AnonymityX1000
Veteran
What's that mean when they are a top 5 payroll team this year? They stopped spending for a few seasons due to the Madoff situation which many organizations/individuals got caught up in. Otherwise, they are always top 10 usually top 5 in spending. It's just that a lot of their signings just don't work out, you would be better off attacking their overall baseball competency rather than their spending. Jeff Wilpon is definitely a hinderance to the organization and doesn't know what he is doing or how to manage an organization. I got no problem with Fred other than giving his son too much power which is an understandable blind spot considering his personal connection to Jeff. The Mets problem really is sustaining success, their pattern is:
- They stink and are devoid of talent
- They hire someone to fix it who initially has a lot of autonomy
- They improve the team and the farm system
- The MLB team gets better/makes the playoffs to varying success for a year or 2
- They then make an ill advised trade or signings that again make the team trend downward (variety of reasons, see below)
- Team declines
- Back to step one
These last four constant variables combined apply a lot of pressure to management that make them due hasty things that are errors and a detriment to long-term success.
If they were able to have a hands-off owner and a management team who could more or less ignore the fanbase, media and what the Yankees are doing they would be better. But this is way easier said than done, because the fans/media/Jeff Wilpon/Yankees are always in your face bombarding you with information.
The only variable that will change with Steve Cohen is Jeff is gone. But if you have seen the show Billions and Bobby Axelrod is based off of Cohen he doesn't seem like the type of person to be hands off. So the one variable that would change amongst the negative ones outlined is no more Jeff but there is no guarantee Cohen will be hands off and that's what is needed.
