The Mets are dropping their single A team in Port St. Lucie of the Gulf Coast League—NY Times Blog.
In truth, the Mets eliminating one of the minor league teams isn’t that big of a deal.
Coinciding with the prevalent money issues; the upcoming Madoff trial; the $40 million bridge loan the Wilpons recently took from Bank of America; that they’ve yet to pay back the $25 million loan of a year ago from MLB itself; that they let Jose Reyes walk without a fight; and have spent little on Major League players this winter—among many other things—makes the decision to dump the single A team simply look bad.
The elimination of one of the Mets nine minor league teams isn’t going to cut enough money out of their spending that it’s going to make a significant difference to organizational finances. As the Times piece says, the Mets were one of three Major League franchises with nine affiliates; the decision, as Jim Duquette says, is more philosophical than cost-cutting. I think it’s more cost-effective to keep or expand the reach into the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and even places like Africa and the Middle-East than it is to have that extra A team with a load of players who—barring a sudden growth spurt; the discovery of a new pitch; a mechanical tweak at the plate or on the mound; or some other unforeseen stroke of luck—have almost zero chance of making it to the big leagues.
The players listed who have played in the St. Lucie affiliate are Edgardo Alfonzo, A.J. Burnett, Octavio Dotel and Jenrry Mejia; some star players—Pedro Martinez among them—have gone down there for rehab assignments.
Even if the Mets weren’t in such dire financial circumstances, they might have done this anyway.
This maneuver and the club’s financial troubles are probably independant of one another with slight, if any, connection. The baseball people don’t feel it’s a necessary outlay; as piddling as the savings will be, ownership should be happy to save a few pennies, but in the scope of the greater storm clouds hovering over the Wilpons, the money’s not going to make a difference one way or the other.
But the perception that the Mets are cutting down to the bare bones is evident and there’s no airtight defense for the allegation that they don’t have the money to run the team the way they have in the past, because they don’t.
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