Kerel Cooper of the On The Black and I got together again to talk about the state of the Mets. This week we cover spring training games starting, MLB issuing a secret loan to the Mets, the bullpen, and the candidates for the bench in 2011.
A couple of issues we talked about that are worth discussion are that I love Jenrry Mejia in the bullpen and hate Nick Evans coming off the bench. Check out the video below to see why.
If you’re on the Mets email list, you know that they’ve been sending a constant stream of emails attempting to entice you into purchasing tickets for the 2011 season. I haven’t purchased any yet and I don’t plan to until I get a sense for what this team looks like on the field. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t liked what I’ve seen since 2007 and I’m just not motivated by the slight roster changes this year to purchase tickets.
Ken Belson and Richard Sandomir wrote a good piece in today’s NY Times about the state of the team’s finances, as if we haven’t read enough about that recently, and the Mets tickets sales for this year. They write that ticket sales for this season are going so poorly that the team is literally in a state of panic about it. Apparently, they replaced the long-time head of ticket sales and last week let go of several full-time employees, and aren’t re-hiring several part-time employees in the ticket office.
I hate to hear that people are losing their jobs. I’ve been laid off before too and it’s a terrible experience. So I don’t wish that on anybody. Often, it’s not the person getting laid off that’s at fault either. Poor management decisions can lead to that and the poor managers often keep their jobs for some unknown reason.
The Catch-22 of the situation is that the Mets didn’t make any changes to the roster that would motivate fans, like me, to go out and buy a ticket plan. Fans aren’t buying tickets so the team doesn’t have the revenue to make major player moves. My strategy this year, as it has been the last several seasons, is to look for a good team and pitching match up and buy tickets on the secondary market for those individual games. I feel that it’s helping the fans that did purchase season tickets to sell some of them. Although I probably end up buying tickets from some horrible broker that bought thousands of tickets. Who knows when you buy on StubHub?
I’m curious to know what you ticket buying strategy is for 2011. Leave a comment below.
The New York Times revealed the existence of a $25 million loan from MLB to the Mets last November. Under pressure from a $1 billion lawsuit by the trustee for the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, the Wilpons reached out to their old friend, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, for a line of funding to keep the Mets operating for a short time.
The loan was so secret that Selig didn’t even tell the other owners that he was providing a bailout to the team one of the highest payrolls in the league and one of the priciest front offices as well. Selig finally told baseball’s executive committee in January about the existence of the loan. A Times reporter asked Fred Wilpon yesterday if he received financial assistance from MLB. Wilpon said he didn’t want to talk about team finances and dashed away quickly. When Wilpon was told that the Times found out about the secret loan, the team issued a brief statement to the media:
We said in October that we expected to have a short-term liquidity issue. To address this, we did receive a loan from Major League Baseball in November. Beyond that, we will not discuss the matter any further.
Last year MLB provided about $40 million in assistance to the Texas Rangers. That was because the owner and team were in bankruptcy. The loan that the Mets received isn’t far off in dollar value and is very telling about the state of the Mets finances compared to where the Rangers were last year.
The issue that concerns me is that the Wilpons haven’t been forthright, whatsoever, with the fans and the media about the real situation. Last year the Wilpons said the lawsuit didn’t have any financial impact on the operations of the Mets. It has. Last month the Wilpons admitted that they’re trying to find a minority investor in the team but there was no issue with operations. Last week the Wilpons arrived in Port St. Lucie and reiterated that the Mets had no financing problems.
The owners haven’t been forthcoming with the fans about the real situation with the team’s finances. Going forward, we have to take everything they reveal about the finances with a grain of salt. They’re being careful not to lie about it, but they’re certainly not talking about the true nature of the problem that this caused for the team.
Kerel Cooper of On The Black and I got together for another weekly video to talk about the state of the Mets as the team begins their first full squad workouts. The hot topics of the week are Luis Castillo reporting on time but not early, Carlos Beltran in center field, and K-Rod showing up and apologizing again for assaulting someone at Citi Field last year.
The good news is that we don’t have to talk about the Bernie Madoff lawsuit this week!
http://blip.tv/play/guougqXYHwI%2Em4v
Fred Wilpon arrived in Port St. Lucie today and defiantly told reporters that his family will be vindicated. He spoke to reporters at length about the Madoff trustee lawsuit against him and said that he’s done nothing wrong and the Mets won’t be affected by the suit. It’s the same thing he told reporters at his press conference a couple of weeks ago.
Here are the stories that are in the news from PSL:
Spring training is finally here with pitchers & catchers reporting this week and the Mets blogosphere is now starting to come alive. It’s my favorite time of year…
But over at my personal blog, where I track iPhone apps and other various tech tool and plugins, I’m anxiously awaiting the release of MLB.com’s At Bat 2011 iPhone App. Where is it? No one knows. I received a teaser notification from the 2010 version of the app informing me the 2011 version is on it’s way. No date was announced though.
I have a small discussion going on at my blog as well as a promo. The most interesting comment will be gifted the MLB At Bat 2011 iPhone App. The comments are going to be judged by a 3 member panel. Dave Doyle as well as Kerel Cooper from On The Black have offered to judge comments with me. It’s open to all iPhone users.
I’m just not sure what’s holding this app up. I do know there is a huge update to the Android edition of the app that will include streaming video of every MLB game. Of course, blackout restrictions apply which means you will not be able to watch your home teams play. No one knows how much the new app will cost. Last year the app was $14.99. This year I’ve heard numbers anywhere from $20 to free. All this is just speculation though.
So leave your comments, when do you think the app is coming out, what new features do you think will be available, what’s the difference between the Android and iPhone editions of the app?
Kerel Cooper of On The Black and I are doing a weekly video chat this season talking Mets baseball. This week we discuss the Mets arriving in PSL, the potential of Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo to make the roster, the new partial season ticket packs, and the Phillies.
It’s a great time of year with the Mets starting up camp in Florida. But the news hasn’t been good for the Mets between the Madoff mess and the roster dilemna they’ll face with Perez and Castillo.
Check out the video below and let me know in the comments if there are any issues that we should address this week.
The Mets Report 