In the summer of 2008, the Seattle SuperSonics, our city’s longest-tenured professional sports franchise, headed east to that bustling metropolis of Oklahoma City.
After footing much of the bill for new state of the art stadiums for our NFL and MLB teams, Seattle wasn’t really in the mood to say yes to yet another publicly-funded venue for billionaire owners. Long story short, the owners wanted out, and NBA commissioner David Stern made no effort whatsoever to prevent a relocation.
(It didn’t help matters that the Seattle City Council, whose members are the kinds of assholes we all know who like to mock our enthusiasm for sports with barbs like, “Ooh, sportsball!, flatly stated that they felt a basketball team added nothing of cultural relevance to the Emerald City.)
A few years later, the Sacramento Kings were for sale, and were unable to procure funding for a needed new arena. For a time, it looked better than 50/50 that the Kings would be purchased by Chris Hansen, who intended to move the club north and rechristen them the Sonics. But it never happened, because by this time, apparently Stern had decided that a city losing its team was simply unacceptable. The Kings were sold at a lower price to someone who kept them in Sacramento, and that was that.
In subsequent years, there were whispers that other teams in Milwaukee or New Orleans could move to Seattle, but again, Stern and the NBA weren’t having it. Apparently the Sonics leaving Seattle was the last time the NBA would ever say fuck it to keeping a team in its home town.
It’s anyone’s guess when the city of Seattle will get its Sonics back, but my personal estimate is probably a minimum of eight to ten years; probably longer.
So why the devil am I telling you this in a baseball blog? Mostly because something not altogether different happened in Major League Baseball which involved the team I grew up rooting for.
In 2012, then-MLB dictator Bud Selig essentially held a gun to Los Angeles Dodgers’ owner Frank McCourt’s head and forced him into selling the club. This might seem wildly unfair, but I don’t think it was. McCourt was basically using his ownership of one of MLB’s most celebrated franchises as an enormous piggy-bank to pay for his high profile divorce. So instead of spending money to make the Dodgers competitive, that cash was going to decidedly non baseball-related pursuits.
Selig and the other owners found this unacceptable, and the Dodgers were eventually sold to Guggenheim Baseball Management LLC for about two billion dollars. Since then, the Dodgers have had one of, if not the highest team payroll in baseball. They’ve also made the playoffs for three consecutive seasons. Pretty good deal for Dodger fans, no?
If only fans of the New York Mets were so lucky.
You might have heard some years back that Mets majority owner Fred Wilpon was tangled up in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme that bilked investors out of billions of dollars. Wilpon initially claimed to have lost a lot of cash, but it turned out he was full of shit, and probably profited handsomely. He ended up having to pay $162 million to defrauded investors and as a result, the Mets were essentially fucked financially.
Since MLB put their foot down at this exact same time in the case of the Dodgers, you would think that they’d have forced Wilpon into a sale. After all, a team playing in the nation’s largest media market ought to spend like one. But that never happened, almost certainly because Wilpon had a far better and longer relationship with Selig than McCourt did. And while Wilpon did sell off 48% of the interest in the Mets, he was able to retain majority ownership.
This is bad for a couple of different reasons. For one, it showed blatant favoritism to Wilpon, while sticking it to the fans of the club he owned. While the Dodgers have been able to assemble a world-beating roster at more than a quarter billion dollars per season, the Mets are spending like they play in motherfucking Milwaukee.
Alright, that’s a slight exaggeration: the Brew Crew’s current payroll is quite a bit lower than the Mets’. But before the recent acquisitions of Jay Bruce and Jon Niese, the team payroll sat at about $128 million, which was only slightly higher than the payrolls of the San Diego Padres and Atlanta Braves.
This is significant not only because Atlanta, and especially San Diego, are much smaller markets, but because both the Friars and the Braves are in full on “fuck it, let’s get rid of everybody” mode. The Mets, meanwhile, are the defending National League champions.
I acknowledge that the Amazins have recently managed to succeed despite financial limitations. But it would be a hell of a lot easier to continue that trajectory if they spent like their market dictates they should.
Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that a financially-healthy Mets franchise spent another $40-45 million on payroll, which would put them about halfway toward what the Yankees are spending. That’s the kind of money that would have brought free agent Daniel Murphy back with enough left over to woo either Alex Gordon or Jason Heyward to both solidify the lineup and improve outfield defense substantially. And they would have had money to spare.
