The Mets' owners settled the ongoing lawsuit against them this morning. They agreed to a $162MM settlement with Irving Picard, the trustee for those who lost money in Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, Richard Sandomir of the New York Times tweets. Fred Wilpon, Jeff Wilpon and Saul Katz won't have to start paying the settlement for three years.
The settlement doesn't mean the Mets' financial woes are over with, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports writes (Twitter link). However, Mets ownership is better-positioned to maintain control of the team. The settlement also caps expenses for the owners, who oversaw a $50MM reduction in payroll this offseason.
All I can say is thankfully this is over and hopefully we, as fans, can just return to baseball. I was afraid this was going to draw out for months and months due to appeals and such. I’m no Wilpon fan, and would rather see them go then listen to Jeff speak one more time, but if they start spending and STAY OUT OF BASEBALL DECISIONS other then giving final approval on deals, I don’t care whose writing the checks as long as the Mets start winning. Its been a long few years in Queens
this crap about the Wilpons not spending money in the past has to end. They’ve spent money, not Yankee money, but the Mets don’t make Yankee money. Yes they share the same city, but the Yankees are a Global Brand. I once had a boss from Bangladesh tell me before he learned English, he knew the Yankees symbol. That’s the difference between the Mets and Yankees. The Mets issue is that they spend money poorly. With Alderson running the show hopefully he will be a little smarter about where and when he spend the $$$…You can win with a 100 million dollar payroll. You just need to spend that 100 million correctly. No Oliver Perezs, Jason Bays, Luis Castillos…etc..lets the kids develop. Hell trade Wright and Santana if they are having good years and you can get decent packages back. Restock the farm system. Let Davis, Harvey , Wheeler etc… lead the team from 2014 on…
Who wants to bet the Wilpons celebrated this settlement with the most expensive bottle of champagne they could get their hands on?
My hope is that the Mets will have built the farm up well enough, and have a decent amount of money to spend, to compete in 2015.
The Wilpons will be penny pinching for another decade. Bad news for Mets fans!
They held to that money in case they would have to cough up the billion asked by Piccard.
Now that both parties have settled, there is no longer the need to hold up to the money: they can put that money to work in the team.