Jeff Wilpon Broke His Legendary Silence on the Mets Payroll and He Can Literally Just Get the Hell Outta Here With This Roger Cormier Follow Jan 24, 2018 · 6 min read

Seriously.

Photo: Alex Trautwig/Getty Images. Good Fundies illustration.

After three years of not making a single public statement about the New York Mets’ finances, COO Jeff Wilpon opened his mouth and said utter nonsense. The Mets remain to be an episode of an empty-calorie network sitcom from the 1980s, where the protagonist’s tiny lies snowball into more lies and chaos featuring Groundlings-taught space work, only appreciated by the easily amused and the too tired to care.

Before you read any of Jeff’s comments from the annual luncheon for Mets beat writers, keep in mind it’s pretty obvious Fred Wilpon, Jeff Wilpon, and Saul Katz literally do not have the money to spend nearly as much as the Yankees, a team which also plays in the largest media market in the world, or they have used the Madoff scandal to remain frugal in their spending. Knowing this means you can figure out what is behind every single confusing statement below, and if I were better at time management I would just copy and paste “Not signing top free agents is not strategy if it is necessity” like it was going out of style and call it a night before sipping a La Croix and wondering if anybody says or writes “like it was going out of style” anymore.

From Abbey Mastracco at NJ.com:

The prevailing notion is that the Wilpons have asked Alderson to do things on the cheap and he’s obliged. Wilpon insists that it’s actually the other way around, in that he takes his cues from Alderson and the baseball operations department and when money needs to be spent, it’s spent. “I go off what the baseball department wants to do and the plan they have and what they’re suggesting. And the last couple years, it’s been a good plan and we’ve obviously signed off on it as ownership,” he said. “I understand the fan base’s frustration and we have the same frustration. Not only myself, but the baseball department and the rest of the staff here at the Mets. Certainly, we want to win it.”

This is so strange. Not even David Lynch’s brain could conceive of a scene from last August where a Jeff Wilpon, fighting back tears, too cowed to object, listens to a towering Sandy Alderson proclaiming it is best for the Mets to take money in exchange for Jay Bruce, Lucas Duda, Neil Walker, and Curtis Granderson instead of better prospects to help fix their putrid farm system, and to close the damn door on his way out.

It also does not explain why a Jason Kipnis trade was set to happen until it was “killed by someone at the top, very likely over money.”

But maybe what Jeff is really trying to intimate is “I’m frustrated that I can’t sign Lorenzo Cain yesterday, believe you me. My father is the one who kept Terry Collins around after all. It’s all his fault. I am the smart one. Please know I am mighty frustrated.”

Matt Ehalt from Northjersey.com, on David Wright’s insurance:

“We still pay a big portion of it,” Wilpon said of the insurance. “When you’re talking about $20 million dollars, and we’re still paying 25 percent, it’s a big number.”

25 percent of $20 million is a “big number” to us schlubs.

It really, really, really should not be a “big number” to someone who owns a major sports franchise.

Unfortunately, blaming David Wright for anything does not trigger an automatic banishment from the Northeast United States. In fact, there are some Met fans who adamantly want him to retire, under the incredibly unjustified assumption that if the Mets were not paying David Wright $20 million, or even just the $5 million per season after insurance kicks in, they would spend it on other players. It’s baffling when you consider the previous seven years, or that Mets ownership just received, or are about to receive, their $50 million check (it might even be more than that) from BAMTech, and they seemingly have already spent some, if not all of this windfall: A Triple-A baseball franchise for $18 million (necessary); $20 million for Jeff to buy an eSports team; and an unknown amount to help build a new hockey rink/hotel/retail space for the Islanders.

Poor David Wright. When he reads Jeff Wilpon’s quotes in an honest to goodness newspaper tomorrow morning he is going to be so mad he might spill some orange juice and, yes, stare at it for a second before furiously cleaning it up.

From Laura Albanese’s article in Newsday:

“There are certain teams that spend $200 million to get (players) valued at 135 (million). Other teams spend 95 to get that value. You can get there in different ways.”

Of course, winning a championship while spending as little as possible is an owner’s dream, which is why Jeff has this stitched on his pillow.

The Houston Astros won the 2017 World Series with a league average payroll, thanks in part to tanking like nobody has tanked before in baseball, and drafting particularly well. They also spent decent money on Cuban free agent Yuli Gurriel, Carlos Beltran, and Justin Verlander for their championship season. Not surprisingly, all three of those guys helped the Astros reach Game 7 of the World Series, where Beltran shared his expertise with his teammates on what pitches they were about to see from Dodgers starter Yu Darvish. Not to mention that the Los Angeles Dodgers and their $265,149,292 payroll were literally one game away from winning the championship themselves.

(You know Fred would have brought up the mid-market 2015 Kansas City Royals if they didn’t, you know, beat the Mets — and their league average payroll — in the World Series.)

The Mets won the World Series in 1986. They were in the top 5 in payroll.

Heh, Yankees were in first.

The Mets returned to the top 5 in 1988 where they missed the World Series by one game. Jeff might be thinking of 1989–1992, when they did not make the postseason while remaining one of the five most generous teams in baseball with the paychecks. They won 87 games in 1989 and 91 games in 1990, both of which would have been good for an NL East title and a playoff spot in the current division alignment. They stunk in 1991, then signed Bobby Bonilla so they can stink again, but this time with Bobby Bonilla, in 1992. For most of the 2000s, the Mets were also in the highest money class. Those teams were for the most part really good, felled by bad injury luck. The lesson should have been to spend, but to spend wisely. Or to spend, but not on Bobby Bonilla. Or the lesson is who cares about the lesson, this is all a ruse anyway, you don’t have the money, or you wont spend all the money you can, except you literally are still paying Bobby Bonilla, to the glee of our enemies.

*Fewer.