Musings
With the sale of the New York Mets to Steve Cohen falling apart, the team has announced it has engaged Allen & Company to handle the process of finding a new buyer.
This is not unusual. Back in 2010, Allen & Company was retained to help sell the Houston Astros. They were retained to do perform the same services for the Houston Astros two years later.
Back in 2011, Allen & Company was also retained by the Mets to sell minority shares of the team in the wake of the Madoff scandal. In fact, they were the company who brokered the David Einhorn deal which had fallen apart similar to how the Steve Cohen deal just did.
That deal not being consummated had many of the same rumors the Cohen deal had including pushback from Major League Baseball and a five year period before he could be the team’s designated control person. In the end, Einhorn would say:
It is clear that it will not be possible for me to consummate the transaction on the terms that the Sterling-Mets organization and I originally agreed to several months ago. The extensive nature of changes that were proposed to me at the last minute has made a successful transaction impossible.
(Teri Thompson, Michael O’Keefe, Bill Madden, New York Daily News).
The Mets ties to Allen & Company run deeper than the failed Einhorn deal and sale of minority shares in the team.
As first noted by MMO‘s Ethan Schwager, Bradley Wilpon was hired by Allen & Company in 2018 as an investment banking analyst. He is the son of Jeff Wilpon and the college teammate of Austin Bossart, who the Mets obtained from the Philadelphia Phillies in exchange for Jason Vargas at the trade deadline last season.
Beyond that, Fortune Magazine describes Steve Greenberg, son of Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg, as close personal friends of Fred Wilpon. Fortune also notes Greenberg has been a member of the Mets Board of Directors as a director since 2010.
During his relationship with the Mets, Greenberg has not only helped in finding buyers, but he’s also been a pivotal part in two of the major team revenue streams. He negotiated the $400 million naming rights deal for Citi Field, and he helped in the development of SNY.
His work with the Mets is not unusual. As noted, he has helped find buyers for other Major League teams, and he has performed similar services for NBA and NHL teams. However, Greenberg doesn’t sit on those boards.
Overall, the hiring of Allen & Company is not remotely unusual. In fact, this is THE company you use to find a buyer. The only thing which is unusual is just how interrelated Allen & Company and the New York Mets seem to be.
Cohen: I’ll give you $2.1 billion for the Mets
Fred: 49%
Cohen: It’s only worth $1.5
Fred: Okay 50/50
Cohen: 80% or I walk
Fred: Ok, but I need to stay on
Cohen: Fine
Fred: And Jeff
Cohen: Really?
Fred: He needs a job
Cohen: I might as well. After all, there’s going to be a transition period of a year
Fred: Of 10 years
Cohen: One
Fred: Only if you don’t institute analytics
Cohen: I’m going to use them immediately
Fred: Then I want 20 years of control
Cohen: Control of what?
Fred: The Mets
Cohen: You get this offseason with five years of mostly ceremonial titles
Fred: Deal
Cohen: Great. I’ll have my lawyers draft the paperwork, and you notify the league office.
Fred: And I’ll notify payroll payroll Jeff’s salary is doubled.
Cohen: That’s it. I’m done.
Fred: Okay, only doubled in year five, but he has control until then.
Cohen: Go find another sucker. I’m not buying the team.
Fred: We don’t need you. We’ll just have Allen & Company sell the team.
Cohen: You’re going to have your grandson sell the team?
Fred: Absolutely
Cohen: I don’t think it’s shock to anyone anymore you got caught up in multiple Ponzi schemes.
Fred: Wait, you have another investment opportunity?
Cohen: Bye Fred.
Just when you thought the New York Knicks were maybe starting to get it, they go out and hire Leon Rose to be their new team president. While there are some who believe this could be a boon for the Knicks much in the same vein Bob Myers with the Warriors or Rob Pelinka with the Lakers, we remember everyone thought it was a good idea to get Rose in the past.
That was the trade with the Chicago Bulls for Derrick Rose. That ended with Rose disappearing and having one of, if not the, worst season of his career.
