batmagadanleadoff

In the future, there will be flying cars.

Warning: Reading the full article requires wading through much commentary on Derek Jeter: half of the piece is about Jeter, essentially a Beltran-Jeter comparison. Fuck that, I ain't reading it.

Nice piece by Joe Posnanski on Carlos Beltran written just after Beltran's Rocky Mountain Three-HR Act. This quote (below) suggests a more sensible way to remember the 2006 version of Carlos Beltran: I remember after his miserable 2005 season in New York, there were people saying that he would never be able to handle New York. And so, blammo, in 2006 he had perhaps the greatest every-day-player season in Mets history. Warning: Reading the full article requires wading through much commentary on Derek Jeter: half of the piece is about Jeter, essentially a Beltran-Jeter comparison.

Jim Bowden, former Reds GM under Marge Schott, on the Fred Wilpon New Yorker fallout (and LWFS -- What's Fred's score these days on the Schottsie scale?): Wilpon Preparing for Mets' Fire Sale by Jim Bowden Fred Wilpon is well respected as a gentleman and professional, so most were surprised when the New York Mets' owner's comments were released Monday morning in The New Yorker magazine, ripping star players Jose Reyes, David Wright and Carlos Beltran. In an e-mail to the media, Wright excused Wilpon: �Fred is a good man and is obviously going through some difficult times.� Wright was referring to Wilpon's professional, financial and legal issues, including a countersuit against a trustee to recover funds from the Bernard Madoff�s Ponzi scheme and the Mets needing a loan from Major League Baseball to meet obligations. As a former GM, the first reaction is damage control. I had this happen to me on multiple occasions in my career, especially during the Marge Schott era of the mid-'90s. Quick communication with the players helped put the issue to bed, and most players considered the source. However, this case is different. This isn�t the Bronx or the Yankees. It�s not George Steinbrenner or Marge Schott. It�s Fred Wilpon, and it wasn't his normal behavior. But while Wright came to Wilpon's defense, I�m not buying it. Here's what Wilpon was saying through his New Yorker interview: If the major league payroll is no longer affordable and needs to be reduced, then trades must be made. Instead of shocking the fans in July, prepare them now. And here's what Wilson said about his star players: On Reyes: �He thinks he�s going to get Carl Crawford money. He�s had everything wrong with him. He won�t get it.� My response: Jayson Werth got it. Adrian Beltre got it. Jose Reyes will be getting his share, too. Reyes is 27 years old, his injuries are in the rearview mirror, and he is one of the top shortstops in baseball with a chance to develop into a premier lead-off hitter. On Wright: �He is a really good kid and a very good player, but not a superstar.� My opinion: David is a really good kid, a very good player and is developing into a superstar. The huge outfield dimensions at Citi Field have changed his approach and swing. He may not be Albert Pujols, but put him in Great American Ball Park or Citizens Bank Park and he�ll be a 40-homer, 120-RBI superstar in time. He ranks among the top five third basemen in baseball. On Beltran: �Carlos is 65�70 percent of the player that he was when he signed the seven-year, $119 million contract in 2005.� My opinion: Mr. Wilpon, he�s been hurt. He�s at 75-80, not 65-70 percent, but only because of injuries, not because of a loss of skills, heart, talent or ability. Eat salary, try to trade him and get younger. We all get it. However, you have to recognize that his decline has mostly to do with health reasons. Whether Wilpon made these comments to deflect his own personal problems, or whether he made them to prepare the fan base for the upcoming fire sale, it really doesn�t matter. The damage has been done. The public relations blunders has been made. Now Mr. Wilpon, stop talking, go upstairs and let team president Sandy Alderson and manager Terry Collins do the rest of the talking. Let them handle the damage control, and let them rebuild the relationships with the players. Then let the trade talks begin, and let�s all look forward to the July wheeling and dealing as the Mets reduce payroll and get younger. Thanks for reading, as always. I appreciate your comments and feedback. You can follow me on Twitter: @JimBowdenESPNxm. http://espn.go.com/blog/the-gms-office/post/_/id/123/wilpon-preparing-for-mets-fire-sale

I fear that in the future, we'll be looking at last Friday as the Mets high point of the decade.

metirish wrote: He's had everything wrong with him that lad. He thinks he'll get Carl Crawford money. He won't get it.

