The Winter Meetings in Miami have come and gone and all the Mets acquired was a lot of hot air and Anthony Swarzak, a right-handed journeyman reliever with a 23-30 record and career 4.22 ERA.
Of all the bullpen pitchers who were on the market, Brandon Morrow being one, it’s just the latest moronic move by owners Fred Wilpon and his sidekick son Jeff, who are making a mockery of the organization, not unlike how Donald J. Trump is so carelessly running our country into the ground.
Word on Tuesday is that the Mets are looking to sign former Dodger, now Braves owned Adrian Gonzalez. With all due respect, the veteran first baseman was a good get in his prime, but presently he’s a pinch hitter at best. I know he’s a bargain at $545,000, but that’s part of the Mets problem – they tend to put Band-Aids on gaping wounds.
Before you bite my head off, Gonzalez can still play – he’s just more suited to be a DH, and is certainly not a fix for the Mets who are in need of a catcher, second baseman, reliever and an inning eating starting pitcher. Also, if they’re looking for insurance at first in case Dominic Smith’s rookie woes bleed into his sophomore season, I’d rather see the return of Jay Bruce, who can play multiple positions yielding a stronger bat.
Like our Commander in Chief in Washington, who’s less qualified than a White House page, the Wilpons are clueless in Queens and duplicitous in regards to how they are handling their payroll.
Lining their deep pockets with dough that’s meant for the field is the equivalent of the current administration’s faulty tax bill that favors the corporate rich. And as much as the American public deserves to see our President’s tax returns, Mets fans should be privy as to where the “brain trust” is putting their precious dollars.
In his recent column, Newsday journalist Marc Craig pulled no punches, “According to sources, the front office has only a fuzzy idea of what they actually have to spend in any given off-season. They’re often flying blind, forced to navigate the winter under the weight of an invisible salary cap. This is not the behavior of a franchise that wants to win.”
As reported by Craig, “On Saturday afternoon, an email was sent directly to Mets chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon. The questions centered on payroll, a topic he hasn’t publicly addressed since September 2014. Through a spokesman later that afternoon, Wilpon declined to comment.”
Craig also noted, “Mets general manager Sandy Alderson got snappy at the winter meetings, saying that too much attention has been paid to the exact nature of his payroll. But it turns out that he might not know the answer for sure, either.”
So while ownership takes the fifth, Alderson is forced to stand before the media dishing out more BS than Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
If the owners won’t come clean and continue to make decisions hurtful to the franchise, what incentive do we have as fans to stay in this roller coaster relationship? Like the predicament we find ourselves in with our lying leader of the free world, how many more times do we need to hear, “Believe me,” before we don’t?