Looking forward, we see with the Mets hiring a CAA agent is not exactly the best route to success. In fact, aside from not selling the team to Steve Cohen, hiring Brodie Van Wagenen to become the Mets GM has been one of the worst decisions the Wilpons have made over the past two years.
In very short order, Van Wagenen ruined the Mets prospect depth and payroll flexibility. Part of that was his fulfilling Robinson Cano‘s request to come back to New York, and his signing Jed Lowrie, who was physically unable to play last year. Notably, both players were his former clients.
In terms of the prospect depth, we have seen Jarred Kelenic, Anthony Kay, Justin Dunn, and Simeon Woods Richardson reach top 100 rankings.
Van Wagenen has also fired Carlos Beltran for being part of the Astros sign stealing scandal despite trading for two former Astros, J.D. Davis and Jake Marisnick, who had also taken part in that scandal. While Van Wagenen denied any knowledge of the scandal, he notably traded for Marisnick after the news broke.
He has portrayed Hector Santiago as a bit of a savior while also allowing Zack Wheeler to go to a division rival (partially due to budgetary restraints). He also proved to not be true to his word forcing Devin Mesoraco into retirement, cutting Adeiny Hechavarria before he accrued a bonus, and never calling up Dilson Herrera.
As bad as the Wilpons are and continue to be, Van Wagenen has made everything worse.
While Rose may be different than Van Wagenen, the Wilpons are not discernibly different from James Dolan in terms of running a professional sports franchise. Ultimately, while it may not be fair to look at Rose like the next Van Wagenen, you do have to fairly question whether Dolan is more Wilpon or whether he is more like the Warriors or Lakers.
Seeing how Rose’s representation of Carmelo Anthony helped foster the relationship with Dolan much like how Van Wagenen’s representation of Yoenis Cespedes and Todd Frazier fostered the relationship with the Wilpons, you shudder as a Knicks and Mets fan.
Hopefully, Rose is different than Van Wagenen, and he proves to actually know what he is doing. After all, you can cross your fingers Dolan has some clue with how he operates the Rangers. You don’t have the same faith with the Wilpons with their inability to even earn a profit of over a billion.
In the end, the Rose hire may be very different than the Van Wagenen one. No one should have that faith just yet.
The Wilpons are the worst owners in professional sports, and based on their turning down over a billion in profit, they’re not going anywhere anytime soon. With them and their equally incompetent General Manager, there is a sense of despair and/or anger which comes with being a Mets fan. Still, even with the Wilpons being horrible and their not going anywhere, there are reasons to still root for this team:
Pete Alonso – Rookie Home Run King who got the entire team cleats to honor the first responders of 9/11
Dellin Betances – he waited for the opportunity and came back to sign with the Mets because he wanted to stay in New York
Brad Brach – like you and me, he was wearing a Mets jersey rooting for them to win the 2015 World Series (even if he was an Oriole)
Robinson Cano – a truly charitable person who is working to stop domestic violence
Michael Conforto – willing to play any position to help the team, and when he’s hitting there’s few better
Jacob deGrom – the best pitcher in baseball
Edwin Diaz – it takes a big man to admit he had problems with the city making it easy to root for him to be dominant again.
Jeurys Familia – he came back here because he loves being a Met
Luis Guillorme – when finally given a real chance, he proved he can do much more than catch an errant bat.
Robert Gsellman – despite injury did all he could do to come back to try to pitch the Mets into the postseason like he did in 2016
Jed Lowrie – did everything he could give last year and earned those eight PH attempts
Seth Lugo – the best reliever in baseball
Steven Matz – a true blue Mets fan like us all who works to thank and help first responders
Jeff McNeil – a true throwback player who adopts puppies
Tomas Nido – strong defensive catcher who underwent elective surgery to improve his game.
Brandon Nimmo – his joy in baseball and life is only surpassed by his ability to get on base
Rick Porcello – took less to fulfill his boyhood dream of pitching for the Mets
Wilson Ramos – his learning his wife was pregnant with their next child was one of the most heartwarming parts of the 2019 season
Rene Rivera – keeps coming back to work with this pitching staff
Amed Rosario – as hardworking and exciting a player as there is, and he’s about to breakout.
