batmagadanleadoff

It's impossible to have a 4.99 ERA in 12.67 innings .

"Dad, we should raise the prices of the slop. If everyone else is lowering their food prices, we'll gain revenue on the competition. And we need the extra money."

This is from the brilliant "1977 TWIB Recaps" at Amazin Avenue.... http://www.amazon.com/This-Week-Baseball-Season-One/dp/B00A2YFPXQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362089731&sr=8-1&keywords=this+week+in+baseball

February 19, 2013 Baseball Is Back, with a Few Changes Posted by Ian Crouch The deadline has arrived for players to join their teams for spring training, and so we can say goodbye to the mostly unhappy season of baseball, when the game isn�t played�the one full of trade talks and free agents; of old grudges aired by departed players and managers; of controversial Hall of Fame votes and the still-too-present problem of performance-enhancing drugs dispensed by quack doctors in shady clinics. We get, instead, a season that still has the possibility to bring joy, beginning with familiar and new faces arriving in warm southern locales to do a few casual wind sprints, some stretching exercises, and play a month of practice ball. There is drama for the players in spring warmup games, mostly for the young and old guys trying to make the major-league club. But for the fans, spring training is just a gentle nudge, giving us a few clips of baseball among the palm trees of Florida or desertscapes of Arizona, and preparing a spot in the mind for the real games to come. As we wait for Opening Day, though, there are a few winter happenings worthy of note. Realignments The Houston Astros, who spent their first fifty-one years playing in the National League, have jumped to the American League, and will be the fifth team in the A.L. West. This marks the first time that a team has switched leagues since 1998, when the Brewers left the A.L. for the N.L. The Astros will take the field, on March 31st, clad in new retro-style uniforms that embrace the great orange of years past�though, alas, they�ve not taken full advantage of the gonzo-color possibilities of team history. (Somewhere, the winged Brewster McCloud is disappointed.) There is not, however, much history that the team is eager to repeat, save for its lone World Series appearance in 2005, when it was swept by the White Sox. The Astros haven�t been back to the playoffs since, and have been the worst team in baseball for the past two seasons. The coming change of scenery doesn�t seem, on the face of it, to offer much hope: they join a division full of playoff contenders, including the Rangers, Angels, and A�s. Meanwhile, there has been another realignment in baseball�unofficial but no less important. The seat of power in the game has moved to California, as it has from time to time since the Giants and Dodgers opened up shop out West for the 1958 season. This offseason, the Dodgers finalized a television deal with Time Warner Cable worth between seven and eight billion dollars over the next twenty-five years. Under new ownership, and now backed by nearly unlimited funds, the Dodgers have embarked on a major spending spree. It started last season, when they traded with Miami for Hanley Ramirez, and then with Boston for Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford, and Adrian Gonzalez�taking on in the process what seemed like most of the Red Sox payroll. The binge continued this off-season with the acquisition of the big-ticket pitcher Zack Greinke. As Nick Traverse writes at our new business hub, the Dodgers will have the highest payroll in baseball, outspending even the Yankees, who have held the top spot since 1998. Thirty miles south, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim have added even more talent (though, blessedly, no more city names) to what has become a franchise full of all-stars. This season, Josh Hamilton joins Albert Pujols and Mark Trumbo on a batting lineup poised to score a ton of runs. And, in the twenty-one-year-old outfielder Mike Trout, the Angels have a man who is unquestionably the most exciting young player in the league. Up north, the Giants are the defending World Series champs, and the A�s are coming off a surprise playoff appearance. Rounding out the state, even the lowly Padres promise to be more exciting this year: