Jeff Wilpon Hiding From Media In Plain Sight
On Monday, Jeff Wilpon was at Belmont Park to attend a groundbreaking for the Islanders new arena. Through the Sterling Project Development, the Wilpons are investors and developers of this project. At the event, Jeff Wilpon did not receive, and as a result, he did not have to answer questions about the Mets.
On Tuesday, Jeff Wilpon held an unexpected press conference to announce Jerry Koosman was going to join Tom Seaver and Mike Piazza as the only Mets players to have their numbers retired. As this was a press conference honoring Koosman, there were questions about plans to retire his and other numbers in the future.
That’s two times this week Jeff Wilpon was with the media, and that’s two times he was not subjected to the questions which needs to be asked of him and the franchise.
Despite all the “Come and Get Us!” bravado from Brodie Van Wagenen, the Mets best case scenario for this season is a third place finish more than 10 games out in the division. This is after the franchise traded away top prospects in Jarred Kelenic, Justin Dunn, Anthony Kay, and Simeon Woods Richardson in connection with more interesting and talented prospects.
Those trades come with payroll issues, which is largely created by Robinson Cano being owed $100 million. There are reports about the lack of a real budget to address the deficiencies in the bullpen and the bench in addition to the team needing to make a decision on Zack Wheeler.
Speaking of the payroll, the purportedly all-in Mets who are in the largest market in the world have a $158 million payroll. According to Spotrac, that ranks only eighth in the Majors. It should be noted that includes David Wright‘s $15 million salary which was restructured. It also includes Yoenis Cespedes‘ $29 million salary, which Joel Sherman of the New York Post reported, was covered by an insurance policy reimbursing 75% of his salary.
When you back out Wright’s $15 million and the $21.75 million reimbursed to the Mets on Cespedes’ salary, the Mets actual payroll was $121.25 million. That would rank 20th in the Majors. That’s not remotely all-in, and the owners of the team should have to face questions why they aren’t reinvesting money in the team while they also have the money to invest in other ventures.
There are a number of other issues facing the team like the status of Mickey Callaway‘s future as well as what the team plans to do with Noah Syndergaard and Michael Conforto. There is plenty more beyond that.
The fact is Jeff Wilpon is always there when there is something to celebrate. He’s not there to answer the tough questions facing the team. He and his General Manager have actively denied requests to speak with the media when there have been questions facing the team which need to be answered.
At some point, the media is going to have to stop letting him hide in plain sight. If he is only going to make himself available on limited occasions, those occasions need to be used to get answers to questions which need answering. After all, he’s the Mets COO, and when he attends events, he is attending them as the Mets COO making it more than fair game to ask those questions which should be directed to the Mets COO.
Agreed, MD. The Wilpons are ultimately responsible for this utter fiasco of a season. It was the Wilpons who hired the fool who dealt away the team’s future for the magic beans of third place, and who yapped “come and get us,” a phrase that will be remembered a decade from now for its singular idiocy. It was Jeff Wilpon who pushed the hiring of a golfing buddy with no FO experience and no idea how to build a complete team, instead of one of the most gifted FO talents in MLB, Chaim Bloom, a co-GM, who put together a team headed for about 97 wins for just $56 million dollars in payroll. $56 million. That’s barely more than the 2020 salaries of Cano and Cespedes.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/TBD/tampa-bay-rays-salaries-and-contracts.shtml
Van Wagenen isn’t taking nearly the beating in the press he deserves, either. The idiotic acquisition of Stroman for the Mets only two top-10 pitching prospects when he rated to be less than 1 win better than Vargas over the last 2 months, was absurd. Moving Vargas to save at most 2m next year when it would have added Matz to the pen, was ridiculous. The guy who threw away 3m+ on TDA couldn’t figure out how to scrounge 2m from the 2020 payroll in order to add a lefty arm to the pen and depth to the rotation for the 2019 stretch drive?
Anyway, the list is far too long to go into here, but van Wagenen has no competition I can see for worst GM in the majors, and that’s entirely at the Wilpons’ door, primarily Jeff Wilpons’ door–and something which he is desperate not to answer for. What an preposterous hire. What a ridiculous offseason. What an absurd season. What a complete fiasco.
Well said.