Richard Herr - Don’t Wait Until Next Year! It Starts Now - 1

I’m throwing aside that old cry of “Wait until next year.” Next year starts right now. 2017 is creaking its way toward the end of the season, but preparations for next year have to begin. There are a couple areas of concern that have to be handled right away so they are in place at the end of the season. The club has to be ready to move forward with the off-season programs in place. Needless to say, this series is going to stretch into the off-season as I consider the whole list of topics, rendering the title of this series obsolete as time goes along.

Now let’s see... Where do I start? What is the most crying, screaming need that this ballclub has that needs to be straightened out  before we go into the off-season?

OWNERSHIP

-----Boy! How about them Dodgers? Are they the envy of the league or aren’t they? Record earnings. Record profits. An on-the-field juggernaut that is plowing through the league. A stunning lineup. An incredible list of starting pitchers. A minor-league system that is just oozing with prospects.

Wasn’t it just a few years ago that the franchise had a lot of problems? The owner was going through an ugly divorce. He was siphoning money out of the club to help make alimony payments. The club was floundering around, directionless, in one of the largest markets in baseball.

So Commissioner Rob Manfred stepped in and forced a sale of the franchise. What was the result? In few short years the club is the envy of the industry.

At that same time, there was another club that was going through a lot of pains. The owners had imprudently sunk a lot of money into a Ponzi scheme headed by a guy named Madoff. They were scrambling around for money, borrowing from various sources including Major League Baseball to keep themselves afloat. A lot of people were calling for the commissioner to take the same action with them as was taken with the Dodgers: force a sale, bring in new blood. The commissioner in that case was Bud Selig, an old friend of the embattled owners. He chose to select a general manager for the club who was known for his close-fisted practices with money.

And he accomplished those goals. He took a payroll that was well over $150 million and got it down to about $50 million. He was so interested in cutting payroll, he let go two all-star infielders and a centerfielder who was given a a long-term contract and started for a World Series team.

But more on the General Manager in a later article in this series.

In the meantime, the owners set stringent budgets on the GM as far as payroll was concerned. This large-market team had payrolls that were restricted to under $100 million. There was a string of sub-.500 seasons as the owners tried to patch their Ponzi-Scheme-induced debt. Their alleged main business was in construction and real estate, but they didn't seem to be very active there. It appeared that they were using the team as a source of cash. (That sounds kind of similar to getting alimony payments out of the club.) The GM resorted to dumpster diving to find players to fill out his roster.

What else happened with the ownership? Son of Wilponzi was appointed COO of the Mets. He promptly went about not returning phone calls from the team's AAA affiliate in Tidewater putting their noses so out of joint that they took the first opportunity available to move their affiliation away from the Mets. That started the team on the death spiral that eventually left the team with Las Vegas, the worst possible AAA franchise for developing young talent.

Additionally, the new COO made snide comments about an employee who was having a child out of wedlock, costing them a large amount of money settling a lawsuit.

The owners built a new ballpark, one that seemed more devoted to the Brooklyn Dodgers than the Mets. They imprudently decided to make the field a large, pitcher-friendly park, because they thought that fans wanted to see tight, well-pitched games. The rest of the league was rushing in the opposite direction, making parks smaller and smaller, encouraging more and more home runs. The Mets hitters became frustrated and disoriented trying to launch the ball out a Grand-Canyon-sized park. The team was finally forced to bring the fences in in a process that took two steps to finally settle on the proper dimension.

There are two other things I've observed with this ownership,which I have no proof on, but I would be willing to bet serious money on (maybe even a whole nickel).

I'm quite certain there was an edict put out by ownership that if a player was making a certain amount of money, (I'd guess about $10 mil a year) they'd better be in the starting lineup rather than sitting on the bench making all that money. It didn't seem to matter how well the guy was playing.

On the second point, I'd like to walk you down memory lane. Remember the original left field home run line in Citi Field? The one that came down the foul pole, ran horizontal for a bit, did a quick loop-d-loop, cha-cha'd a bit deeper, hopped on a quick side trip to Cleveland, came back and finally ran along the top of the left field fence? My assessment of that architectural oddity is that it bears all the signs of someone who said, far too late in the process, "I don't want that."  This would be someone who owns a construction company and therefore should know how to a read an architect's rendering. He forced through a change that made the left-field home run line look like a laboratory maze.

 So what conclusion have I reached about ownership? I think it sucks. They are really no better than Frank McCourt, former Dodger owner. They were forced to take a general manager whose penurious practices put them in a slightly better financial situation. However the team took a nosedive this year and looks primed to continue a downward trend that will carry them through the next 5 or 6 years.

The franchise is bleeding. It is going to get worse. It will be a drain on the league when it should be one of the gems. Please, Mr. Manfred, send these owners packing.