they�ve decided to bring in the fences at Petco Park, which should lead to a few more home runs for the home team (and likely for the visitors as well, but never mind). Back east, where both the Yankees and Red Sox have cut their payrolls, a new bright spot of conspicuous baseball consumption can now be found north of the border, in Toronto, where the Blue Jays have decided to win the American League East�or at least to go broke trying. Big signings include Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, and Mark Buehrle. They�ll spend about forty million more than they did last season. And Toronto is now home to the game�s most fascinating pitcher, R. A. Dickey, who won the Cy Young Award last year pitching for the Mets and then, in now-typical Flushing fashion, was sent away to float his knuckleballs for someone else. Canadians are likely to love Dickey�s introspective personality and literary sensibility; should he continue his fine late-career form, players in the American League will be less charmed. A Useless Gimmick Outlawed Enough business; baseball�s true charm is in its quirky mechanics and byzantine rules, right? Well, maybe not, but there is one rule change of note coming for 2013 that is worth a bit of attention. In its ongoing but probably futile effort to speed up the game, the league has made illegal the infrequent and largely impotent time-waster in which a pitcher fakes a throw to third base and then spins around and throws to first in the hope of picking off a confused base runner who has strayed too far from the bag. This season, if a pitcher tries it, it will be called a balk. The ploy, which is often rightly dismissed as �something that would only work in Little League,� depends on a pretty precise game situation and rarely works, despite the claims of some pitchers who favor it and have lamented its ouster. (To find a good video example, I had to go back to 2000�when the Mets still played at Shea Stadium and then-manager Bobby Valentine still did things that warranted praise like �great move� from a team�s broadcasters.) Bullpen 2.0 Designer drugs and massive cultural evolution aside, baseball hasn�t changed that much over the years. And so the little alterations stand out, like when the league announced this winter that stadiums would be ditching landline dugout-to-bullpen phones in favor of spiffy new cell phones provided by T-Mobile (which, it probably doesn�t need to be said, is the �Official Wireless Sponsor of Major League Baseball.�) Managers have been using dugout phones to send relief-pitcher orders and other instructions out to the bullpen since way back in the nineteen-thirties. (Before that, semaphore.) Change may be overdue: it was a screwy connection that reportedly caused a pitcher mixup during the 2011 World Series, when Cardinals� manager Tony La Russa asked for one reliever but was given another�a mistake that ended in a loss. Still, the jokes started flowing fast after news broke of the new arrangement: crusty old managers hiring gum-snapping teen-agers to handle texts, ballplayers tweeting between at-bats, Angry Birds run amok. Probably not, but the new cell-phone holders that will appear in dugouts and bullpens across the country are a garish bright pink, and the whole thing has led baseball suits to use phrases like �unique communications platform��proving that the only thing that could make baseball jargon worse is adding marketing nonsense into the mix. The transition could pass without major incident, but one unconsidered wrinkle may pose a problem: the bullpen call is often made in moments of managerial duress�runners in scoring position, the game on the line, the guy you have out their faltering badly�and the old, sturdy landline receiver surely was on the wrong end of some rough use. (�Johnson is shit out there. Give me the lefty.� Slam.) Now, as in the old Jerry Seinfeld bit about the drawbacks of the cordless phone, a manager will have to bark his orders and then carefully return the dainty smartphone to its charging slot. A few phones might get tossed around this season, and at the very least, I fear for the other objects in the dugout. Watch out, water jugs, and bats beware. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sportingscene/2013/02/three-things-to-note-from-baseballs-long-winter.html#ixzz2M8iVjaVq

