NY Mets: Four reasons why you shouldn’t miss The Wilpons

Reason #2: Fred Wilpon benefitting from Bernie Madoff’s serious white-collar crime is not ok

After Madoff’s arrest in 2008, lawyer Irving Picard was put in charge of recovering money for the people who had their money stolen. Picard initially claimed that Fred Wilpon and co-owner Saul Katz knew about the fraud or should have known about the fraud and should pay 1$ billion dollars to the victims.

Fred Wilpon was being accused of having known about and profited off of the largest financial crime in US history, and that is something that should not be taken lightly.

The lawsuit alone should have been enough for Major League Baseball to force him to sell. Wilpon getting himself and the Mets baseball team wrapped up in the Ponzi scheme is conduct that should not have been tolerated by the top executives.

Wilpon and Katz claimed that they did not know about the scheme and that they were victims too. But, how can they be victims? They became billionaires investing with Madoff and owned a baseball team because of it.

So many innocent people actually lost all of their fortunes because of Madoff. The innocent victims of the scheme cannot be compared to the Wilpons, who made hundreds of millions off Madoff.

The result of the lawsuit is that Mr. Picard dropped the claims that the men had ignored warnings about Mr. Madoff; Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz agreed that they were obligated to pay back $162 million in so-called fictitious profits they had reaped from the net winner accounts from 2002 to ’08.”

Considering the initial lawsuit was for $1 billion dollars, getting it down to $162 million was a huge win for the Wilpons. But let’s not understate the significance of this. An owner of an MLB team involved in a lawsuit of this kind should not be owning a baseball team.

Fred Wilpon’s relationship with Madoff and the eventual lawsuit should be disqualifying conduct for an owner of a baseball team. Especially since as a result for the next decade the Mets operated at limited financial capability. There should be no toleration for this level of criminal white collar behavior especially when it impacts the team roster.

Mets fans should not miss the Wilpon’s because a person who became a billionaire off the backs of a guy committing absurd fraud should not own a sports team. While Steve Cohen has had his own trouble with illegal financial stuff (which billionaire hasn’t?), if any white-collar criminal is going to own the team, it might as well not be the Wilpons.

Reason #3: Jeff Wilpon’s Mediocre Meddling

Fred’s son Jeff no longer being apart of the decision-making for the Mets is the third reason that you shouldn’t miss the Wilpons. Jeff is the bratty nepotistic son of a billionaire who meddles with all of the Mets’ affairs.

After co-owner Nelson Doubleday sold his half of the team to Fred, he criticized Jeff for being heavily involved in the daily operation of the team.

“Mr. Jeff Wilpon has decided that he’s going to learn how to run a baseball team and take over at the end of the year. Run for the hills, boys. I think probably all those baseball people will bail.”

Doubleday warned us about Jeff’s role with the Mets and his prediction to “run for the hills, boys,” was wise advice. Jeff’s meddling was out of control.

Joel Sherman reported in 2004 that in an interview with Jeff Wilpon, “he did not dispute he is in charge of the day-to-day running of just about every facet of the organization from clean bathrooms to player procurement.”

Joel Sherman also reported in 2010 that a baseball executive in regular contact with the Mets said:

“Jeff is the problem with the organization, and he is never going to realize that. He cannot help himself. He has to be involved. He will never hire anyone who will not let him have major input. He will not hire anyone who does not run every personnel decision through him.”

Sportswriter Peter Gammons called Jeff Wilpon the Mets GM and said that Omar Minaya is only ‘out there to take the heat.’

In 2005, Jeff forced the injured Pedro Martinez to pitch through it, saying, “While I’m the boss here, you’re going to have to do what I say.”

Do you get the idea? Jeff Wilpon overstepped his role as the owner’s son and ran the baseball operations of the Mets. It is extremely unprofessional for Jeff to do so and has only hurt the Mets organization. Jeff should not be making major decisions pertaining to roster construction and baseball gameplay.

Jeff should have left the baseball decisions to the smartest professionals in the industry instead of signing off on everything himself. If the goal is to win a World Series than an owner would best meet that goal by hiring a smart industry person and not by leaving it to the owner’s son.

Removing Jeff from the Mets operation is going to be a huge boost to the team’s functionality. There are countless more examples not listed here about the Wilpon’s meddling in on-field decisions, medical decisions, and roster constructing decisions.

Hopefully, Steve Cohen doesn’t overstep his role as owner and leaves the baseball stuff to baseball professionals. The Mets are going to be so much better off not being run by Jeff Wilpon.

Reason #4: The Wilpons have a history of treating their employees badly and poorly running their team operations

Ken Davidoff reported in 2017 for The New York Post:

Conversations with 10 people possessing first-hand knowledge of the Mets’ baseball operations produced the picture of … an environment where CEO Fred Wilpon and COO Jeff Wilpon both are prone to micromanagement, with Fred Wilpon more likely to assert himself in on-the-field decisions and Jeff Wilpon more involved in medical matters — such as working on media releases about injuries — clouding the chain of command.

How are the Mets supposed to function when the top of their organizational ladder is so dysfunctional? If the chain of command is cloudy in a work environment, the employees may not be able to do their job as well. The Mets operation was terrible under the Wilpons who had to sign off on every decision the team made.

This is not how owners of a sports franchise should act. They would rather retain power and control over the team than giving the job to professionals who can actually get them a shot at winning. Fans deserve to have the team run by people who know what they’re doing than the son of the owner.

Jeff has also treated an employee horribly by bullying her.

In 2014, Leigh Castergine, a former senior vice president for ticket sales sued Jeff Wilpon for discriminating against her for being pregnant without being married. Jeff said, “When she gets a ring, she’ll make more money and get a bigger bonus.”

Leigh also said that Jeff said in a meeting, “I am as morally opposed to putting an e-cigarette sign in my ballpark as I am to Leigh having this baby without being married.”

When Castergine complained to HR, she was fired from the Mets. The behavior by Jeff is extremely unprofessional and worth firing over if he wasn’t the owner’s son. Fostering a workplace environment such as this at the Mets is unacceptable. Jeff is being a shmuck talking to an employee this way.

Castergine reached a private settlement with the Mets in 2015.

The way the Wilpons have treated their on-field staff members have been slimy at times. In 2008, the Mets famously fired Willie Randolph at 3:11 AM after letting him travel all the way to California. That is an incredibly rude way to treat your employee. If you were planning on firing him, the Wilpons should have done it before he flew to the west coast and especially not at 3:11 AM.

The worst part is that the Wilpon’s had Omar Minaya do the deed for them. Fred and Jeff didn’t even tell Randolph themselves. It’s a cowardly move that had no professional integrity and no regard for Randolph’s well being.

In 2018, the Wilpons scapegoated Sandy Alderson who was sick with cancer by firing him and blaming him for not signing top free agents and having a small analytics department.

In 2011, Fred called the face of the franchise David Wright, “a really good kid … not a superstar.” Why would the owner of a sports franchise say that about their best player? What does he have to gain by saying that? All he is doing is disrespecting the face of the franchise who will spend his whole career in a Mets uniform and is the team’s best offensive player of all time.

David Wright was a superstar and a surefire Hall of Famer before injuries cut his career short. There’s no reason to say he wasn’t one. Just a terrible thing for an owner to say.

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Fred and Jeff Wilpon in many instances treated the people and players they worked with terribly and fostered a dysfunctional workplace environment. Steve Cohen needs to bring stability to the Mets organization and create a more productive and smoother operation.