Paul Sewald – a 10th round draft pick who proves himself in his scattered and limited chances
Dominic Smith – got healthy and proved himself to be a good baseball player and terrific teammate
Marcus Stroman – wants baseball to be fun, and he’s a role model to everyone showing it takes heart to be a great player (HDMH)
Noah Syndergaard – he’s standing 60′ 6″ away, and he’s the last Mets pitcher to win a World Series game.
Justin Wilson – pitched through injury to be a very reliable bullpen arm
Ultimately, even with the cheaters on the roster, this remains a very likeable team, and it is guided by a manager in Luis Rojas who Mets fans should soon love. It is hard to stay away from players like this even with their playing for absolutely despicable ownership.
When you account for Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez, and Ron Darling, the Mets broadcasts are unparalleled in their greatness. If nothing else, it is worth watching them do what they do best. It is even better when the Mets have players on the field like they will in 2020.
Combine that with wanting to share baseball with your parents, siblings, and children, and you are going to watch a team you have loved all your life. Ultimately, this is an easy team to root for, which unfortunately, is why boycotts never work, and why the Wilpons will always win.
That’s fine. We can still enjoy life and Mets baseball despite them. We can also make every effort we can to get rid of them and to let them know how much we want them gone. Sooner or later, they will be gone, and we will still be here.
Lets Go Mets!
The Boston Red Sox traded away Mookie Betts, arguably the second best player in baseball, for what amounted to an underwhelming return because the organization believes it needed to get under the luxury tax. This came on the heels of the team needing to fire Alex Cora because he was implicated in the Astros sign stealing scandal.
To that, Mets fans say, “You’re lucky!”
Since the Wilpons took over control of the Mets in 2002, the Red Sox have won four World Series titles to the Mets none. The reason is the Red Sox have competent ownership who will spend and allow their baseball people to run the organization.
The Red Sox got rid of Pedro Martinez towards the end of his career. The Mets helped accelerate that by forcing Pedro to pitch hurt to generate just one last big gate at the end of the 2005 season.
The Red Sox had a similar sell off moving Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, and Josh Beckett in a blockbuster where they got little more than salary relief from the Dodgers. The Red Sox took advantage of that payroll relief by investing it in the roster and winning the World Series the following year.
Meanwhile, the Mets cannot even afford to reinvest insurance proceeds from Yoenis Cespedes and David Wright. Meanwhile, the Mets get Gonzalez when his career is done because they won’t sign a big free agent, nor would they give Dominic Smith a chance much in the same vein the Red Sox gave players like Betts a chance.
Part of the reason for this is the Mets are run by Jeff Wilpon, who continues to prove he’s inept at running a franchise. That goes from assembling a roster to being the type of person who fires an unwed pregnant woman. He also opted to hire a former agent in Brodie Van Wagenen.
Van Wagenen’s first move was to trade Jarred Kelenic and Justin Dunn to help get his former client Robinson Cano out of Seattle like he wanted. Later in the offseason, he signed his former client Jed Lowrie for $20 million, and so far, he only has eight pinch hitting attempts to show for it.
Van Wagenen was hired over Chaim Bloom, one of the most respected people in the business. Bloom was the guy who helped keep the Rays competitive while having significant financial constraints. This is exactly why Mets fans have little to no sympathy for Red Sox fans.
The Red Sox are run by owners who will do whatever it takes to win, and they continuously hire accomplished baseball people who win games for them. They find ways to move past their mistakes, and even when they make unpopular decisions, they offset it by trusting smart baseball people and spending.
Meanwhile, the Mets are cursed by the incompetent Wilpons who can’t even manage to allow someone to overpay for the Mets by over a billion dollars.
So, yes, Red Sox fans, trading away Mookie Betts sucks. However, you at least have Alex Verdugo, Brusdar Graterol, Chaim Bloom, and owners who will eventually spend. The Mets fans have a young core they love but won’t win because of incompetent ownership.