GREAT TIME*, GREAT PLACE*, GREAT MEMORIES* *At the Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC counting room.

Everything About This Mets-Amway Business Is Just Baffling By Will Leitch Last night, Capital New York writer and notorious Mets gadfly Howard Megdal came up with quite the scoop, one he appears to have garnered simply by being the only reporter who has looked at Citi Field since Saturday: Amway, of all freaking places, has moved into a storefront at Citi Field, just "a few feet away from a Mets ticket booth." (Here's what the storefront looks like.) This is one of the most baffling Mets stories since we've started writing about the team. The Mets aren't talking, so we thought maybe you'd walk through it with us, so we can try to understand what in the hell is going on. Let's suss out all of the strange aspects to this. 1. Of all the businesses in the world for the Mets to associate themselves with, they chose one that has been sued for being a pyramid scheme. There are so many shady corporations in the world to do business with. You could pick one with ties to insider trading or the subprime lending crisis. One that pollutes the environment. One profiting off third-world child labor. So many options! But nope � the Mets decided to have a big sign on the side of their stadium with the name of a company that settled a class-action lawsuit for $155 million that claimed it was "a pyramid scheme in which distributors rarely sell products to outside customers, only to other new distributors they bring in, who must bring more recruits in to make money." The Mets couldn't have picked a stranger corporate partner if they had decided to sign a deal with a gardening company that happened to be called Madoff Landscapers. 2. Amway doesn't even have stores. Seriously: This is the first Amway storefront in the United States. (They have one in London.) Amway's site says, "Credible Opportunity Messaging greets all IBOs and their prospects as soon as they walk in the door," which is going to be quite a surprise for any sauced Mets fans who stumble in thinking it's McFadden's. Let's think about this for a moment: Of all the places in the entire country Amway would decide to open up its first storefront, the company chose Citi Field. They could have picked the Mall of America. They could have picked the Atlantic City Boardwalk. They could have picked the Vegas Strip. Nope: They're in Citi freaking Field. 3. The Mets don't really have a lot of storefronts. Or, like, any. It's not like Citi Field is just riddled with businesses crawling all over each other to be a part of the Mets experience. Look at that picture again. Amway's the only one there. We didn't even know the Mets were selling storefront space in the first place. We are not sure which is worse: that the Mets would decide to make their first storefront business Amway, or that the Mets decided to start selling storefront space and the only business that had the slightest interest was, in fact, Amway. It's insane, all of it. No matter the explanation � and again, the Mets aren't talking, and one probably shouldn't expect them to � one thing is clear, and eternal: The Mets are the Mets are the Mets are the Mets. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/02/everything-about-mets-amway-is-baffling.html

Duda's the worst defensive outfielder in all of baseball. By any measure. By every measure. He's so bad that he's capable of hitting like an all star all season long and still grading out as an overall liability. If Duda's not in the AL in 2014, then he's the likeliest Met to be asked to put on the Santa suit for next Winter's holiday party.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Amway also wanted to lease some Citi Field scoreboard advertising. But there's no more room. Look at that Goya ad! They're selling advertising space on the scoreboard portion of the advertising-board. Classy.

Ponzi schemes. Casinos. And more ponzi schemes. Any day now, they'll send Jeff Wilpon south of the border to strike a deal with the crack cocaine cartels.

Amway also wanted to lease some Citi Field scoreboard advertising. But there's no more room.

I'm old. Who the hell are any of these people. And why the hell wasn't Robert Redford or Gene Hackman presenting an award?

I won't go so far as to write that I wish he were here, but get a load of this: excerpt PEORIA, Ariz. -- A relaxed Jason Bay ripped a two-run home run in his first at-bat with the Mariners on Saturday and said he feels he's rediscovered the swing that eluded him the past few years with the Mets. Bay, 34, is attempting to crack the Mariners' roster after signing a one-year, $1 million deal this offseason. Bay was released by the Mets with $22 million still owed on his previous contract after hitting .165 with eight home runs and 20 RBIs in 70 games in 2012. The left fielder homered and walked twice in three plate appearances in Saturday's 8-6 victory over the Padres, taking Tyson Ross deep on a fastball on the second pitch he saw this spring. Asked if he'd shortened his swing, Bay said he's just finally regained the feeling he had at the plate earlier in his career before his struggles began. "I don't think I've shortened it. I've kind of re-found it," Bay said.... rest of article at http://seattle.mariners.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130223&content_id=41928616&vkey=news_sea&c_id=sea

