FAKE NEWS - Payroll 2018

[Centerfield]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Ricco is going to be the guest on Mets Hot Stove on Thursday. I'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say.

You've been plugging that show a lot lately. I wonder if you've been paid off.

Are you here to talk about Qualcomm?

[Benjamin Grimm]

We have a deal in place. If I plug Mets Hot Stove, SNY will plug Maja's reality show.

[Centerfield]

Payroll? No problem. Sandy's got it under control.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/sandy-alderson-insists-mets-payroll-won-obstacle-article-1.3694193

"I know a lot of attention is paid to payroll. I know a lot of attention is paid to payroll, but we had a pretty good payroll last year and it went down because of some trades and so forth and I expect we will have a healthy payroll this year," Alderson said.

Well, that at least sounds encouraging right? Maybe Sandy is just waiting for the top of the market to fall so he can get a steal like the Indians did with Edwin Encarnacion!

[dgwphotography]

I don't trust them, and wouldn't believe them if they told me the sky was blue. Let's see what the Payroll is on Opening Day

[G-Fafif]

dgwphotography wrote: I don't trust them, and wouldn't believe them if they told me the sky was blue. Let's see what the Payroll is on Opening Day

"There needs to be less of a focus on the color of the sky," Alderson said. "There is a variety of clouds and atmospheric conditions and we'll be taking all of them into account."

[Ceetar]

Sandy is definitely partially trolling sometimes with this stuff.

[Centerfield]

I moved this discussion to the payroll thread since it's more on point here.

dgwphotography wrote: Centerfield wrote: If you think about it, it's mind-boggling that the Mets went "over budget" last year. Considering they were still not top 10, AND they collected on Wright all year long. This. Does anyone know what the Mets' Fan cost Index was for 2017? I remember a few years ago, their payroll was ranked 23rd (IIRC), yet they were 7th in FCI.

Don't really know what FCI is. But according to Forbes, the Mets had the 7th highest revenue in 2017. Yet somehow, they went over budget despite having a 12th ranked payroll and collecting David Wright insurance money (meaning their payroll was actually not nearly as high).

This can only mean one thing. Their expenses are extraordinarily high. We know why this is the case. They refinanced their debt in the early part of this decade, pulled out hundreds of millions of dollars, and saddled that debt upon the Mets and SNY. This is why the 7th highest revenue team can't field the 7th highest payroll in baseball.

Now, I wonder what they Wilpons did with those hundreds of millions of dollars? I don't think we can really tell. I mean, I'm sure that's all been reinvested in the Mets. It's not like the Wilpons, successful real estate investors, suddenly and unexpectedly found themselves in a situation where they had to pay somebody truckloads of money...

[Ceetar]

I don't think they went over budget last year.

I also don't know what exactly Forbes is measuring, but I do know it's an incomplete picture.

[Centerfield]

Ceetar wrote: I don't think they went over budget last year.

“I can tell you from an operational standpoint, I look at it this way,” Alderson said. “If I persuade the owner that it’s best to spend an extra 10 to 15 million dollars to go for it — but I also assure him that if it doesn’t work out I can move 9 or 10 or 12 million dollars — having actually done it gives me a better case going forward.”

https://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/mets/mets-gm-sandy-alderson-hints-that-team-was-over-budget-1.14065413

Ceetar wrote: I also don't know what exactly Forbes is measuring, but I do know it's an incomplete picture.

You are correct sir.

Revenue and expenses of team-owned real estate (stadiums, stores, parking lots, etc.) owned by the team are included in our valuations, but the value of the real estate itself is excluded. We also do not include the value of regional sports networks owned by teams or their profits or losses. But we do include the rights fees (and pro-rated upfront bonuses) the RSNs pay the teams.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2017/04/11/baseball-team-values-2017/#b0441de24515

Because Forbes is taking into account revenue derived by the teams (including TV rights fees), but do not include the revenue from sports networks owned by the teams (like SNY), clubs like the Yankees and Mets actually have higher revenues than listed. And if those teams happen to play in large TV markets, like say, New York, then the revenue from those team owned stations would be considerable.

It is reasonable to conclude that the Mets would move comfortably into the top 5 if you compare apples to apples.

[Ceetar]

That's not a quote about a hard budget as much as it is a justification for additional gambles.

I mean that Forbes is estimating/analyzing those revenue streams but is not completely aware of how they're divied up or the specifics of the loan payments against them. It gets murky.

I mean, the Mets DO owe money on Citi Field and I'm fairly confident the Wilpons count the money they have to pay against that as a Mets cost, not a personal one. Even if they technically paid off that debt with an external loan from Bank of America that's consolidated with other debt, etc.

I'm not saying this is good, or right, or whatever. I do think it's fairly consistent since they got the Mets back above water, in the way they spend. Theoretically this will only get better though, as they keep the Mets in a positive state, as they pay back debt, and as the Mets actually gain in value and (hopefully) leverage at least decent team into success and profit.

