At first glance you are probably saying “Say what?”  This is the same guy that slams the Mets hierarchy on a regular basis.  I definitely have many gripes with the ownership and front office, but recently I have been thinking about it and I have come to the conclusion that the Wilpons might just be good for the Mets.

What got me thinking about this change in tune was reading about the ownership mess over in Los Angeles with the Dodgers.  Talk about embarrassing.  I am sure your aware that the owners of the Dodgers were a married couple, and now they are getting divorced.  What this means is a lot of things that were never meant to be seen by us “common folk” get to see daylight in the court proceedings.  The jewel of this info thus far, is the ownerships plan to not increase payroll, and double the revenues.  Well I don’t have to own a baseball team to know that this basically boils down to an ownership plan to not spend any money to improve the team, all the while doubling prices.  Really classy.

This got me to thinking about our beloved Wilpons.  Recently Fred has announced that they have absolutely no plans to ever sell the team.  He even goes on to say that this team will be in his family for generations to come.  Now I like many of you cringed upon hearing this.  But on further thought I don’t think this is really a bad thing.

Lets be honest for a minute, this team has actually been pretty active on the free-agent front over the last few years and been in the top 5 in payroll for a while now.  These things take serious, long term, commitments by the ownership to occur.  Ownership doesn’t go out and scout the talent, nor do they coach the team.  The most they can do is hire the correct people and leave it in their hands.  This is where they Wilpons fall under the most blame.  It’s not a real argument at this point to say they have a horrible track record for hiring the wrong people.  It’s becoming very apparent that Omar Minaya has done a very poor job in his tenure here with the Mets.  And lets not even get into the whole Tony Bernazard fiasco.

The problem with the Wilpons is quite plainly that they are not baseball people.  They sure do think they are, and this is what separates the good owners from the bad.  George Steinbrenner is the best example of this.  For years he insisted on making the big decisions and often time fouled things up.  But due to the forced suspension by Major League Baseball he was forced to keep his hands off and look what happened?  The people he put in place constructed the nucleus of a championship team that is still playing today.  This Yankees run didn’t start until ownership took a hands-off approach and entrusted the baseball decisions to their baseball people.  I have to hope that eventually the Wilpons, and Jeff in particular will learn this lesson.  In fact I think they already have.

What they need to do is start hiring the right baseball people, and as we all know another window of opportunity is probably going to be real soon.  Give us an A+ GM here with the Mets and you have to admit that they do a good job of giving him plenty of resources to get the job done.

Another area this ownership needs is to refocus on the farm system.  The Mets system is largely a joke.  They like to say it’s due to big trades that have depleted the system like the Johan Santana deal.  But my reply to that is, those traded prospects haven’t done anything in their new setting either.  The organizational lack of depth is appalling.  It became painfully obvious last year and I fear we may have to learn that lesson again this year.  This can only be remedied by a deep focus on the farm system.

All in all I really can’t blame the current state of this organization on the Wilpons, at least not solely.  They can’t go out and take at bats for the team when it’s choking those two straight seasons.  If they are smart and prudent and hire good people this next go around, I think there is a chance that in years to come the Wilpons could be portrayed as good owners.  They aren’t afraid to spend money, and they do offer stability, which are two things that really aren’t all that common these days in Major League Baseball.

I guess my bottom line is that while they can really drive us nuts, lets not lose sight of the fact that it certainly could be a lot worse.