If you follow me on Twitter (@ttlsportsblog), you will notice that I am very passionate about the New York Mets. Almost everyday I engage in some kind of Twitter chatter that revolves around the upcoming season. With pitchers and catchers reporting in a few days, it’s time to deploy Operation: Everybody Cool Out.
Before last week, all anyone wanted to do was cry about how the Mets are going bankrupt and have no money to spend on players. While I completely agree that money is a problem, and probably will be for the short-term, maybe it’s not a bad thing? Fiscal responsibility is a HUGE part or running a professional franchise that many fans don’t seem to understand, or want to understand. The only way to sustain a successful business is to make money. Plain and simple: If you spend more than you are making, your business fails. With hundreds of millions of dollars in loans due soon, coupled with dropping attendance and a bloated payroll, this business model just can’t work.
Sandy Alderson was brought into this organization to clean up someone else’s mess. Yes, he was a major part of the “Moneyball” Oakland Athletics, but as he said on WFAN today, he’s not here to run the team like that. There have been many articles written in the past few weeks about how the Mets have trimmed $52 million off last year’s payroll. But what people are failing to understand is that the $52 million has come in the form of Ollie Perez, Louis Castillo, Frankie Rodriguez, Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes. Ollie Perez and Louis Castillo played exactly zero games for the Mets last year. That’s $18 million right there. Frankie Rodriguez, who no one wanted around either, was another $12 million. Carlos Beltran was $20 million, who Alderson spun into Zach Wheeler when he robbed the San Francisco Giants with a ski mask and a gun. And finally, there’s Jose Reyes. In the final year of his contract, he was making $11 million. This one has come under much scrutiny. But the more and more I think about it, 6 years and $100 million + for a guy who’s legs are a constant problem, just isn’t the right business move. Read the rest of this entry »