I Wish We Could Fire Jeff Wilpon

The Mets fired Jerry Manuel. That's good. The Mets fired Omar Minaya. That will help. But perhaps the biggest problem with this team is a problem we may never be able to excise, Jeff Wilpon.



I have said over the past four years while overreacting fans begged the Mets to spend more money that their spending was fine, perhaps too much. The Mets have consistently been in the top 5 in payroll. But they have not been in the top 5 or top 10, or top 20 the past two seasons in results. That means the amount of money being spent isn't the problem. The problem is how it's being spent.
I normally blamed Omar Minaya for the misspending but it is not clear Jeff Wilpon deserves a sizable share of the blame as well.
A scathing New York Post column by Joel Sherman delved into the problems with Wilpon.


Let’s give Jeff Wilpon the benefit of the doubt here for a moment.

Let’s say he is not short-tempered. Tone deaf. A credit seeker. An accountability deflector. A micro-manager. A second-guesser. A less-than-deep thinker. And bad at self-awareness.

Fine, he’s none of these things. But here is the problem: This is his perception in the industry as the Mets try yet again to fix their baseball operations department.

That's a poorly worded way of saying he is all those things, without actually saying it. It goes on:

"A baseball executive in regular contact with the Mets: 'Jeff is the problem with the organization, and he is never going to realize that. He cannot help himself. He has to be involved. He will never hire anyone who will not let him have major input. He will not hire anyone who does not run every personnel decision through him.'"

Jeff is the problem with the Mets. But we can't get rid of him because he happened to be born to the owner of the team. And Mets fans suffer as a result.

For years I have railed against the Mets making reactionary free agent signings that never seem to work (starting with Pedro Martinez) just to get the papers and the talk radio hosts (Mike and the Mad Dog spent years ruining the Mets) to say nice things about them. It seems that was all coming from Jeff Wilpon. He's the one who couldn't stand to listen to Fat Francesa say the Mets needed to do something to win back their fans.

We enter another offseason at a crossroads. We have no manager, no top baseball executive and two sub-.500 seasons in a row. Will the Mets attempt to make a big splash by signing Cliff Lee? I hope not. But the even less desirable alternative is the one most likely to happen, the Mets miss on Lee, the papers and talk radio hosts go nuts, Wilpon orders an overreaction and the Mets spend $75 million on an average pitcher.

What the Mets need to do is go into the season with an infield of Davis, Reyes, Wright and a new second baseman (Future Hall of Famer Dan Uggla?), and outfield of Bay, Beltran and Duda and a rotation of Santana, Pelfrey, Dickey, Niese and Mejia. They need to trade Beltran in July and consider dumping Santana as well. The Mets need to rebuild, not add one mediocre overpaid piece.

But that will never happen because an insecure, spoiled little rich boy would rather spend daddy's money.