So, yes, Red Sox fans, it can be worse – MUCH WORSE.
Look, when bad news comes down the pike, you can fall to pieces, or you can opt to try to have some fun and make the best of it. In light of that, instead of making the soul crushing realization we’re never getting rid of Jeff Wilpon, let’s pretend we’re Mel Gibson and start trying to find the one Conspiracy Theory which fits.
Cohen Would Never Be Approved
As previously noted, Steve Cohen has paid the largest ever fine for insider trading, and his business was sued for gender discrimination. Maybe MLB owners took a straw poll, and with it being known Cohen wouldn’t be approved as a majority owner, this was Cohen’s way of saving face.
MLB Wants The Wilpons In Power
With the Wilpons operating the Mets, MLB doesn’t have to worry about a second New York team escalating player salaries. With the debt of gratitude owed to MLB for not removing them from power the way it did with the McCourts and the Dodgers, they gained an ally who will forever do their bidding.
As an example, the Mets went from standing by Carlos Beltran because what he did with the Astros don’t impact his role as the Mets manager to firing him after meeting with the Commissioner’s Office.
Having that level of control over an owner is valuable for a commissioner. It’s more valuable when it comes from the largest market in the world.
Wilpons Were Orchestrating A Scam
Lost in Cohen buying the Mets we’re reports the Wilpons couldn’t obtain their share of the financing for the Islanders new arena. Before the sale to Cohen was announced, the Mets saw a diminution in value, there were fewer assets as collateral to obtain loans.
That goes double with the Mets carrying hundreds of millions in debt.
Cohen’s purported purchase price valued the Mets at over a billion more than where the Mets had it, which could give the Mets more equity to loan against.
Wilpons Can’t Actually Sell
We don’t know what the structure of the loan agreements the Mets have. We don’t know when certain payments need to be made, and/or what a sale of the Mets would trigger. More than that, we don’t know how much the Wilpons use the Mets to keep them and their business solvent. Maybe as the Wilpons looked at a post-Mets life, they realized they needed the Mets more than the money they could receive for selling the team.
Cohen Saw the Books and Walked Away
There are various rumors surrounding the Wilpons and the Mets dire financial state which they haven’t been able to get under control post-Madoff.
Maybe Cohen saw things were far worse than the $350 million in loans and losses of $120 million over the last two years. Seeing things were much worse than we all knew them to be, he might’ve realized this was actually a terrible investment and walked away.
Cohen Is Negotiating
Cohen isn’t an idiot. As much as he wants the Mets and the tax shelter, he’s not going to let the Wilpons push him around in these negotiations and keep control of a team he’s running.
Rather than cave, he’s walking away from the table leaving the Wilpons, desperate for the money to finally give them solvency, coming back to him and negotiating from a position of weakness instead of strength.
There’s Another Buyer
Cohen purchased the Mets without it really being public knowledge the Wilpons were open to selling the team. Perhaps after seeing the deal, some deeper pockets approached the Wilpons and told them if they could get out of the deal, they’d offer s better deal.
Wilpons and Katz Resolved Their Differences
One of the rumored reasons why the Mets were selling the team was the split between Saul Katz and Fred Wilpon over the running of the team. Specifically, the main issue for Katz and the rest of the Katz and Wilpon family was how Jeff Wilpon is running the team.
Keep in mind, this wasn’t the first time Katz wanted to sell. Perhaps, the Wilpons are finding a way to hold onto the majority control of the team while permitting Katz to sell his shares. Maybe, there was a reconciliation between the two which could be the Wilpons buying him out or some other action.
Whatever the case, the Wilpon/Katz dynamic is the driving force of the sale to Cohen, and if the Mets are not sold, it is all because of this dynamic.
Cohen Was Disgusted By The Offseason
So far this offseason, the Mets botched hiring a manager, saw Zack Wheeler go to a division rival, and as a whole, he saw the Mets projected 2020 roster as worse than the 2019 roster which finished the season. Seeing this, he pushed for immediate control or an out.