Zack Wheeler Wows At Mets Camp, Looks �Like A No. 1? Starter NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) � Mets top pitching prospect Zack Wheeler took the mound at Port St. Lucie on Wednesday, delivering 30 pitches in live batting practice to Marlon Byrd, Justin Turner and John Buck. And the Mets couldn�t help but rave about the ace up the 22-year-old right-hander�s sleeve. �It�s not just him looking like a big leaguer, it�s him looking like a No. 1,� said Byrd, according to the New York Post. The veteran outfielder described Wheeler�s stuff as �a blinky,� meaning �you see it, lose it and then see it at the last second, which makes his fastball, his slider, even tougher to hit.� Byrd also threw the name of Detroit ace Justin Verlander out there, according to the Post. Turner said the baseball �looks like a little aspirin� coming out of Wheeler�s hand, and compared him to a certain young starter in Washington. �That�s the first time I�ve seen him throw in person, and he�s got some late life on his fastball,� said Turner. �It kind of jumps on you, and we�re talking the late explosion that (Stephen) Strasburg has on his fastball. I was impressed.� Wheeler, the centerpiece of the 2011 trade that sent Carlos Beltran to San Francisco, is expected to start the season at Triple-A. But it�s only a matter of time before the young gun joins the likes of Johan Santana, Jonathon Niese and Matt Harvey on New York�s staff. �You�ve got to go in prepared, and that�s what I trained for this offseason,� Wheeler said. �I�m looking to go in there and compete and make some decisions hard.� Wheeler combined to go 12-8 with a 3.26 ERA at Double-A Binghamton and Triple-A Buffalo in 2012. He had 148 strikeouts in 149 innings. Mets manager Terry Collins came away impressed on Wednesday, saying the prospect �wasn�t intimidated at all� despite facing big-league hitters and working in front of a curious crowd behind the batting cage. �He�s the real deal,� said Collins. �And it tells me there�s a tremendous light at the end of the tunnel here.� http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/02/21/zack-wheeler-wows-at-mets-camp-looks-like-a-no-1-starter/

Mets � Willets Point wrote: Ceetar wrote: And maybe this is just because my perspective has changed, but I've never gone to Citi Field and felt like I get jipped. If I felt that anywhere, it's the nearly $30 in NYC tolls to get there. Nope, highway tolls are way below they would be at market rates. Parking too. Damn right. If I owned the Verrazano Bridge, I'd triple the toll fee. Anyone here doesn't like the tolls can walk to Citi Field.

G-Fafif wrote: When Citi Field opened, I remember the (then $16) lobster roll being the hook for a number of stories, either of an approving nature ("what a menu!") or disparaging ("sixteen bucks at the ballpark?"). Compared with everything else at Citi Field, edible or otherwise, it doesn't seem glaringly outrageous -- and given that your choices aren't $17 lobster roll or hunger, just don't order the fucking lobster roll. If payroll's gonna be significantly down (which is not necessarily a crime against baseball), it would be bloody brilliant if a few items here and there came down a notch at the concessions/in the stands. Like hot dogs, mainly. That would give the hardcore fan and family a real break. Charge whatever for the exotica, pony up to your own tastes or at your own risk. But dogs, fries, peanuts, pretzels, Cracker Jack, liquid refreshment beverages of a non-alcohol nature...treat them like the baseball staples they are. Maybe throw in one or two non-bad-for-you things while you're at it. Just to clarify, the $17 lobster rolls don't offend me at all. The price, especially when also accounting for for the airport-like markup you'd expect at a ballpark, is more or less in line with what one should resonably expect to pay for a Citi Field lobster roll. It's a terrific option. And, like you wrote, no one's putting a gun to anyone's head to buy a lobster roll. Thumbs up on the $17 lobster roll.

Swan Swan H wrote: Batmags is the Ron Jeremy of Mets doom porn. I'm not so sure that I get this. (Though I did get your quip, and right away, about Mindy McCready).

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Sean Fennessey wrote: They charge $17 for a lobster roll at said ballpark. Besides the point, maybe, but, well... how often has anyone here paid LESS for a lobster roll? all the way at the end in City Island.....you know the one I'm talking about? Sea Food City?.....I'm going to guess it's cheaper there......bit of a kip that place. That's a kind way to put it. But, yeah, perhaps... that said, I've paid $16-17 for one in the Rockaways, and generally pay that much or more all over Long Island/New England. SteveJRogers wrote: I'd imagine it'd go towards his argument about why the outfield is worse than at any other times in the past. The team is charging an arm and a leg for fine dinning options, in the midst of one of the largest media markets on the planet, and yet they have less than bargin basement talent trotting out there in the outfield. Not so much that it's expensive, but the fact that it's even there in the first place. Oh, I get it. I'm all for slagging a team-- especially this team-- for underspending when raking it in; hell, I refuse to park in their lot as a matter of principle (as well as being a skinflint). It's just that the "food is SO pricy" thing is such crap... frankly, it'll cost you about as much to eat pregame if you grab a similarly-sized dinner in Flushing (unless you're grabbing streetside coffee and two buns from Fay Da) or Corona (again, unless you're eating the last torta of the day). The food's expensive, but it's also damn good... and they let you bring in your own if you want. Nail them on parking. Nail them on ridiculous "low-end" ticket pricing. Nail them on $30-for-a-hat. Hell, if you want to get the Mets on food, why not $6-7 for pizza. "Expensive Lobster rolls" smacks of something chosen to give the article a precise "New York twat" kind of flavor. Also agree with your point. Maybe he could have used a better analogy. It's like rooming at the Waldorf, and paying Waldorf prices and discovering that the hotel's elevators won't be working throughout your stay. I dunno - one of the lowest payrolls, some of the highest ticket prices - the incongruity is offensive and scorn-worthy.