Vic Sage wrote: Wright isn't a superstar. He isn't. Sorry, it's true. Fred's dead right on that one. David's a really good player and I like him and want to keep him but not a superstar. Not yet anyway. If you track Wright's production and progress as a player at Shea, he was most certainly a "superstar", in my view. He was in the top 10 in MVP balloting each of those seasons... all-star, gold glove, silver slugger, never less than a .912 OPS... he was our "5-category' demi-god poster child. Then he plays at CitiField and his career goes into the crapper; his 2nd year was a little better, but not great, and this year is more of the same. At Shea, his Ks were consistent (between 113-118), and then at ShitiField he starts striking out at a prodigious rate, even as his HR rate went down. Now, you can say its unrelated to the stadium, but he was 26 when his career went sideways, without any particular injury to cause it. Clearly he has changed his approach to make up for his home field disadvantage and its screwed him up. So sorry Fred, but if Dave's not a "superstar", its cuz you built your team a stadium specifically designed to fuck him up royally. Well done, sir. [golf clap] I heartily endorse this post. Of course Wright was a superstar from 06-08. He was the first player you'd want to build your team around, and the deserving NL MVP of 2007, according to many, myself included, and most other posters here. How can that not add up to superstar? How can somebody be the MVP and not be a superstar? Nice fucking stadium, Jeff.

The shitstorm that has befallen the Mets this week won't end with Fred's New Yorker comments. Sports Illustrated's next issue will include a feature on the Mets in which Wilpon remarks that the Mets are "bleeding money" and are poised to lose another $70M this season. Report: Mets 'bleeding cash' New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon said the team is "bleeding cash" and could lose $70 million this season in an interview with Sports Illustrated that was obtained before release by the New York Daily News. Wilpon also said that he fears he could lose the Mets if the trustee for victims of Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme wins a $1 billion lawsuit against the team and the owner's other interests. Wilpon said he is willing to settle based on the $295 million in fictitious profits he earned, but will not settle based on $700 million in principle he and partners invested with Madoff. Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo has been mediating talks between Wilpon and the trustee, Irving Picard. "Gov. Cuomo has not been able to at this stage convince them that the 700 is not going to be obtainable," Wilpon told the magazine. Wilpon has been trying to sell a stake in the team to raise much needed cash. The magazine reported that if he can raise $200 million, $25 million will pay back an emergency loan to Major League Baseball, $75 million will be used to pay down team debt of $427 million and $100 million will go to operating expenses. According to the magazine, Madoff investments were supposed to offset debt owed to players. When the Mets wanted to get rid of Bobby Bonilla after the 1999 season, they would have owed him $5.9 million. Instead, they decided to invest that money with Madoff at a return of 10-12 percent. They would pay Bonilla $1.2 million per year for 25 years, payments based on an interest rate of 8 percent per year. So in theory, had Madoff's schemes not tanked, a seemingly horrible financial decision would have in fact created a net profit. Picard, meanwhile, contends that Wilpon has not provided enough documentation outlining the relationship between the Mets and Madoff, according to the New York Times. The trustee claims that the club had 16 accounts with Madoff and invested tens of millions of dollars in business. The Wilpon camp counters that it has provided over 700,000 pages of documentation and there is no evidence that the Mets or any other Wilpon entity knew that Madoff was engaged in fraud. http://sports.espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/news/story?id=6583378&campaign=rss&source=MLBHeadlines

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: It's tough-- I can't say I have one favorite for all moods. Among novelties, this may be my new favorite, or at least up there with ... the April Fool's bobblehead post. April Fool's Bobbleheads is my favorite. Also, I might be the only sucker that didn't catch the gag until sometime after I finished reading the piece. But I was an easy mark: I wanted very much for those bobbleheads to be real. Midway through the piece, I was making mental plans to acquire the Anthony Young bobblehead.

