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The 2015 New York Mets were something that the Mets have not been, aside from 2006, for the better part of fourteen years: good. Relevant. Fun. Exciting. Successful.<\/p>\n
Behind a once-in-a-lifetime young pitching staff, the acquisition of Yoenis Cespedes and the absolutely masterful job Terry Collins did managing the team, the Mets eked by the Dodgers in five games in the NLDS and then proceeded to dump-truck the Cubs on their way to a sweep and the World Series. \u00a0Of course, we all know how the story ended: playoff star Daniel Murphy went cold, the pitching, especially in the bullpen, failed and the Royals essentially killed the Mets with 1,000 paper cuts. \u00a0So after that five-game World Series was over, you would surely think that the team would do their best to lock up free-agents-to-be Cespedes and Murphy, right? \u00a0Wrong.<\/p>\n
Well, at least they would try to replace them with high-priced free agents at the same positions, right? \u00a0Wrong again.<\/p>\n
To be fair, the team has basically replaced Murphy by trading for former Pirates’ second baseman Neil Walker. \u00a0The team also pursued the free agent who may have single-handedly stopped the Winter Meetings in their tracks, second baseman Ben Zobrist. \u00a0Zobrist decided to take less money than the $60 million the Mets were offering and signed with the Cubs for four years and $56 million. However this isn’t a huge deal, as Walker can step in to Murphy’s place and provide the same production he did, so that move should work out. \u00a0But who would the team acquire to replace Cespedes?<\/p>\n
If you guessed Alejandro De Aza, you’re either a psychic or have inner knowings of the team’s front office plans.<\/p>\n
The team announced the signing yesterday, along with its terms: one year, $5.75 million. \u00a0The opportunity to make that $7 million with performance-based incentives. \u00a0In other words, not someone who is going to be able to replace the production left behind by the departure of Cespedes.<\/p>\n
To be clear, De Aza is a quality player, but probably one that is more suited to a bench role. \u00a0A career .267 hitter, he’s only averaged slightly over five home runs per year in his eight years in the majors. \u00a0In a platoon with current center fielder, right-handed hitter and 2014 Gold Glove award winner Juan Lagares, the left-handed hitting De Aza would probably get more playing time and bat near the bottom of the order. \u00a0The move for the team\u00a0is not necessarily a bad one at a small level, but as part of the bigger picture, it doesn’t really work. \u00a0The team needed to somehow replace Cespedes’ big bat in the lineup, and they couldn’t even do it in the aggregate.<\/p>\n
But this isn’t about a team’s free agent moves after making the World Series. \u00a0This is about the owners of that team, Fred and Jeff Wilpon, along with president Saul Katz, simply being unwilling to put in the money needed to keep the team near the top for several years to come.<\/p>\n
On Monday, freelance writer Howard Megdal published a piece on Vocativ about how the team is more or less swimming in a pool of unpaid debt. \u00a0You have to read the\u00a0whole thing<\/a>\u00a0for yourself, but here is an excerpt:<\/p>\n Back in 2008, the team\u2019s investments with Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff were discovered to be a fraud. More than $500 million in assets<\/a> Wilpon and Katz thought they had\u2014and had borrowed against\u2014vanished. Accordingly, just to stay afloat, they needed to take out a $430 million loan against the team and $450 million against their majority ownership stake in SNY (a network started with a loan from Madoff, incidentally).<\/p>\n Ever since, the Mets have managed to get by annually by diverting revenue from their baseball and television operation into the financing of debt. Prior to the refinancing of the past two years, the annual interest on these two loans plus debt balloon payments of more than $43 million have exceeded team payroll itself.<\/p>\n The refinancing of the two loans has extended their due dates out five years, so this arrangement is set to continue for a long time to come. And the debt balloon payments run until December 2045, when currently youthful pitching ace Steven Matz will be 54 years old.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Mets will be paying these crazy debts until 2045. \u00a0It will take the team so long to pay off these debts that they will be finished paying off the rest of Bobby Bonilla’s contract before the debts are paid. \u00a0It’s a bad situation, and the main reason why the team hasn’t been spending big bucks in free agency for the last several years.<\/p>\n This is the problem, though: it isn’t like the team is not making money. \u00a0Even with the debt payments, the Mets experienced an attendance increase of 19.5% a year ago (and a similar, if not larger, increase should be expected next season based off the results of 2015). \u00a0Also, the team’s most conservative estimates state that they added around $20 million in revenue<\/a> from the team’s playoff games. That same article says that ratings on the team’s television network, SportsNet New York (SNY, for short) increased by about 56 percent over the past year, which means more revenue because advertisers are far more likely to pay for commercial sports on the team-owned network.<\/p>\n The opportunity for the Mets to spend is right in front of them. \u00a0Their starting rotation is making so little (a projected $13.5 million next year) that this person is going to be the highest-paid starter on the team next season:<\/p>\n