SteveJRogers wrote: They charge $17 for a lobster roll at said ballpark... The Mets, though, are still a team with fans and expectations and those $17 lobster rolls. Besides the point, maybe, but, well... how often has anyone here paid LESS for a lobster roll? (I've had a few dozen, and I can only think of one that cost memorably less.) I'd imagine it'd go towards his argument about why the outfield is worse than at any other times in the past. The team is charging an arm and a leg for fine dinning options, in the midst of one of the largest media markets on the planet, and yet they have less than bargin basement talent trotting out there in the outfield. Not so much that it's expensive, but the fact that it's even there in the first place. Agree. Seventeen dollar lobster rolls. Two hundred dollar field level seats. And a Peoria payroll. I never get enough of the Mets bashing, so long as the bashing is based on the honest facts. Ownership's incompetence is not your ordinary ineptness: it's colossal. In fact, I don't think that Met bashing has been going on for as long as it should have. I mean, it essentially took the Madoff incident to trigger most of the negativity about the Mets, when, to my way of seeing things, I recognized eff Wilpon to be bad for the Mets since the late '90's. Megdal may be using his pulpit to bash the Mets for personal reasons, and if that's true, it would be a shame because his column should project objectivity rather than a personal basis. But despite Megdal's possible prejudices, I find most of what he writes, on the merits, to be justifiably true.

SPOILER ALERT! Do not read the rest of this post if you missed this game, accounts of this game, or any of the 125 Mets Classics SNY reruns of this game. The Mets pull this one out in the last inning when, trailing by a run, Matt Franco pinch hits a walk-off single off of MFY super reliever Mariano Rivera. The Mets get the win. The Yanks get the World Series trophy.

Plus, you know (gag me with a spoon), Wright ain't no Derek Jeter.

What's the problem? Eff Wilpon sez the Mets are in the money again and everything is beautiful.