And that's what I mean when I say i don't really care about the payroll, it's that I've made my peace with the strategy, nothing I rant about is going to change it, the Wilpons are in no danger of losing the team through fan pressure or financial ones. I can only watch and enjoy my team.

[Lefty Specialist]

Well, Jay Horwitz and all that extra legroom on JetBlue could be a contributing factor in their money troubles.

[batmagadanleadoff]

I think you guys are really over-complicating things with this what does Forbes know and do the Mets take in this much or that much from parking revenues multiplied by the square root of pi divided by their market size.

The Mets play in the greatest city in the world. It's the same exact city that the Yankees play in. The Mets enjoy the same exact gargantuan competitive advantages that any team should derive from playing in this city. Just like the Yankees.

So a little Occam's Razor here. The Mets should have one of the top two, three, four or five payrolls every single season. They don't. It's because the ownership is cheap, inept and ineffective.

[Centerfield]

I never view providing evidence as "over-complicating". But the evidence points to the same result. If they are #7 before counting SNY revenue, they are comfortably top 5. If not top 2.

I think it's worse than being incompetent or cheap. I think they are crooks. They are taking Mets revenue to payoff Madoff debt. It's a practice that was deemed to be not in the best interest of the game when it was Frank McCourt and led him to be stripped of his team. When their buddy Selig saw that the Wilpons were guilty of the same, instead of booting them, he gave the Wilpons a loan.

They are crooked and corrupt. Dishonest. They should be out of baseball, but they remain, like a curse on this beloved team. They talk about CitiField being cursed, the only curse here is the Wilpons.

[Centerfield]

And look, I get that a lot of you have made your peace with this. This is just how things are, nothing we can do about it.

It makes me angry. Every off-season the injustice of it pisses me off. And the way the media lets them off the hook. No one is panning them. There are no anti-Wilpon articles. There are no "Wilpons must go" articles. It's only the fans that say and feel this. Can't understand why.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

It doesn't do my temperament any good to riled up about it, and I think it helps me to have some perspective the Wilpons aren't the first bad owners of this club and won't be its last bad owners; and that baseball history is pretty much all about shitty owners and the Wilpons might not even rate with the kind villains it that group.

Plus, and this is just my own theory I tell myself, but I think its clear the problem with the ownership isn't that they're evil but that they're stupid, and the main stupid guy is 81 years old.

That New Yorker article was the best take I'd ever read on Fred. Everyone should re-read it.

Fred is a unique kind of "success" in that achieving it had nothing to do with brains or instinct or savvy, but he thinks it has. It's really only about the relationships he makes and what they make permissible. So he makes a deal with a guy like Madoff; its irrelevant to Fred whether Madoff's a crook or not, it may not even occur to Fred that being a crook is wrong, at least not for a guy who has his trust. Art Howe impresses Fred personally, therefore Fred believes he'll impress everyone. Fred buys a baseball team, that makes Fred a baseball expert. Fred has a personal relationship to the 1950s Dodgers, therefore the stadium evokes them. Fred rubs Bud Selig's back, Bud rubs Fred's. Fred feels bad about what a mess he's made of the Mets, he thinks an interview with the New Yorker will convince everyone to see it his way.

But put the guy in a situation where savvy, instinct or brains are required and Fred just comes up empty again and again. He doesn't understand the fans but thinks he does; he doesn't appear capable of dedication or adherence to a framework but decides everything on a case-by-case basis. That's why nobody knows what the payroll is; it's not that Fred is evil, it's that he's incompetent and doesn't know it. That's really a fascinating lesson in business.

Jeff seems to have inherited at least some of his dad's tone-deafness in a more aggressive, modern way (the harassment thing) but I also tell myself he's more in-tune with the real world. He may not prove any smarter than his dad in the end, and we'll probably see *his* son working up the ladder soon but and I tell myself the Mets could be something different when Fred and Saul (78) go.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Centerfield wrote: I think it's worse than being incompetent or cheap. I think they are crooks. They are taking Mets revenue to payoff Madoff debt. It's a practice that was deemed to be not in the best interest of the game when it was Frank McCourt and led him to be stripped of his team....

I totally agree with this double standard. The only real reason the Wilpons were allowed to keep their team, but not McCourt, is because the Wilpons relationship with Selig was cozier than McCourt's. Any other explanation is utter bullshit.

And the Wilpons probably are crooks. The Madoff trustee presented powerful evidence that the Mets owners had to have known that Madoff's funds were Ponzi schemes. At the least, they were willfully ignorant. FWIW, I personally believe that the Mets owners knew they were invested in a total scam. I mean, they're probably crooks even before Madoff. How the hell do you build a billion dollar empire from nothing in the dirty, cutthroat world of New York real estate without any corruption? The whole goddamn world of masters of universe is one big crooked den of thieves.

