At this moment, Sandy Alderson is just another salesman trying to convince you to buy into the Mets.
He is not attempting to find minority partners for the Wilpons (cue laugh track) as much as foster a majority opinion that the Mets’ baseball operations are not penny-pinching slaves to a post-Madoff landscape.
Therefore, it is good that Alderson has a reputation for loving a challenge, whether it is the small markets of Oakland and San Diego or trying to conquer the baseball lawlessness in the Dominican.
Now he has to persuade one of the most jaundiced fan bases that the financial spigot is not off. That he was not hired because he brings a reputation for rectitude that will put the right face on a distasteful austerity plan.
“I did not present myself as someone who will cut cost to achieve success,” Alderson said yesterday during a 20-minute phone conversation. “But I think you do achieve success by spending more wisely, and if you spend wisely you may not have to spend as much.”
It is a nice bit of philosophy, the kind a fan might appreciate as wisdom in a fortune cookie. But at this point Mets fans probably are as tired of bromides as they are of Oliver Perez. Over the next few months, before he even gets to the delicate question of the 2011 payroll, Alderson can confirm with actions that he is not shackled by Wilpon-authorized handcuffs.
The Mets have the 13th pick in the June 6 draft. Do they take the best player available even if it is, say, a Scott Boras client? A month later the international signing period opens. At a time when the Mets must enhance their system, how will they proceed in Latin America? If the Mets are in the playoff hunt later in July, will Alderson have permission to extend payroll or — contention or not — will the priority be to find takers for the large contracts of a Carlos Beltran or Francisco Rodriguez? Come August, will Alderson be free to make necessary waiver claims or abstain due to fear of adding a contract?
“I don’t sense that any of those decisions will be affected” by the Madoff fallout, Alderson said. As an example, Alderson cited a scouting meeting last week in which there was no discussion of which players to avoid in the draft due to potential costs.
“There have been no restrictions in those areas,” Alderson said. “I understand the interest and understand how they may define us and may show evidence or not of our limitations, but it is not what I am focused on right now. By the same token, in all of my conversations [with ownership] there has not been talk of limitations or a sense that there would be.”
Again, deeds will matter most. Remember, disenchanted Mets fans did not trust the Wilpons before ever hearing of Bernie Madoff. So it is not as if their faith has grown with the revelation that a long-shot search is now under way to find financial angels to prop up the current ownership in exchange for no say in running the team. Amid that news, Alderson said a few days back that the current payroll in the $140 million to $150 million range is “significantly higher than we’d like to be on an annual basis.”
That played like confirmation that cost-cutting is the main Mets goal now. Alderson again yesterday insisted that was untrue while nevertheless indicating lower payrolls are likely. He seemed uncomfortable that the Mets’ current payroll is its largest ever. But so is the $165 million-plus of the Phillies. It is one thing to say you will not play in the Yankees’ financial forum. But Alderson is, at the least, hinting about being “significantly” lower than the Phillies. That may be acceptable in San Diego. Not here, not in a market this size. Not when the inferiority complex with the Phillies is growing to Yankees proportions.
Look, Alderson essentially has received a free pass in his first year. Most Mets fans get it: He inherited a bad product, mainly debilitated by horrible contracts. So the tradeoff for tolerating an offseason of Ronny Paulino was that this was merely going to be Four Corners, a stall designed to run out the pacts of Perez, Luis Castillo, Beltran, Jose Reyes and possibly K-Rod. With at least $40 million in expiring contracts, Mets fans were envisioning a new, smart regime — Moneyball on financial steroids — infusing the roster with talent after this season.
Now they are getting a vision of something else. Yes, high payrolls do not guarantee success, a point Alderson made in saying the $40 million-plus “will be re-invested in a variety of ways” and that “sustainable payrolls” are the goal. But what if the financial distress of an already unloved ownership produces “sustainable payrolls” that cannot afford to add any star-level help for a while?
How will Alderson sell that?
joel.sherman@nypost.com