Vic Sage wrote: Hey Batty, not for nuttin' (as they used to say in my old neighborhood), but is there anything the `Pons could do that you wouldn't hang them for? I'll give them credit for mothballing the hideous black drop-shadow pajama tops. Even though they couldnt'a mothballed 'em without first approving them. For fourteen years. An affront to good taste and team tradition. Longest running unis in team history. I don't know what's uglier: the black unis or the Citi Field scoreboards? Vic Sage wrote: [Wright's]s not at the end of his career; he's right in the middle of his prime. Your notion that he has "2 good seasons left" is something you extricated from your rectal orifice. You're absolutely right. And if not from my rectal orifice, then perhaps from my eyeballs. Or my earholes. Or my crystal ball. But what else can I go on besides my good hunches? He hasn't been an all-star for most of the last four seasons. That's a long time. And while it's probable that a good deal of Wright's diminished productivity might be attributed to the moronic cavern of a playing field that the moronic owners initially installed, Wright's had some serious injuries in the recent past, the kind that could accelerate the winding of his biological baseball clock. And quite frankly, he faded big time in the second half last season. These aren't positive trends. By the way, I truly hope that I'm dead wrong on this call. Vic Sage wrote: While obviously anybody can go south at any point, he's as likely to be sufficiently productive for at least the next 5 years as he is 2. Maybe. But you don't know this for sure. This sounds like it could've come from your rectal orifice. Vic Sage wrote: And the "Dickey fiasco"? Puleez. They sold high on a guy they picked up off the scrap heap, trading from their only position of strength and depth to get key pieces that will accelerate the rebuild. The Mets did very well for themselves once they declined to resign Dickey. Still, the development of baseball prospects is always a tenuous business. You know this. If the Mets aren't in a financial crisis, Dickey never gets dealt. Dickey was extremely reasonable in his contract demands and gave the Mets more of a hometown discount than Wright did. And while many point to Dickey's age as a sign that he might have little left in the tank, I'm skeptical, while still recognizing the possibility of a big and near term Dickey fade. When Dickey takes the mound for the Blue Jays in 2013, whether at the beginning or end of the season, he'll never be more than 12 months removed from his Cy Young Award season. So how much diminishment should one expect? He doesn't appear to be a flukish one-year wonder, but rather a pitcher that's reinvented not only himself, but the knuckleball he relies on, throwing the pitch with an accuracy and at a velocity never before matched by anybody in the history of the game. We've seen Cy Young award winners bomb out almost immediately after their award winning season. Vuckovich and Steve Stone come to mind right away. I don't see Dickey as a fluke. He was excellent from the moment he arrived here, and only got better. By the by, that the Mets picked up Dickey off of the scrap heap is irrelevant at this point.

To tell you the truth, I was so uninterested by the Wright extension, and wouldn't have been half as bothered over Wright leaving as I was over the Dickey fiasco. He'll probably be past his prime and over the hill when the Mets are contenders again. And that's if the Mets are lucky and Wright doesn't blow out his back again next season. Because then, Wright'll be over the hill years before the Mets are contenders again. And that's assuming that the Mets can contend soon enough for the new watered down playoffs, which is no guarantee either. The Mets already got the best of Wright. Now they'll pay top dollar for his worst. My guess is that Wright has, tops, two all star caliber seasons left in his tank. And if so, they'll probably be wasted on a struggling team. Good thing the Mets are'nt into anymore Omaresque Bay/Santana type deals, because I'd bet anything that this new Wright deal will turn out to be more of the same. They signed Wright to avoid another fan revolution, is how I see it.

