Former NY Mets GM shares the biggest $2.5 million mistake the team may have ever made

Regrets? Who knows if the Wilpon Family has any during their time as majority owners of the New York Mets? Former Mets General Manager Steve Phillips seems to have at least one major one during his time calling shots for the team.

On MLB Network this weekend, Philips briefly discussed an alternative reality where ownership listened to him and Bobby Valentine when it came to a guy the team was only about $2.5 million shy of signing.

For only about $2.5 million more, Mets history could have been changed forever

The money the Mets were short on paying for Ichiro Suzuki was worth a lot more back in 2001 dollars. This was a team where Mike Piazza was the highest paid player on the roster at around $13.5 million.

The Wilpons have the unfortunate yet well-deserved reputation of having short hands with deep pockets. Considering how dark the franchise became after the 2001 season when Ichiro debuted, it’s even more frustrating to hear how epic of a miss this was. The era did seem to be one of this running themes. Alex Rodriguez, Vladimir Guerrero, Ken Griffey Jr., and others all have their “almost Mets” stories. Instead, players past their prime such as Mo Vaughn and Roberto Alomar were regular newcomers to the roster.

The $2.5 million Phillips and Valentine couldn’t convince ownership to fork over was a little more than what the 2001 Mets paid reliever Dennis Cook. According to Baseball Prospectus, his $2.4 million made up only 2.58% of the entire payroll.

Ichiro didn’t just cost $2.5 million. It would have been an additional $11 million or so on top of that, making him the most expensive player on the team albeit not exclusively through salary alone. Surely, we would have been given some sort of message about how they didn't believe anyone should be paid more than Piazza or something else if ownership was pressed.

It took a nanosecond for the Seattle Mariners to be rewarded by their choice to win the sweepstakes for Ichiro. He won the Rookie of the Year, MVP, Silver Slugger, and batting title in 2001. As close to a unanimous Hall of Fame player as it gets with the misfortune of one bitter voter refusing to select him on their ballot, Mets fans can only shake their heads once again at the previous ownership. Yeah, they did spend money. Just never enough and often not in the best places.