In the past few days, the New York Mets’ owners have altered two perceptions about the way they run the team.
After reaching agreement with Yoenis Cespedes on a three-year, $75 million contract on Friday night, Fred and Jeff Wilpon could have held aloft a placard that cried out, “We Are Not Cheap (Anymore)!”
And by announcing Monday that Mike Piazza’s No. 31 would be retired on July 30, the first time the Mets would be taking such a step with one of their own in 28 years, the Wilpons could have brandished a placard that declared, “That’s Right, We Do Honor Our History!”
For sure, this twin bill of news will please the many Mets fans who had long grumbled that their team had become a big-city franchise with a small-market wallet and was also too stingy about retiring the numbers of its best players.
In the case of Cespedes, it had been assumed all winter that he was too pricey for the Mets to keep around, that he was asking for too much free-agent money for too many years for the Mets’ modest tastes.
When it emerged that the rival Washington Nationals were offering Cespedes $100 million, that only made matters worse. For Mets fans, the notion of Cespedes helping the Nationals beat out their team for the 2016 division title was infuriating. But in a surprise move, Cespedes is not going anywhere, with the Mets’ offer, which includes a one-year, $27.5 million opt-out clause, enough to persuade Cespedes, a slugging outfielder, to stay in Queens.
Any way you look at it, the money the Mets’ owners have now agreed to pay Cespedes goes against much of what has occurred financially since they learned in late 2008 that their fortune had been plundered by Bernard L. Madoff.
But the Wilpons and general manager Sandy Alderson are now dealing with the obligations of sudden success. A half-season of Cespedes and the rapid evolution of their young pitchers carried the Mets, somewhat unexpectedly, to the 2015 World Series. Would they regret passing on the possibility that a full season of Cespedes might help them win the World Series this year? And could the Mets have any hope of capturing a championship without the power Cespedes provides, especially with the continuing uncertainty that David Wright, who has spinal stenosis, will be able to be a major factor in 2016?
Those questions no doubt weighed on Alderson and the Wilpons, and the ultimate decision was to go for it now.
Doing so suggests that the owners’ once-dire cash situation has improved, or that they are anticipating that ticket sales at Citi Field for a suddenly renascent team will help pay for Cespedes’ contract. His salary will elevate the team’s opening day payroll to around $140 million, a level the Mets have not reached since 2008.
Back then, the Mets had the third-highest payroll in Major League Baseball, according to Associated Press figures. Even last year, a $140 million figure would have been good enough for ninth place in the payroll standings. As it is, the Mets’ payroll in 2015 was right around $100 million, which put them square in the second division of baseball’s 30 teams. At least for now, that is changing.
And if big-market spending by the Mets has seemed like a distant memory, then the retiring of numbers had become even hazier. Tom Seaver was entering his second year of retirement when the Mets announced their plan to retire his No. 41 in 1988, four years before his nearly unanimous election to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Since then, nothing, until Monday’s decision to retire Piazza’s No. 31.
Piazza spent eight years with the Mets through 2005, and he endured four ballots before he was elected to the Hall three weeks ago. If at least a few writers withheld their Hall of Fame votes from Piazza because of suspicions that he may have used performance-enhancing substances, the Mets appear to have needed the Hall’s imprimatur before deciding to retire his number. Why else wait more than eight years since his retirement?
On his Twitter account on Monday, Piazza wrote: “Struggling to find words! Thank you @Mets Fred & Jeff, The Loyalty and Love of #Mets fans cannot be equaled. INCREDIBLE honor! #Retire31.” Fans, no doubt, feel the same.
The retirement of Piazza’s number will be the fourth time a Met has received that honor. The other three were Seaver and two Mets managers — Casey Stengel, who wore No. 37, and Gil Hodges, who wore No. 14. A fifth number, Jackie Robinson’s No. 42, is also displayed on the left-field wall at Citi Field, but his number was retired by all major league teams in 1997.
Over all, it is a pretty small group of numbers, and to some extent it reflects the lack of outstanding players who spent their prime years as a Met. Still, Keith Hernandez’s No. 17 deserves retirement, as do Gary Carter’s No. 8, Dwight Gooden’s No. 16, Darryl Strawberry’s No. 18 and Manager Davey Johnson’s No. 5. Eventually, you would think that No. 5 will be retired, but that will be to honor Wright, who has been a Met his entire career.
A different ecosystem exists in the Bronx, where 20 numbers have been retired for Yankees players and managers, and one of them, No. 8, was decommissioned twice to honor Bill Dickey and Yogi Berra.
And, of course, Derek Jeter’s No. 2 will be celebrated and retired soon. But that’s to be expected. What the Mets did in the last few days was more out of the ordinary.
