New York Mets
The New York Mets just emerged from a woeful season but the team’s financial picture may not be as dire as previously believed.
A partnership connected to the baseball team—which had widely been rumored to have lost money investing with Bernard Madoff—actually gained a net $48 million from its dealings with the convicted swindler, according to a bankruptcy-court filing.
The filing, by the court-appointed trustee handling claims for Madoff victims, is the first documentation of how deeply invested Mets principal owner Fred Wilpon was with Mr. Madoff, a longtime friend.
The filing showed that the Mets Limited Partnership, which is connected with Sterling Equities Inc., owner of the Mets, deposited about $523 million into two accounts with Mr. Madoff—and withdrew about $571 million.
This makes the partnership a “net winner” from the fraud and thus ineligible to receive compensation from the trustee, who is recovering assets for Madoff investors. Indeed, some of the gains could be subject to a legal claim by the trustee, who has said some net winners may have to pay back withdrawals they made in the six years before Mr. Madoff was arrested in December and charged with operating a large Ponzi scheme.
“As has been stated previously, this has no effect on the operations of the New York Mets,” the team said in a statement.
http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/newsstand/discussion/wsj_futterman_and_efrati_mets_win_one_owners_made_money_on_madoff
Binghamton Mets:
Ike Davis continues to make a name for himself, while I'd like the Mets to sign or trade for a player who would completely block Davis for next year ( Adam LaRoche), so that they wouldn't be tempted to bring him up, I think they'll do the exact opposite. I think the Mets will bring in a marginal player or re-sign Tatis. As I said yesterday if this is the route they take, my choice would be Ryan Garko. They'll hope for a productive year out of the player, while keeping a close eye on Davis' progress in Buffalo. If the player they bring in flops, I can see Davis coming up by mid-season.
http://metsfever.blogspot.com/2009/10/davis-runner-up-player-of-week-in-afl.html
Savannah Sand Gnats:
PP: Jeurys Familia put his name on the map this year. What kind of stuff does he have and where does he rank among Mets pitching prospects?
Hyde: Familia has a low-to-mid 90s fastball and a rapidly improving breaking ball. His change is his distant third pitch. He ranks in the top three of Mets pitching prospects with Jenrry Mejia and Brad Holt.
PP: Which other prospects have seen their stock rise this year?
Hyde: We've touched on the biggest risers: Davis, Familia and Thole. The rest of the big risers were members of a very talented Low-A rotation. 19-year-old righthander Kyle Allen had a real nice year for Low-A Savannah by going 9-6 with a 3.45 ERA and a ground out to air out ratio of 2.18. He has a live arm and an unusual feel for a breaking ball and changeup for his age. Lefty Robert Carson and righty Eric Beaulac both look like they could at least be bullpen pieces in a few years.
Rockies prospect Hector Gomez had two hits and two RBIs from the ninth spot in the lineup Tuesday, leading the Scottsdale Scorpions to a 7-3 victory over the slumping Surprise Rafters.
Gomez doubled in a run in the third inning to extend the Scorpions' lead to 3-1. He added an RBI single in the fifth and scored on a triple by Pirates prospect Jose Tabata.
The 21-year-old shortstop came to Arizona after hitting .275 with seven homers, 46 RBIs and 10 stolen bases in 83 games with Class A Advanced Modesto. Jeff Bianchi (Royals) drove in two runs, while former first-round pick Ike Davis (Mets) doubled twice and scored a run for Surprise, which has lost three in a row after opening the season with four wins. Davis raised his OPS to 1.030 and is tied for the league lead with four doubles. Mets prospect Jenrry Mejia (0-1) struggled for the second straight start, surrendering three runs on five hits in two innings.
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20091021&content_id=7511536&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb
Blogs:
The Mets have released 40-year-old rookie reliever Ken Takahashi on Tuesday. Hopefully, it’s just the begining of an ambitious house cleaning and a prelude to some much needed change on this roster as we shift the focus to 2010. Takahashi was 0-1 with a 2.96 ERA in 28 relief appearances. He wasn’t exactly as good as his ERA might indicate as he allowed a great deal of inheritted runners to score which only served to pad another pitcher’s ERA. He also was terribly ineffective against lefty hitters who ripped into him for a .302 batting average and a .387 on-base. Takahashi also appeared in 18 games for Buffalo (AAA) of the International League, and started seven games finishing with a record of 1-3 with a 2.38 ERA. The move may have been made to accomodate his wish to return to Japan for the upcoming season.
Position Players:
•1st base – Daniel Murphy, Carlos Delgado, Prince Fielder, Adrian Gonzalez, Nick Johnson, Mark DeRosa. Forget about Fielder and Gonzalez; we’d have to mortgage the farm and more. A platoon of Murphy and a RH 1st baseman would be the cheapest way to go. Sign Mark DeRosa for $6M. He can platoon at 1st base and play 2nd base. Assumption – Sign DeRosa: This uses $6M of the $30M (but see 2nd base for more)
•2nd base – Luis Castillo, Orlando Hudson, Dan Uggla, Mark DeRosa. I think it makes sense to trade Castillo and pay $4M of his $6M salary. Then go out and get either Hudson ($5M), trade for Uggla (with arbitration he could get $6M),or sign DeRosa ($6M). If we sign DeRosa, we can use him as the regular 2nd baseman and the RH platoon at 1st base. Assumption – Sign DeRosa (his salary is already included in 1st base above and we save $2M from the Castillo trade).
•SS – Jose Reyes – Assume Jose is healthy and ready to go. Assumption – No use of the $30M
•3B – David Wright – Wright will play his 159 games next year. Still, there are question marks. I don’t think we can assume that David can return to his ‘08 numbers. Also, David has a terrible arm at 3rd base and it really hurts the team. Assumption- No use of the $30M.
Today, we woke up to more sobering news about the state of the New York Mets. Today's news: The Mets have released Ken Takahashi.The news here is not that Takahashi was released, but the 40-year-old who is most famous for giving up a three mile long home run to Raul Ibanez was the end result of putting Darren O'Day on waivers. The departure of O'Day, so that an injured Mike Pelfrey could remain on the active roster, turned into Nelson Figueroa for a start ... which turned into a pissed off Nelson Figueroa when he was designated for Casey Fossum ... which turned into one, awful, unmemorable appearance in a Mets uniform ... which turned into Ibanez's three run HR off Takahashi.And now, he's gone. This means that the Mets have nothing to show for O'Day, who threw for a 1.94 ERA and an 0.95 WHIP in 55.2 relief innings for the Rangers.
Aguilas 4, Licey 1Former Major League All-Star Jose Lima tossed three scoreless innings and batterymate Craig Tatum (Reds) drove in two runs as the Aguilas halted a two-game slide. Tony Abreu (Diamondbacks) had the other RBI for Cibaenas, while big league veteran Timo Perez helped Licey avoid a shutout with a run-scoring double in the bottom of the ninth
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