsuit. They should have to give back the money they "made" from Madoff. The problem is, they've invested it in the New York Mets, clawing from the, whatever it is, 5% they had in 1986 to the 99% of the club that they're cited as owning now. So they should have to give back sell off a portion of the club.

The problem is that the Wilpons aren't the ones coming out and saying this. Their names are getting dragged through the mud by the lawsuit and from all of the other dirt that the New York Times digs up and prints. Don't get me wrong, I don't like the current Mets owners, and I wish them enough harm to have to make them go away, and I'm not defending anything their lying asses have said or done. But they're victims. They're victims who still have money (well, I'm starting to wonder about that given how they're begging their Buddy Selig for cash after getting a loan, all since the end of last season).

With all that, the Wilpons have made some stupid decisions. Citi Field. Citi Field ticket prices. Obstructed views at Citi Field. Oliver Perez (wait, that was actually Omar Minaya). Omar Minaya (wait, he actually wasn't bad at first). The end of the 2007 season (wait, that was Willie Randolph's fault). The end of the 2008 season (wait, that was Jerry Manuel's fault). The 2009 season (ok, that was Omar's and the trainer's faults). The 2010 season (Jerry again). But the buck stops here.

Fred Wilpon needs to step up to the plate. I don't think he's going to admit that mistakes were made with Citi Field or with the past half decade, but he does need to man up and say that he lost a big source of revenue (at least on paper, being the profits from his million Madoff funds; and I mean "lost" in that he doesn't have these accounts any more giving him money), it's caused a lot of financial problems with the club (hence the loan last fall and the begging for more money now) and this is why he needs to sell of what really should be at least 60% of the ballclub. He needs to admit that if he has to pay back the money that he made of Madoff (the money he used to purchase in full and then run the Mets), then he would need to sell off the rest of the club (poetic justice). He needs to quit hiding around the fact that he's a victim and man up to both the truth and reality.

Otherwise we're all going to be vicitims of something.


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The Legacy of Fred Wilpon

I'm sure you've all heard the Mets' latest news conference and/or read the growing number of articles from newspapers that are painting a picture of the Mets latest woes. But let me recap in my own words...

Mets owner, Fred Wilpon, a longtime friend of swindler Bernard Madoff, has found that he needs some money to help keep the Mets running as a first class organization. It's been widely reported that a mega-buck lawsuit has been filed against Mr. Wilpon in relation to the money he made investing with his friend.

Let me go on record and state this - I think within a year, the Wilpon family will no longer control the New York Mets. I really do think this lawsuit, and other Madoff-related business will result in the Wilpons needing to sell at least 50% of the Mets ballclub, and maybe closer to 100% of it. I can almost see Fred Wilpon walking out of the ballpark in tears of shame over this (if he hasn't already - remember, Wilpon and Son have kept saying that the Madoff business doesn't impact the Mets business, and somehow, trying to sell about 25% of the club to raise cash is some sort of impact).

Fred Wilpon, for 31 years, has had an owership stake in the New York Mets, purchasing a 5% share, along with Doubleday publishing, in 1980 from Joan Payson's heirs. Fred Wilpon worked his way up to 50% in the fall of 1986 when Doubleday publishing was sold (in a move that wasn't supposed to change anything about Mets' operations, and Nelson Doubleday, as a person, became co-owner, instead of being an owner through his company). In 2002, Wilpon bought out Nelson Doubleday to gain full control of the club and installed his son in a high-level position.

In that time, the Mets have never been able to sustain winning for long periods of time, usually falling down to very low lows after coming oh so close.

I never liked Fred or Jeff Wilpon. I'm sure Fred Wilpon is a fine man, and I'm sure he's a good real estate person (where he has built up his fortune). But he was never a good baseball man. His son is even worse at it (at least Fred has skills outside of the Mets). But I never thought of either of them as crooks (well, stealing our money for that brick thing they call a ballpark for what they call a "team", but that's not at issue here). They probably aren't crooks, Fred was just associated with one. But it's going to cost them billions and a legacy.

The Madoff scandal's effect on the Mets is going to be much worse than originally thought. And the way the Mets have been run, and how they have played over the past few years is going to make things much much worse for Wilpon and Son.

It was asked in the press conference on Friday (which you can read here) what you can get for your millions of dollars for a non-controlling piece of the ballclub. Like most of the answers, they seemed to me like they were all non-answers (I'll excuse the ones where they couldn't answer because of pending legal matters).

So why would you want to spend that kind of money to get in bed with the Wilpons here? I think the answer is to be able to gain a larger stake in the club, maybe a controlling stake. Aside from that, I can't see any upside, especially in this economy. It was already stated that the Wilpons have tried to sell off part of the club to raise cash to no avail. Of course, this whole thing is about them seeking help, but I think it will be tough. The price will drive down, or in order to get the money they need, they have to sell off more. This is why I think this will eventually lead to the Wilpons no longer being in control of the Mets within a year. Remember, they continually denied (lied?) that Madoff would have any effect on the Mets ballclub, and here we are.