Article lays out Fred's Blueprint for Success: Concentrate on personal relationships, networking and in-laws with enormous genitals. They basically got lucky in real estate as they explain, got in on the Mets early, and later discovered THAT was good for the real estate business. I don't see how someone can make all that money without getting very lucky. In my next life, I'm going to devote all of my studies and all of my schooling towards improving my luck. Because what they say is true: it's better to be lucky than anything else.

I'll bet that in the end, nothing will come of Fred's disses. I understand the inevitable firestorm of reporting that Fred's comments generated, but in the end, whatever destiny awaits Beltran, Reyes and Wright as far as re-signing with the Mets or going elsewhere, will happen anyway -- unaffected by yesterday's comments. That's what I believe. If Alfred Hitchcock were still alive and agreed with me, he'd say that Fred's comments are one big MacGuffin. OE: But I can't guarantee that I won't change my mind 20 minutes from now.

Frayed Knot wrote: Everyone's picking on you.... It's all organized, we discussed the whole thing at the last meeting you weren't invited to. So now you speak for everybody? I guess I was imagining all of that hostility and anger. Obviously.

I'll probably regret asking this because I really don't care about this long-buried situation - but where the fuck is this 'that wasn't the intent' coming from? Rights of first refusal are hardly a rarity in business contracts but somehow only when discussing the Mets and the poor & lamented (we'll leave out bigoted and drunken for the time being while the beatification is going on) Nelson Doubleday do I hear this presented as if some sort of underhanded and sneaky form of robbery with the gun (one poster here described it as "a swindle"). I know it's national jump on Fred month, but I missed the part where Wilpon publicly pledged to never to try to increase his minority share and I certainly don't get this poor Nelson routine. Nelson didn't view the transfer from Doubleday Co. to himself as a real transfer. Costly mistake. You don't expect the Wilpon's version of their "understanding" to coincide with the Doubleday version, do you? BTW, I sense hostility and also anger in your posts to me. All of them. Am I imaging things? Because I'm starting to get a complex whenever you address my posts.

Frayed Knot wrote: I'm not sayin' that Doubleday was a victim or a paragon of virtue. I didn't say any of that. But Nelson's my Exhibit A in the case against being able to do business with FW with a handshake alone. How so? When Doubleday the company sold the team to Doubleday the person a clause was triggered which allowed minority owner Wilpon to have right of first refusal to become an equal partner. I miss the part where the fact that Fred exercised that right makes him underhanded. If Nelson didn't know about the clause perhaps he should have (sound familiar?) and whether he did or not is hardly Fred's problem. You�re right. It wasn�t Fred�s problem. It was Nelson�s. Doubleday was the recipient of bad lawyering, or sloppy lawyering -- or at the very least, a lawyer that couldn�t foresee all of the different ways that a team could be transferred from one entity to another. This lack of foresight prevented Doubleday�s lawyer from drafting the right of first refusal clause in a way that would�ve afforded Doubleday maximum protection and also, the precise protection Nelson wanted to have when the 1986 transfer occurred. Again, you�re right to say that this wasn�t Fred�s problem. But it was never intended that Fred have the right to challenge the transfer from Doublday Corp. to Nelson: the imperfect clause that ultimately defined the co-owners' rights when ownership was transferred was inconsistent with the spirit of Fred and Nelson�s original understanding. But while Fred was legally in the right to enforce the letter of their agreement, the incident undermines the notion that one can deal with Fred with a simple handshake -- my point of contention. It seems to me that Fred will honor the handshake so long as the handshake affords Fred greater rights than the contract. Otherwise, Fred will put the handshake back inside his pocket and claim that �a deal is a deal and I�ve got the writing to back me up�.

"Dad, why can't we say that it was Omar, disguised as you, that made all those controversial statements to Toobin? "And if Omar doesn't go along with my plan, we'll fire him".