Jeff Was Never Relinquishing Control
Time-in and time-out, Jeff Wilpon referred to the Mets as business as usual. Case-in-point was when Beltran was fired, Jeff said he spoke with Fred Wilpon, not Steve Cohen. When you look at this offseason, the Mets were operated no differently than in previous seasons. This could be a strong indication Jeff Wilpon is not going to permit anyone to take control of the Mets away from him.
That could include his doing everything in his power along the line to sabotage the deal. His efforts might’ve accelerated when he saw Cohen’s plans to celebrate his taking over the team.
Wilpons Want All The Credit
Around the time of the announced sale, the Mets have announced the building of the Tom Seaver statue fans had begged them to build for years. Jerry Koosman‘s number 36 is being retired. There is a new address honoring Seaver at Citi Field and Mike Piazza in Port St. Lucie. Beloved Mets like Edgardo Alfonzo and Ron Darling are getting inducted into the team Hall of Fame.
It’s very clear the Wilpons want to change the story, and they want the Mets fans to look warmly upon them. There’s also no mistaking their wanting five years of control to get that one World Series title they still don’t have (in 1986, Nelson Doubleday was the majority owner).
In the end, the Wilpons saw the fan reaction to their selling the team, fan overtures about how Steven Cohen was going to get them players like Mookie Betts, and generally how their going away makes everything better. Seeing that, they let their egos get in the way and decided if they’re not getting the credit they think they’re owed, the fans aren’t getting the ownership they deserve.
Fred Worries About Jeff
Since the announced sale to Cohen, Jeff Wilpon has announced his new business venture of stadium consulting at a time when Sterling cannot get financing for the Islanders arena. Jeff’s big financial investment, the NYXL, participates in a league which isn’t producing anywhere near the revenues the owners hoped it would generate.
Overall, Jeff Wilpon continues to show he has little to no business sense, and short of the Mets giving him a guaranteed job, you wonder what happens five years from now. As a worrying dad, Fred might just be willing to forego financial security and a billion in profit just to take care of his son.
There’s Something Horrible Coming
The Wilpons have been caught up in a Ponzi scheme. Jeff Wilpon has fired an unwed pregnant woman, and former Mets players have spoken out about his interference with medical issues. Steve Cohen has his own checkered past including his run-ins with the law.
Everyone involved in this transaction is dirty, and sooner or later, their own personal conduct could lead to a deal completely falling apart. Given their respective histories, there isn’t much you can rule out whether it has legal implications or otherwise.
Frankly, pondering what that could be is much easier to stomach than to accept the cold, hard reality. That reality is the Wilpons have a choke hold on the Mets, they’re incompetent owners, and we are not getting rid of them anytime soon.
With Major League Baseball’s new rules, teams can only carry 13 pitchers, and seeing how the Mets have operated the past few seasons, the Mets will very likely carry 13 pitchers in 2020. With the five man rotation, this means the Mets will have an eight man bullpen.
Right now, barring injury, the Mets have Edwin Diaz, Seth Lugo, Dellin Betances, Jeurys Familia, Justin Wilson, and Brad Brach as absolute locks for the Opening Day bullpen. That is going to leave two bullpen spots open with one of them going to the pitcher who loses the bullpen battle. That pitcher is most likely going to be Michael Wacha.
That is where things begin to get a bit interesting.
On the surface, it would seem Robert Gsellman has an inside track for the last bullpen job. After all, he has been a reliever for each of the past two seasons. However, he has not performed well out of the bullpen with an 87 ERA+ and 4.03 FIP over that stretch. When you combine the Mets wanting him to spend the offseason working as a starter, you wonder if a pitcher who still has options remaining will begin the year in Triple-A as a starter.
On the topic of options, Jacob Rhame is out of options, and the Mets will have to expose him to waivers if they are going to keep him in the organization.
Rhame is coming off a season where he had ulnar transposition surgery. That is the same surgery Jacob deGrom underwent in 2016. In his first year after the surgery, deGrom was a good starting pitcher, and in the ensuing two years he emerged as the best pitcher in baseball.