Instead, the Mets opted to, ah, enhance their roster on the cheap, acquiring Neil Walker to play second and Alejandro de Aza to be an extra outfielder, while re-signing Yoenis Cespedes to a deal he can opt out of this winter. Or they could have thrown some money at a high end reliever or two to enhance what is, at best, a middle of the road bullpen.
To be fair, both Heyward and Gordon are having terrible years (though Heyward is still playing stellar defense). But Murphy is having an MVP-type season, leading the league in batting average, hits, doubles and OPS….for the Mets’ chief rival in the NL East. He’s been so good at the plate, he’s even overcome his god-awful defense enough to post a very strong 4.1 WAR. Pretty great production from a guy signed to a three year, $37.5 million deal that was apparently too rich for a team that plays in goddamn New York to match. Good job, guys.
An interesting side note: Murph almost single-handedly propelled the Mets to the World Series last year, earning the NLCS Most Valuable Player award in a race that was about as close as Johnson versus Goldwater.
If Mets fans didn’t already know that Murphy was a goner beforehand, they should have known once he got that trophy. The last Met to win a postseason MVP was pitcher Mike Hampton, who would go on to sign a mammoth contract with the Rockies. Before that it was Ray Knight, the 1986 World Series MVP. He was also a free agent that winter and the club (somewhat understandably) made no effort whatsoever to retain him.
The ’86 NLCS MVP wasn’t a Met at all, but rather that cheating bastard Mike Scott from the losing Astros. When the club won pennants in 1969 and 1973, there were no LCS MVP’s. The last- and only- Met to win a playoff award and still be on the team the following season was 1969 World Series MVP Donn Clendenon. Which is why I suspect that when a Met wins such an award, the trophy is accompanied by a certificate that says, “Thank You for Your Service. Now Get the Fuck Out.”
The point it, merely by fielding a team that a New York-based franchise should be able to afford, the Mets could be well positioned for another deep playoff run, instead of desperately trying for a wildcard spot.
As a team, they have a .238 batting average, dead last in the game. And these offensive struggles are nothing new; they ranked 28th last season at .244, and that was after an impressive final two months of the season! In fact, they’ve been among the bottom three offensive teams in baseball for each of the past four seasons. Which is to say these problems should have been addressed a long time ago. Such a perpetually shitty offense might be acceptable for the Tampa Bay Rays, who play in a toilet that nobody visits, but for the Mets, it isn’t.
Actually, I misspoke. Apparently it is acceptable. But it shouldn’t be.
As I said, despite operating on a fixed income, the Mets have done well recently. It helps that they have an excellent assortment of young pitchers who haven’t yet racked up the requisite service time to warrant large salaries. But what happens when that starts to change?
Matt Harvey is eligible for arbitration next year and can become a free agent two years after that. Both Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard are arbitration eligible in 2018. Provided Harvey can bounce back from surgery and the other two are still playing at elite levels, the Mets would probably be looking at more than $70 million per year in salary to retain that trio, even before they reach free agency.
That shouldn’t be impossible to swing for a franchise that plays its home games in New York City. But I can’t believe for even one moment that the Mets will make such a commitment as log as Wilpon owns the club. More likely, one or more of those guys will be traded or allowed to depart via free agency.
I had to watch as the Mets of the mid to late ’80’s allowed a dynasty slip through their fingers due to personal excesses and a few questionable transactions. That team should have been a postseason mainstay for another five years and perpetually competed for championships. Instead they made just one other playoff appearance, being dispatched in seven games in the 1988 NLCS by the Los Angeles Orel Hershisers.
I’m every bit as worried now. As far as I know, there are no raging coke-heads on the 2016 Mets. But that same dread- that external factors are going to compromise what should be a juggernaut for the next five or six years- persists.
When a club has this much cost-controlled pitching talent under one roof, simply winning one pennant would be a spectacular underachievement. But since MLB decided to hold Wilpon to a lower standard than McCourt, I fear that’s not only a very real possibility, but perhaps a good likelihood.
Prove me wrong, Wilpon. For the love of God, prove me wrong.
No Balls And Three Strikes 