Wilpon Passes Burgers and the Buck By HARVEY ARATON Published: May 23, 2011 We can easily envision Fred Wilpon in the lavish confines of his Citi Field box, munching on his Shake Shack burger and complaining to Jeffrey Toobin of The New Yorker about the performance of his marquee players in relation to their reputations and remuneration. Fred Wilpon complained about three of the Mets' marquee players in a New Yorker article. From one suffering Mets fan to another (Toobin discloses his rooting interest in a newly published article), Wilpon�s comments come across like barfly banter during an extended interview while watching his slumping Mets lose to the Houston Astros in April. The comments were obviously not conveyed in the madcap manner of a George Steinbrenner, whose player critiques � �Dave Winfield is Mr. May!� � were often delivered as angry, outrageous smears. Mets fans would agree with Wilpon that Jose Reyes is not worth �Carl Crawford money;� that David Wright is �a really good kid,� but �not a superstar;� and that Carlos Beltran is �65 to 70 percent of what he was.� But although Wilpon is no mean-spirited autocrat, he reveals himself to be a why-me whiner and a first-rate revisionist. He may have fingered himself as the dummy who gave Beltran $119 million in 2004 based on one productive postseason, but that is about all the accountability he serves Toobin along with the burgers. Wilpon gets even with Beltran, though. In his largely Teflon retrospective of the team�s �snakebitten� recent history, it was the called strike taken by Beltran to end the 2006 National League Championship Series that set off or symbolized all that has since gone wrong. Forget how Beltran and the others of a now-shamed era took just two seasons to turn what had been Wilpon�s 71-victory embarrassment of a team into a 97-victory division champion that fought into the ninth inning of Game 7 of the N.L.C.S. with just one experienced and reliable starting pitcher. Forget how Beltran, Reyes and Wright spearheaded the three highest season�s attendance records in Mets history � 3.37 million in 2006, 3.85 million in 2007 and 4.04 million in 2008, the last go-round at Shea Stadium. Forget how the Mets� profitable cable television network, SNY, started in such timely fashion on the backs of the aforementioned players and under the leadership of the since-departed and widely discredited Omar Minaya and Willie Randolph. As bitterly as those seasons ended, how much were they worth to a franchise whose desperate financial straits have far more to do with its owners than its players? And although Wilpon�s comments in The New Yorker article are supplementary to a profile of him and an examination of the continuing Bernard L. Madoff imbroglio, they seem to follow in the pattern of a one-size-fits-all defense: When life and profits are good, everyone is Fred Wilpon�s friend, part of a big, happy family. When caught in a downpour of misfortune, he seems to feel victimized and betrayed by everyone who failed to remind him to carry an umbrella. How a $1 billion suit brought against Wilpon and his partner, Saul Katz, plays out is up to them and Irving H. Picard, the trustee who is seeking the money on behalf of Madoff victims. But the baseball record should be set straight in the wake of Wilpon�s self-serving New Yorker comments, however uncharacteristic. Many flawed performers have contributed to the Mets� recent miseries, including Beltran, Reyes and Wright. But to publicly diminish them (while perhaps damaging their trade value) without acknowledging ownership�s role in the organizational dysfunction that engulfed the Mets after the 2006 postseason borders on deceit. Even after Beltran succumbed without a full swing of the bat in the N.L.C.S., the Mets were doing fine until a subversive element in the franchise core tore at the fabric of what Randolph and Minaya had so quickly quilted. Was it the lone destabilizing influence of Tony Bernazard, a former Minaya crony who ultimately was exposed and fired? Or was it as many suspected � an inside job by Jeff Wilpon, who overreacted to the N.L.C.S. failure and set out to fix what wasn�t broken by virtue of the crown of entitlement placed upon his head by Daddy? It all feels like ancient history now, but that doesn�t mean the Mets weren�t run on so many levels like a college fraternity house � right down to the longtime clubhouse manager, Charlie Samuels, whose shadow business of allegedly stolen memorabilia landed him in the arms of the law. Wilpon has been steadfast in his legal entanglements, guaranteeing vindication of the charges made by Picard that he and Katz were willfully ignorant of the Madoff crimes and profited at the expense of others. It is a complicated case, and maybe Wilpon, who had more than $500 million invested with Madoff when the scheme was exposed, has a right to feel like a victim, no matter what the outcome is. But the collapse of the Mets is more on his house than it is on Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes or even Oliver Perez. Yes, Wilpon�s comments were made in the context of a game, in the mind-set of a fan. But he is no ordinary fan. He is the owner. He, above all, is accountable. If he wants to find fault, look first in the mirror. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/24/sports/baseball/fred-wilpon-passes-burgers-and-the-buck-on-mets-troubles.html