[Centerfield]

Marc Carig. American Hero.

https://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/mets/mets-jeff-wilpon-1.15485312

[bmfc1]

No surprise that the Wilpons insulted the press and us by not commenting. Meanwhile, PHI gets Carlos Santana while Sandy sits around and hopes that the market falls his way.

[smg58]

The Phillies gave $60 million to a guy whose career OPS+ is 1 point higher than Lucas Duda's, at a position where they were already strong, and that's your counter-example for why we need to act now? NO starting pitchers of consequence have come off the market yet. Many good relievers have come off the market, and one of them is coming here. Granted, my plan A for second base (Cozart) is gone, but there are still plenty of options out there (including a two-time All Star we've been linked to in multiple rumors). I'm not going to judge the offseason until April -- or perhaps longer than that, given that we might want to see the new guys play first.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Centerfield wrote: Marc Carig. American Hero. https://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/mets/mets-jeff-wilpon-1.15485312

That column is pretty much the one you've been waiting for, isn't it? Hopefully others, many others, will take up this narrative.

[bmfc1]

smg58 wrote: The Phillies gave $60 million to a guy whose career OPS+ is 1 point higher than Lucas Duda's, at a position where they were already strong, and that's your counter-example for why we need to act now?

Santana had a 3.0 WAR in '17 and a 3.4 WAR in '16, so yeah, that's my "counter-example", especially when Sandy tore down Smith not 2 months ago (which he now claims was to light a fire). I hope you're right, it's not February yet but I'm skeptical.

[Centerfield]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Marc Carig. American Hero. https://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/mets/mets-jeff-wilpon-1.15485312 That column is pretty much the one you've been waiting for, isn't it? Hopefully others, many others, will take up this narrative.

Yes. Very close. In a perfect world I would have loved more numbers but the idea is spot on.

And yes, hoping others will rally around it. bmfc doing his best on twitter to make it so!

[bmfc1]

Centerfield wrote: And yes, hoping others will rally around it. bmfc doing his best on twitter to make it so!

Gotta be, Centerfield.

[metirish]

I know it is silly but I am beyond fed up with the Mets org, I have recently either unsubscribed to Mets related emails(including Mets.com ) or reported it as SPAM.

[Guest cooby]

makes you wonder if they are in dire straits again

[Centerfield]

So it's interesting. The fan reaction was tremendous. Certain other members of the media applauded him.

But several groups were conspicuously silent. There has always been this feeling that certain members of the media are compromised. Now, you can't help but feel that this is true. Namely:

1. Metsblog. Used to be fan-run, now it's affiliated with SNY. Basically, there is no chance to be objective and call out the guy that signs your checks. So Matt Cerrone or anyone writing on that site is silenced.

2. The Daily News: Frequent collaborators with SNY, and many of the writers have recurring TV roles. This makes them more visible than they ever would have been otherwise. They are not going to speak out against the Wilpons.

3. SNY people. No chance. This includes "opinion" guys like Sal Licata or Nelson Figueroa. You don't speak out against your boss.

4. The 7 Line Army: Used to be a group of fans that spoke their mind. Now they have JV with the Mets to sell merchandise. A booth at CitiField. They're not going to risk that.

Suddenly, you start to realize why the Wilpons skate without consequences. Instead of paying for ballplayers, they've paid for media.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I'm not so sure about #2. Marc Carig frequently appears on SNY, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if John Harper of the News criticized the Mets for their cheapness. I'm pretty sure he's done so in the past.

[ashie62]

We are the voice of reason. Usually.

Stickem up Fred.

[Frayed Knot]

Such is the discontent of our winter.











see what I did there?

[G-Fafif]

Carig regularly joined Howie and Josh on the air as part of a Newsday deal during the season. He was on SNY just last week, not speaking in diplomatic tones. It's all pretty incestuous out there. I don't think criticism kills any established actor's participation in the dance.

Other than learning (or having it confirmed) that the front office doesn't know what its budget is, I didn't get a lot out of Carig's article besides the satisfaction of a good public primal scream. It's mid-December. The Mets haven't missed out on every last opportunity to improve themselves short- or long-term. They just dropped $14 million on two years of a reliever (two days after Alderson doused expectations). Kinsler wasn't a universally targeted upgrade. If they completely miss on second base, if they don't find themselves a right field/first base type, if they're slapping Montero's picture on the cover of the pocket schedule, then I can see sharpening the pitchforks.

I do get the feeling the industry is evolving faster than the Mets as constituted know how to keep pace. Perhaps the lack of transparency Carig decries is a symptom of that. There was a time when owners staying in the background was both normal and, juxtaposed versus certain loudmouth types, appreciated. Actions spoke plenty. They still will.

Of course if you don't talk and you don't act, people can't be blamed for antsiness.