I used to defend Fred Wilpon. For years, the Mets have had one of the highest payrolls in the league, befitting a New York team with its own television network. A beautiful new stadium was built under his watch. But in the wake of Wilpon-the-elder's sports talk radio-esque comments in The New Yorker, those days are over. Fred Wilpon is a disgrace.

Lousy organizations tend to blame their best players when things aren't going well. This concept was discussed last season when David Wright was struggling early in the season. And the Mets, despite the front office turnover, are still a lousy organization. Omar Minaya tells us that Wright and Jose Reyes don't have an "edge"; Fred Wilpon says Wright is no superstar, Reyes is injury prone, Carlos Beltran is a shell of his former self and the Mets are a "sh*tty team". It's erroneous whether or not he's right in his assessments (he might be). No amount of contrarian rationalization can mask the fact that Wilpon publicly put down his three best players for seemingly no reason. Maybe it's part of his new free agent sales pitch -- "Sign with the Mets and get dissed by your owner!"

Imagine if Wright, Reyes or Beltran said "Fred Wilpon -- nice guy. Shitty owner, nice guy." Imagine that sh*tstorm? You cant imagine it because it wouldn't happen. The three players have said all the right things to the media during their time with the Mets. And continue to do so even after this latest bit of nonsense. Here's Wright in an e-mail to Brian Costa of the Wall Street Journal:

David Wright e-mailed me in response to Wilpon's comments: "Fred is a good man and is obviously going through some difficult times."

And a follow-up:

Wright added, "There is nothing more productive that I can say at this time."

You stay classy, David Wright. And I won't blame you if you seek employment with another team when your contract is up.