I'm not sayin' that Doubleday was a victim or a paragon of virtue. I didn't say any of that. But Nelson's my Exhibit A in the case against being able to do business with FW with a handshake alone.

soupcan wrote: Ahhh, poor Fred.... The general consensus is that he's a good guy to do business with and a good guy in general .... I'm so sick of reading those quotes. Let's ask Nelson Doubleday if Fred is such a great guy. Let's ask Nelson Doubleday if you can do business with Fred on a handshake alone. Let's ask all those Mets employees who were steered to Madoff's funds only after being screened for their lack of financial knowledge and barred from asking any questions about their investment if Fred is such a great guy.

Edgy DC wrote: Being a dick certainly makes him look worse than being broke. Those that have as much money as Fred has, or had as much money as Fred had, would rather be perceived as a dick than as broke, I guess. I think it's a given that they're all dicks anyway. Otherwise, they wouldn't have made all that money in the first place. Especially in Fred's business. They can trot out all the underlings and slaves in the world to say otherwise --- all the Larry Kings and Sandy Koufaxes -- but I doubt that Wilpon's the nice guy everyone seems to claim. The last thing they want to fess up to is that they can no longer afford what they once could. Anyway, I merely threw that out as a theory to consider and knock around a bit. I'm not hanging my hat on that one.

Edgy DC wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: One possibility is that Fred's comments were very calculated, and purposely designed to eventually push his stars to other teams. Perhaps Fred crunched the financials and already knows without doubt, that which we fans still hope isn't true -- that the Mets won't be able to afford to re-sign either Reyes or Wright, no matter how things break. Just one theory. He doesn't need to push anybody anywhere. He might. What if the Mets are so broke that they know that they wouldn't be able to afford to re-sign their stars even if the stars offered the franchise a home team discount? Perhaps Wilpon would rather offend his players to the point of no return in order to mask his inability to re-sign them.

seawolf17 wrote: I hat this organization. What's maddening is that I've been enjoying this Mets team much more than I thought I would a month and a half ago. With three key players due back in the near-term (Wright, Davis & Pagan) the Mets aren't too far back of the Wild Card leader -- and none of the other Wild Card contenders appear to be dominant or un-catchable. In any other season, I'd say that the Mets are one pick-up away (a starting pitcher, ideally) from helping themselves considerably. But given the economic problems that surround the Mets, I wonder just how feasible that one pick-up is? It's also possible that ownership's reckless spending has already doomed the Mets to years of mediocrity and that the mediocrity clock has begun to tick -- and the team hasn't yet paid out a single penny in damages from the Picard lawsuit.

One possibility is that Fred's comments were very calculated, and purposely designed to eventually push his stars to other teams. Perhaps Fred crunched the financials and already knows without doubt, that which we fans still hope isn't true -- that the Mets won't be able to afford to re-sign either Reyes or Wright, no matter how things break. Just one theory.

The Second Spitter wrote: [Carter's] illness won't stop the indignation he receives from most Mets fans. Since the terrible news about Carter broke, I haven't read or heard anyone say something about Carter that was in bad taste.

Fred also said: "Seaver thinks we're going to erect a statue in his honor at Citi Field. But he blew too many no-hitters. He's no Sandy Koufax. He won't get it".

Centerfield wrote: You just don't say stuff like that. What a fucking idiot. Fred just made it that much easier for Wright to go elsewhere when his time is up here. Players don't forget comments like Fred's.