To build upon what already had been a successful Mets offseason, surely their long-suffering fans would have preferred a Stephen Drew signing or a veteran bullpen arm to provide some coverage for Bobby Parnell’s return from neck surgery.
Instead, when they picked up their copy of The Post on Friday, Mets loyalists learned their club’s owners, the ones they have lived to loathe, have latched onto quite a sturdy life preserver.
The idealists in the crowd will mourn. The realists will accept this news and its upside: A future in which the Mets have more dollars for talent and, just as important, more room for error.
As The Post’s Josh Kosman reported exclusively, Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz are close to refinancing their $250 million loan over seven years and at a lower interest rate, sparing them from the pressure of a principal payment this spring; no cash paydown will be required. That the Mets’ owners are on the verge of securing this relief speaks to their improved standing in the banking community.
Wilpon and Katz won’t celebrate by calling Scott Boras and presenting him a blank check for Drew, who could join Bartolo Colon and Curtis Granderson to make this a potentially transformative winter for the Mets. No, if we’ve learned anything since Bernie Madoff’s arrest in December 2008, it’s that the Mets’ ownership will heal very, very deliberately from this severe financial wound.
There has been healing, however. Granderson cost $60 million (over four years) and Colon $20 million (over two years). Maybe the Mets will surprise us and import Drew, too, on a short-term deal, although history shows these Mets free-agent flirtations typically conclude with the player going elsewhere.
History reminds us of another fact: The Mets did spend considerably from 2005 through 2011, jumping into sizable commitments with the likes of Jason Bay, Carlos Beltran, Pedro Martinez, Francisco Rodriguez, Johan Santana and Billy Wagner. The chaos arrived when the Bay and Santana contracts both turned into albatrosses while the Madoff devastation severely limited the Mets’ ability to spend. The Mets vow they will increase their payroll with time and improved flexibility in their personal finances, and they have a track record to support that contention.
Neither the 2009 Bay free-agent signing nor the 2008 Santana trade with the Twins (contingent upon Santana signing an extension with the Mets) should win any awards for great process. Bay was a defensively limited corner outfielder, while Santana set off red flags with his shaky 2007 in Minnesota. However, even the best-run clubs will occasionally whiff on transactions.
The key, moving forward, is to possess that room for error. To not get crushed by one or two misses on the open market as did the 2011-13 Mets by Bay and Santana.
You can shake your fist at Wilpon and Katz for putting their customers through such duress while continuing to charge New York-level ticket prices, rather than just drawing the white flag and selling the franchise to a more stable owner. You can shake your other fist at Bud Selig for helping to keep his longtime pal, Wilpon, afloat and not trying to run out the Mets’ owners the way he did with Dodgers dope Frank McCourt.
You wouldn’t be wrong in either case. But you’d be more dated than a Hannah Montana poster. That stuff is history.
Wilpon and Katz are survivors who are gaining strength. With fourth-year general manager Sandy Alderson having waited out the Bay/Santana/Madoff slowdown, ramped up the club’s farm system and fired some free-agency bullets, we’ll see whether the 2014 Mets can follow the lead of Wall Street and bring Alderson’s bosses some much-needed relief.