Reese Kaplan -- What Should New Owners Do First?

You can’t go online or open a newspaper these days without the names of prospective buyers of the New York Mets franchise from the Wilpon family.  First it was Steve Cohen and his securities fortune striking forth to become a team owner.  Then it was the on-again/off-again flirtation with the A-Rod/J-Lo buying group.  First they didn’t have enough money and dropped out, then they were back in again with mystery financiers to help fortify their capital position.  Then there was the security duo of Josh Harris and David Blitzer who already own the 76ers, the Devils and now apparently a part share of the Pittsburgh Steelers.  There’s not cohesion geographically, but there’s also no baseball component to their sports empire.  

Nowadays while it’s popular to debate who would make the best ownership team for the Mets, there is precious little being said about what it is that they want the new owners to do when they take the reins from the Wilpons.  Do they want to spend big on free agents to fortify the roster against competition from the Braves, Nationals, Phillies and the rest of the league?  Do they intend to reinforce the minor league ranks by improving how they develop players internally to move up the ladder to the majors?  Do they want them to trade away some combination of players to help improve what the club can do?  

One of the risks of changing ownership is that with all the complaints people have about how the Mets are run, a newcomer could be even worse.  Many ballclubs are owned not by fans but by financial organizations whose only interest is in the bottom line, not in creating a winning ballclub and a change in attitude.  Some will want to make some explosive changes to put their signature on the ballclub only to find out that they are not what was needed after all.  Who can forget the Wayne Huizenga era of Marlins ownership where you would go from one extreme to another with results following that same parallel?  

Some ballclubs are much more adept at building from within than are their competitors.  The Atlanta Braves, the St. Louis Cardinals, the Los Angeles Dodgers and others always seem to groom their players properly and consistently find themselves in contention for a pennant.  While it is not pocket change to do a complete overhaul of your scouting, coaching and medical personnel in the minors, the end result can be a lot of very inexpensive ballplayers advancing through the ranks to the big leagues where you have control over them for six bargain-priced years.  

By contrast, the New York Yankees for many years established themselves as a cash-is-the-answer strategy to building a winner.  They were always in the bidding for the top free agents, often had a multitude of quality starting players on the bench and often were able to withstand injuries or bad years through the depth of their roster construction.  Of course, to do that meant adding a huge payroll and decreased flexibility over the coming years.  Often it worked, but there were times you had a Giancarlo Stanton, a Jacoby Ellsbury, a Brett Gardner or a Kei Igawa.  Big buck spending brings big risks.

About the best most of us could hope to happen is that the new owner will enable the baseball management professionals to do their jobs, build their vision and hopefully turn the club into a perennial contender.  There is no magic fix that’s going to happen.  No single approach is ideal.  It’s going to take a lot of analysis and decision making for changes to happen.  What would be good to see is courage, not merely bowing out of FA bidding except at the lowest tiers.