Now, that is obviously not Rhame’s ceiling. However, we do see after undergoing that surgery a pitcher can reach their full potential. While many may debate what exactly that is for Rhame, the Mets clearly have some interest in finding out as they have kept him throughout this offseason despite fully knowing he is out of options.
With Rhame having a career 6.23 MLB ERA and a Triple-A 4.05 ERA, you have to wonder what exactly the Mets are seeing in him.
Looking at Baseball Savant, Rhame throws in the mid-90s, and back in 2018, before he needed the transposition surgery, he had above average movement on that fastball. While he did not get much vertical movement on his splitter, it had very good horizontal movement, which is part of the reason why it was a swing-and-miss pitch for him.
Ultimately, that is what the Mets see in Rhame – his potential. Since the day they obtained him from Curtis Granderson, they knew they were getting a big arm with relatively untapped potential. He still has the ability to generate strikeouts, and as we saw with Rhys Hoskins, he has a bit of a nasty streak where he won’t back down or take anything from the opponent.
Based on what we have seen this offseason, the Mets are going to allow Rhame to work with new pitching coach Jeremy Hefner to show his potential can yield results. Presumably, he is going to get an opportunity to show the Mets he is a better option in the bullpen than Gsellman, who may belong in the rotation, or Walker Lockett, who is also out of options.
In the end, the Mets have kept Rhame around for a reason. Perhaps, that reason is to have him be a part of the 2020 Opening Day roster. With pitchers and catchers reporting soon, he is going to get the opportunity to prove he belongs.
Right now, it appears the Los Angeles Dodgers are in the lead for Mookie Betts partially because they appear willing to take on David Price‘s contract as part of the deal. What is interesting about that is Price is still an effective pitcher.
While he may not be quite worth the $64 million for the remaining three years of his contract ($32 million AAV), he is still an effective pitcher. It should be noted it is not without some risk. After all, he did miss the end of the 2019 season due to a left wrist injury.
If not Price, a team could insert themselves into the running by taking on Nathan Eovaldi. He’s an even bigger injury risk, and he is owed $51 million over the next three years.
The key with Betts isn’t just the prospects. It is providing the team with salary relief to help them rebuild. Essentially, the team willing to take on the Red Sox contracts, can get one guaranteed year of Betts as a bonus. This is not too different from how the Los Angeles Dodgers obtained Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, and Josh Beckett in a deal which not only allowed the Red Sox to get salary relief, but it also helped jump start the Dodgers.
Similar to the Red Sox with Betts, the Chicago Cubs are looking to trade Kris Bryant due to purported budget constraints.
The team willing to take on the contracts of Jason Heyward, Yu Darvish, or even Craig Kimbrel could really improve their chances of obtaining Bryant. For a Mets team who needs a center fielder, will soon face Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz hitting free agency, and could still use an upgrade in the bullpen, could take on one of those contracts in order to make a push for Bryant.
Keep in mind, the Mets getting Betts or Bryant would be a game changer.
Depending on the trade, obtaining either one of those players would put the Mets from middle of the pack in the Naional League East to one of the best teams in all of baseball. Suddenly, we are not talking about fighting for a Wild Card or having a shot at the division. No, we are talking about the Mets as legitimate World Series contenders.
The issue with the Mets is with the Wilpons in charge money is an even bigger issue than it is in Boston or Chicago. The Mets are the same team who did not reinvest the insurance savings on Yoenis Cespedes‘ or David Wright‘s contracts.
Again, this is where Steve Cohen comes into play. If he was willing to increase the Mets budget now in order to take on contracts which will be in play when he takes over, the Mets could make one of these potential trades. However, based on what we have seen this offseason with the Mets not signing players to multi-year deals, it does not seem the Mets are willing to take on future payroll obligations until the sale is finalized.
That does mute some of the early enthusiasm where people thought Cohen would immediately inject money into the organization. Sadly, the Mets assumed unwillingness to take on a big contract to get a Betts or Bryant is another indication the Wilpons are still in power.
