Jeff Wilpon’s Treatment Of Sandy Alderson His Latest Despicable Act

When it comes to Jeff Wilpon, you keep wondering how one person could be just so despicable.  Over the past few years, he fired an unwed pregnant woman leading the team to have to settle a lawsuit.

In 2015, when former co-owner Nelson Doubleday died, the Mets held a moment of silence, but they refused a uniform patch or even a black armband for the man who rescued the Mets in 1980.

As reported by the New York Time this past December, Jeff Wilpon holds a grudge against Ed Kranepool stemming from an incident from about five years ago when Kranepool said rather than buying shares available for sale, he wanted to buy the team from the Wilpons because he could run the team better.

In response to this, with Kranepool suffering through real health issues causing him to sell off some of his personal memorabilia, Kranepool said, “Not that I need them to do anything for me, but Fred or somebody could have called to say, ‘How you feeling?’”

In and of themselves, each of them are despicable acts, but in true Jeff Wilpon fashion, he seemed to raise the bar yesterday.

In what was a surprise press conference, where Sandy Alderson was announcing he was stepping aside so he could continue his battle with cancer, Jeff Wilpon led things off by saying this:

This is a results business and we’re well below our expectations, from ownership on down.  Talk to the baseball department, the scouting department, the development department, the coaches, the players. Nobody expected to be in this position.

You have a range of emotion just like our fans that include incredibly frustrated, disappointed, angry about our season at this point, certainly.  We’re in a results business and at this point, we’re well below our expectations.

From there, he went into saying how Sandy Alderson was basically stepping aside, and how there was going to be the triumvirate of J.P. Riccardi, Omar Minaya, and John Ricco, who would bring the decisions to Jeff much in the same way they were handled by Alderson.

Put another way, before giving Alderson the floor, Wilpon trashed the job Alderson did this year, essentially said he could do Alderson’s job better, and then he sat there stone faced, disinterested, and playing with the paper in his hands as Alderson, a man fighting for his life, fought through tears to get through everything.

Jeff Wilpon just sat there as Alderson took responsibility for this season and in his saying his performance does not merit him returning to the Mets after he hopefully wins this battle with cancer.  Mets fans can all agree Alderson made some mistakes over the years, but you’d be hard pressed to find a single one who believes everything was completely his fault.

To that end, this smelled more like a “dignified” firing with cancer as an excuse that allowing a good man to focus all of his energies fighting cancer and then being given an opportunity resume his duties as the Mets General Manager.  Certainly, Jeff Wilpon had plenty of opportunities to say Sandy was welcome to return to the Mets, but he always made sure to steer clear of that.

Perhaps most disgusting of all was there was not one thank you uttered from the lips of Jeff Wilpon.  Not one.

This is a man whose hiring probably helped the Wilpons retain control of the team post-Madoff.  This was a man who did the rebuild which led to the Mets making it all the way to the 2015 World Series.  He is just one of two Mets General Managers to make consecutive postseasons.

Last year, after the season fell apart, he focused on saving the Wilpons money than maximizing the return for each and every single of those the players traded.

Mostly, this was a good man who fought for his country, and who did all he could do for the Mets.  In all the years after 1986, Sandy Alderson was quite possibly the closest to winning that third World Series.

When he leaves, he leaves behind players like Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Michael Conforto, Brandon Nimmo, and Amed Rosario.  He also leaves behind a farm system with Andres Gimenez, Mark Vientos, David Peterson, Justin Dunn, Peter Alonso, and so much more.  Long story short, he did an admirable job in difficult circumstances.

At the very least, even as Jeff Wilpon was trashing him and allowing Alderson to take the heat all upon himself, you would think at some point Wilpon would offer a simple, “Thank you.”

Thank you for serving the Mets for the past eight years.  Thank you for 2015.  Thank you for allowing us to retain control of the team.

That “Thank you” never did come, and we shouldn’t be surprised if it never comes.  After all, Jeff Wilpon has shown himself to be a despicable person who can’t help one gravely ill person in Kranpeool, who fires pregnant women and jokes about it, and lastly, allows Alderson to take the heat for all that has gone wrong.

The point cannot be driven home enough.  Jeff Wilpon is a petty and despicable man, and what he did to Alderson yesterday was inexcusable.

For about the millionth time, shame on him.

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