Wilpon puts Mets money woes 'in the rear-view mirror,' all evidence to the contrary By Howard Megdal 4:20 pm Feb. 13, 2013 Wednesday, February 13, 2013 was a landmark day for Fred Wilpon and the New York Mets. After years of crushing debt brought on by the evaporation of their holdings with Bernie Madoff, Wilpon took in the Florida sunshine, smiled, and announced to reporters that the team's financial difficulties were over. "It's all in the rear-view mirror," Wilpon said, after arriving at the team's spring-training complex in Port St. Lucie. "The family is in great shape," he said. "The family really is in great shape. Sometimes luck is the residue of design." This would be great news for Mets fans, who have watched their team decline as the Wilpons' problems ravaged the Mets' payroll. If it were true. Which publicly available evidence suggests it isn't. "It wasn't, as people have written, the reason," Wilpon said about bank debt. "It was a balance there, because we had to make sure the banks got paid off all of the debt. There's no one in my family"�there's the Katz family, the Wilpon family, kids�"[that now] has any personal bank debt. Zero. Everything has been paid. We don't owe a dollar to anybody. We have mortgages on buildings and stuff like that, but we don't owe a dollar." If that's true, it all happened since the beginning of this week. According to public Uniform Commercial Code filings, the following people had outstanding debt as of Monday, February 11, 2013: Fred Wilpon, Saul Katz (Fred's brother-in-law and fellow partner in Sterling Equities), Judith Wilpon (Fred's wife), Richard Wilpon (Fred's brother), The Fred Wilpon Family Trust, The Fred Wilpon 2003 Descendants Trust, and numerous other Wilpon and Katz family members. That's beside the point, really: it is a pair of enormous debts against a pair of Sterling Equities' holdings that have caused ownership to dedicate available resources toward servicing that debt annually, and whose principal is coming due. (The Mets declined to comment on whether Wilpon's comments applied to either of those debts.) U.C.C. filings confirm that the $320 million debt due against the team in June 2014 is an active debt. And Wilpon and his partners already owed $450 million against their 65 percent ownership stake in S.N.Y., due in 2015. Their latest loan, an additional $160 million secured in December, added to that total. For Sterling to be debt-free, Wilpon and his partners, less than two months after borrowing $160 million to help pay, among other things, day-to-day expenses, will have needed to come into possession of more than $900 million to take care of these two debts alone. Merely refinancing, or convincing lenders to push the due date back, wouldn't make them debt-free, according to any reasonable understanding of the term. And that doesn't even take into account the hundreds of millions in total left to pay on bonds issued to finance Citi Field. That total ran the Mets $43.7 million in 2011, at least that in 2012, and remains on the ledger for years to come. Just servicing those three debts cost more than $90 million in 2011, and more than $80 million in 2012. That service cost went down because when the Mets sold their $240 million in minority shares, $110 million went toward paying down the debt against the team, lowering it to the $320 million it currently sits at from $430 million. The rest went toward paying off loans that kept the team afloat ($40 million to Bank of America, $25 million to Major League Baseball), and servicing debt that remained. (This was confirmed by a source familiar with the team's plans at the time.) Accordingly, to perform the same servicing trick once again, the Mets needed that $160 million loan this past winter. Their diminishing ability to pull off that trick each winter is what led Irving Picard, trustee for the Bernie Madoff victims, to give up pursuing money from Wilpon and his partners, which he believed he'd never get, because they simply didn't have it. He would have been in a fight with the Wilpons' creditors. But Wilpon is saying that all the bank debt is now paid off, not just serviced, and not by those hundreds of millions in loans, but by all that money that had previously been spent on the Mets. "That's what made us tight," Wilpon said. "We were still getting revenues. Lots of revenues. But those revenues were going to pay off debt. That's done." Even after supposedly getting rid of the debt, though, Wilpon offered a caveat in terms of the Mets' ability to start increasing their payroll again. "This is, to me, a break-even business," Wilpon said. "I always strive to break even. I'm not looking to make any money. I strive to break even. So if [fans] don't show up, that's hard. So you have to balance it." The Mets lost $70 million in 2011, and then, after slashing payroll from $143 million to $91 million, lost $23 million in 2012. They did so while drawing 2.24 million fans, to watch a 74-win team. Then they added almost no new talent of note this winter, while trading Cy Young Award winner and fan favorite R.A. Dickey. They received some good young prospects in return, but it is highly unlikely that any of those players will materially contribute to a winning team in 2013. Standard and Poor's, when recently lowering the rating on Citi Field debt, estimated the Mets would lose eight percent more money in 2013 than they did in 2012. So while salaries get cleared from the books after 2013, such as the $31 million Johan Santana will earn and the $21 million the Mets still owe Jason Bay (and have publicly said they are counting on 2013 expenditures, though it was deferred), exactly how much of the freed-up money can go to improving the Mets is unclear, given continuing debt service and the reckoning of that $320 million in principal coming due in 2014, and then the well over $450 million due in 2015. It's not like this is the first time Wilpon claimed that everything would be smooth sailing moving forward. That's what he said in the days that followed the revelation of Bernie Madoff's fraud, long before the lawsuit. And that's what he said this time last year, when he made the same claims of solvency, denying any effect of the lawsuit at the start of spring training last season, or after the lawsuit was settled, when Wilpon and others in the Mets organization tried to pin the lack of spending on a lawsuit that, ultimately, won't cost them any money at all until at least 2016. The only way to clear the way for additional spending from Wilpon and his partners is if the debt isn't delayed, but if it just ceases to exist. And that's what Wilpon is suggesting is the case. "I don't know what the market will be at that point," Wilpon said. "But the payroll will be commensurate with anything we've ever done because we can do it. Remember, the people have to come to the ballpark obviously. If you have a competitive team, they will. Everything that was in the past, that you guys saw the pain that we went through, is gone. It's gone." It sure would be nice to think so. http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/sports/2013/02/7740844/wilpon-puts-mets-money-woes-rear-view-mirror-all-evidence-contrary