To that end, there could be a sense of relief. After all, Brodie Van Wagenen bungled taking on Robinson Cano‘s contract. Seeing that, you absolutely cannot trust him making a deal of this magnitude. Overall, with Van Wagenen making moves and the budget still restrained, we see things have not yet changed/improved.
Hopefully, that will all change in the not too distant future. Until then, we will see players like Betts and Bryant playing for a team not located in Flushing.
There wasn’t John Franco blowing an eighth inning lead. Armando Benitez didn’t blow a 10th inning save opportunity. Kenny Rogers didn’t walk Andruw Jones with the bases loaded.
Instead, Frank Clark got Jimmy Garopollo into a grasp only Eli Manning could’ve wrestled out of leading to the drive ending on downs.
A Damien Williams touchdown and Kendall Fuller pick later, and the Chiefs somewhat improbable comeback was accomplished, and they were Super Bowl Champions.
Twenty years later, Mets fans got to finally see Pat Mahomes win a title.
No, it wasn’t with the same team or even the same sport, but Mahomes is a champion. Still, with him wearing his father’s Mets jersey on occasion, as a Mets fan, you couldn’t help from feeling happy for the family.
With the Chiefs winning their first Super Bowl since Super Bowl IV, you also couldn’t help but feel optimism the Mets own drought will soon end.
Like the Chiefs for so many years, the Mets seemed snake bitten facing many brutal losses and horrific moments since their last title.
Rogers walked in Jones. Todd Zeile‘s bounced back and Timo Perez didn’t run it out.
Roberto Alomar completely lost it. On that note, the team traded away Jason Bay too soon and signed him too late. There was also the mishandling of his and Ryan Church‘s concussions.
There were so many mishandled injuries. Pedro Martinez was inexplicably forced to pitch, and the Mets at least tried to prevent Carlos Beltran from getting knee surgery.
Of course, we have Beltran looking at an Adam Wainwright curveball and his teams teams collapse in the ensuing two years leaving everyone but Tom Glavine devastated. That’s nowhere near as bad as the embarrassment leading up to Beltran’s firing.
That cast a shadow over his World Series. Mets fans should be so lucky.
Terry Collins can completely blew the series with bad decisions which backfired all series long. Jeurys Familia‘s quick pitch didn’t fool Alex Gordon, and a year later, he was flat out beat by Conor Gillaspie.
This all meant David Wright, forced to retire too soon from spinal stenosis which robbed him of the Hall of Fame, never won a ring. To a lesser extent, there’s the career Matt Harvey never got to have due to his TOS.
Throw in the Madoff scandal and the Wilpons being the Wilpons, and this franchise seems as snakebitten as they come. That’s how the Chiefs fans once felt.
They don’t feel that way anymore. That changed with Mahomes, who is now a champion.
For the Mets, they have Pete Alonso, Michael Conforto, Jacob deGrom, Jeff McNeil, Brandon Nimmo, Noah Syndergaard, and more. Combine that with the impending sale of the team, and there’s hope.
Maybe, just maybe, 2020 will be the year for the Mets.
It may sound ridiculous, but so is Andy Reid managing the clock well and having terrific game management in the fourth quarter to help the Chiefs win a Super Bowl.
While we’re all getting together to watch the Super Bowl, we’re all reminded about how former Mets great Juan Uribe feels:
"More fooball! Oh sh*t! F*cking bullsh*t… unf*ckingbelievable… Baseball, that's what I want to watch." – Juan Uribe
— Marc Carig (@MarcCarig) September 13, 2015
Maybe the fact Patrick Mahomes is the son of Pat Mahomes and the godson LaTroy Hawkins chances his mind. On second thought, probably not.
Regardless of what he’s doing, his hilarious and epic rant is amusing to recall. It’s also a reminder of just how much fun Uribe was in less than a half season with the Mets.
Not only was he a good player, but he was also fun. He made that run all the more enjoyable, and we’re all better off for his being a Met and being in baseball.