I see the Wilpons in a position to have to sell more of the club to get what they want. Maybe they know it. Maybe they're denying it. Maybe that have a plan.

Now let me ask this...would you rather see a brand-name come in with a smaller piece of the club (say 25%) and then this person comes in to bail out the Wilpons again buying another 25% (or more), or would you rather see a silent partner come in, basically with cash?


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Mets refinancing $375 million in debt

I don't quite know what it all means, but from Biz of Baseball (scroll down).

Ever since it was revealed that Mets owner Fred Wilpon was a client of Bernie Madoff there has been speculation surrounding the financial well being of his baseball franchise. Those concerns should be alleviated with the news that the Mets recently refinanced $375 million of debt. LWIB Daniel Kaplan reported for the SportsBusiness Journal, "The New York Mets holding company is close to refinancing $375 million of debt, sources said, underscoring that despite the team’s troubles at the gate and concerns about the franchise’s owners, the Wilpon family, having lost money in the Bernie Madoff investment scandal, the club continues to perform well financially.

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F-You, F. Wilpon

If I had seen Fred Wilpon greeting fans at either Saturday's or Sunday's game, this is what I would have said to him (somewhat of an assumption is that he's thanking fans for coming out to see the Mets and that he doesn't apologize for anything).

Mr. Wilpon, I think you owe me more than a "thanks for coming". I think you owe me an apology. You owe all fans an apology. You should step up to the microphone and say to the fans and media, "I'm sorry for the way things turned out. I'm sorry for all the injuries. I'm sorry for the bad play. I'm sorry for what happened with Adam Rubin and Tony Bernazard. I'm sorry for 2009. The buck stops here, and I accept full responsibility."

OK, that last line is a bit corny and dripping with a punchline.

Mr. Wilpon, even with that, I can't accept your apology. I'm not sure why, but I can't. But it's good that you said it. It was a start. But you owe us more. You owe me more.

What about (the absurdly high) ticket prices? What about (deceptive) ticket packages? Why so expensive to park your car at the ballpark? Where are the Mets colors? Where is the Mets Hall Of Fame? Why did we have to force you to put up the Mets (championship outfield wall) banners? Why did we have to force you to put up Mets photos and "imagery"? Why is it all black-and-white? Why are there no statues (like of Tom Seaver, "The Franchise")? Why were so many photos and banners sold (online and then at auction). Why haven't more numbers been retired? Why couldn't you have fixed/renovated Shea?

That's worked in other ballparks.

Why not (formally call it) the "Gil Hodges Bridge", and in front of it, "The (Mike) Piazza"? Why not "Casey Stengel Plaza" (behind the Promenade Club over the Rotunda)? Why not allow us to congregate at a bar called "The Happy Recap"? Why are the pieces of Shea (scoreboard skyline and home run apple) hidden (behind the big scoreboard and behind the bullpens respectively)? Why have so many restricted areas? Why focus on suites and corporate instead of the fans?

I think they'll learn the hard way what happens when the fans stop showing up.

Why didn't you have the banners out where everyone could see them? Why did you get away from the familiar names of "Loge", "Mezzanine", and "Upper Deck" and their familiar colors in favor of country club names and a generic color? Why didn't you see the (seating) obstructions?

Why didn't you stop and review medical practice and procedure when players started dropping like flies? Why were so many players trying to rest an injury only to end up on the DL? Why were we strung along to think there was real hope for all these guys? Why was there no depth in the farm system? Why were we made to believe that the core group was a winning group? Who is supposed to be accountable for the endings of the past 4 seasons? Why do we continue to build the team up only to see it fall down again after a few years?

Other bloggers have written their own letters or purging their ill will, and I'll go read them now. I purposely didn't want those opinions to get in the way of my own.


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Too Little, Too Late

The Mets put out a press release and an email announcing that season ticket prices will be reduced by 10% to 20% for next season. I'm still trying to process that thought. Studious Metsimus, MetsPolice, MetsPolice again, and again, Loge13, and Citi Field of Dreams among others have this one covered.

There's a lot of ill will from Mets fans towards Fred and Jeff Wilpon and the rest of the Mets ownership. I fell it too. I have a post that I wanted to have ready now but expect it to be next week where I address Fred Wilpon directly. My Summer Family, and Faith and Fear In Flushing have that sentiment covered too.

Meanwhile, The Daily Stache looks at the big question what if bloggers ran the Mets?

I'll get to reading all of these posts soon, along with others soon. I'll be at the final 2 games of the season. And on Monday, we'll be in off season mode. Spring Training games start on March 2 against the Braves (thanks to Gary Cohen for saying that on air tonight).


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