Fred and Jeff Wilpon are probably the worst owners in professional baseball at this time, possibly the worst in all of professional sports. They are immensely unpopular with the fan base of their own team.
Whenever Mets fans discuss the Wilpons I am reminded of the line Buddy Hackett used to use referring to sportscaster Howard Cosell. He would say: “Most people hate Howard like poison. But I don’t. I just hate him regular.”
So whether you’re a Mets fan who hates the Wilpons like poison or just regular it is most probable that you would love to see them (and yes I know I’m giving Fred’s brother-in-law Saul Katz a pass here) sell the team to someone who is not knee deep in debt and someone committed to creating a winning baseball team.
Fred Wilpon has made it clear that it is his intention to not sell and to pass the team along to his family after he is gone.
We do not know the exact financials but do know that the club has a huge debt service it is carrying and likely is losing money annually. Even though Forbes has estimated the worth of the club at $1.35 billion one has to wonder what kind of profit the owners would walk away with if they sold and paid off all the outstanding Mets/CitiField/SNY debts.
Over the decades Major League Baseball has had numerous bad owners including outright scoundrels. Wayne Huizenga comes to mind and current Marlins’ owner Jeffrey Luria is quite the piece of work himself. Usually the commissioner and the powers that be just let them go about their merry way. On rare occasions, like with the McCourts in LA, baseball forces a sale to be rid of the worst of worst.
The question at hand is whether the new commissioner Rob Manfred is at all interested in seeing the Wilpons replaced by better owners. Unfortunately the answer seems to be no. Manfred was former commissioner Bud Selig’s assistant and his designated successor. Selig and the Wilpons have always been tight and while we do not know the politics involved there we do know that Selig has supported Fred Wilpon for years. It is unlikely that Manfred would turn in the opposite direction and try to oust Fred/Jeff/Saul.
Further it is not just a question of what the commissioner wants. One has to think that all the other teams in the NL East are happy having a financially challenged franchise in the huge New York television market. While it might not be great for the game itself it only makes it easier for Washington, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Miami to compete for playoff spots. For that matter clubs like the Chicago Cubs and the LA Dodgers don’t need another deep pocketed team out there vying for the top free agents. The bottom feeding Mets are automatically out these days when it comes to any high or average priced free agents. That’s just one less team to compete against.
Now this is not to say that there is no hope for the Mets at all. One can certainly envision fortuitous scenarios where most of the Mets’ young stud starters stay reasonably healthy, Michael Conforto comes up and is an above average low-salaried hitter, David Wright’s back decides to unstenose (I made that word up) and the club sneaks into the playoffs once or twice in the next half decade.
The problem is that a debt ridden ownership will almost always be behind the 8-ball. As the team does a bit better its draft position weakens. As the aces like Harvey, deGrom, Syndegaard, Matz, and Wheeler hit arbitration and then free agency they will all walk or be traded off. Without a skillful manipulator like Billy Beane to pull this off the talent level will nosedive. Any injuries are multiplied in severity due to an inability to have acceptable major league ready reserves.
As long as the Wilpons own the franchise it will always be competing with one arm tied behind its back. And the shame of it is that there’s no way out short of hoping that financial Armageddon strikes these owners.
I wish fans would stop writing articles like this.
The Wilpons aren’t doing anything to put MLB at risk. Until they do this, there’s no reason for them to care. Until the Mets do something that would risk airing private financial information in public, MLB is fine with the way they run the club.
Arguments about how this is not the way to run a big-market team (however true they may be) carry absolutely no weight with MLB. That’s a fan issue, not an MLB issue.
Once the Wilpons cleared the clawbacks suit in the Madoff mess, they were home free. They didn’t have to come up with a bunch of money they didn’t have and the lawsuit didn’t air any dirty laundry of the other owners.
Now all they have to do is keep paying the bills and MLB is happy. Meet payroll, meet the revenue sharing payments, pay the creditors and there’s nothing to concern the league.
Nothing to concern the league at all. Those who say the league should do something are the equivalent of a 2year old having a tantrum in public.
While this may have been true in the past, Manfred truly seems to be a commissioner for the fans, doing things that will make a majority of them happy. I would not be surprised if he visited this topic and had a talk with the Wilsons.
I think you hit it exactly on the head here there is no compelling interest to force the commissioner to act on this. Frankly if I were an owner and saw my commissioner moving to strip me of another owners franchise because he did not like how they spent their money or did not spend it I’d think it were time for a new commissioner.
Its one thing to move to remove an owner who is failing to make payroll and allegedly actively and knowingly committing fraud or as in the NBA take down an owner who’s statements on race are causing a labor issue and coasting you sponsors. It is wholly another thing to get ride of an ownership group because you think they should behave differently in their market.
That also presupposes you do think they should act differently. both Bud and Rob had a stated goal of curtailing salary inflation when teams focus on prospects and don’t get into biding wars over players like peralta it furthers that goal. When teams put a higher value on their own prospects than highly paid rental players it can also aid that goal by keeping the bulk of their payroll on pre free agent players.
Did you read Manfred’s comments from the other day?
It ridiculous. The Wilpons are going nowhere. MLB probably paid to settle the Casterline lawsuit.
Bad owners exist in all forms of business. Sports is in your face unlike a local manufacturing company. Owners have the right to do what they want,. Unfortunately, the only method the fan has to complain is to stay home. This does not make a big enough difference to the owner. TV revenue and ego will keep them for selling. What a shame, especially in NYC where we once had great National League Baseball.