So where is the fan outrage? And where is the national media?

Photo: Elsa/Getty Images; AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek. Good Fundies illustration.

Every so often, you find yourself trying to make a difficult argument. Perhaps the subject area is complicated and hard to understand. Perhaps the true facts are unclear, or subject to speculation.

This is not one of those times.

What the Mets have been doing to their fans, to baseball, and to the city of New York for the last ten years is nothing short of shameful. The evidence is right there — in public — for everyone to see. It requires no mudslinging, and no speculation.

You don’t need to mention the Bernie Madoff Scandal, the Leigh Castergine lawsuit, the Citi Field Casino mess, the time Fred Wilpon called David Wright “a good kid, not a superstar,” or the secret loan MLB had to give the Mets to stay afloat in 2011. You don’t have to speculate about how badly leveraged the team is right now. You don’t have to mention how the Mets reneged on a promise to build a thousands of units of affordable housing on the land near Citi Field. You don’t need to recall the indignity of the Mets Loyalty Oath.

The evidence is right there. A 70–92 team. A payroll that has ranked in the bottom-half of the league five years in a row. Veteran players being traded for cash instead of prospects. And now, a promise that payroll is going down yet again.

These payroll figures include David Wright, for whom insurance has picked up much of the tab.

So where is the outrage?

Far be it from us to tell anyone else how to be a fan. Sports is a necessary escape from life for many (including us). For others, the joy of baseball is so great that it doesn’t matter whether the team wins or loses. But we cannot help but see the fundamental and established bargain of fandom: Follow the team, give them my hard-earned money, attention, and unflinching loyalty. In exchange, they try.

The team doesn’t have to be good all the time. We have rooted for the Mets without question through the dark times, through rebuilds (2002-2004, 2011 -2014) and through pretty much all of our formative years.

The team does not even have to be good overall. The Mets have a franchise record of 4285-4647, a winning percentage of just .480 and just nine playoff appearances in 55 years.

For many franchises in MLB, there simply is no chance at sustained success due to the economics of their market. The Tampa Bay Rays have a franchise value of less than half of the New York Mets, and whose highest payroll ranking in the last decade was 20th in 2010. The Rays have found a way to compete anyway, compiling a record of 855–766 (.527 win pct%) since 2008.