New York Mets financial woes seem endless even as 2012 regular season approaches - MLB Feature
As if reduction in basic payroll from $140 million to $90 million and couple of other retrenchment measures were not enough, another problem had surfaced as US District Court Judge Jed Rakoff rules: burden of proof lies on New York Mets’ owners(Katz and
Wilpon) as to whether they received $303 million from Bernard Madoff’ firm in good faith.
Earlier Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, Mets co-owners, maintained a contention in the court that since Irving Picard, a court appointed trustee, is responsible for recovering the losses wreaked at the victims, burden of proof falls on his shoulders.
“The stakes are greater for Katz and Wilpon,” a former Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer namely Peter Henning said. “If they were to lose, it’s Armageddon for the team -- and they have to come up with a lot of cash. The stakes are less for Picard
because he doesn’t have skin in the game.”
While outcome of the ruling is going to aggravate financial woes of the Mets, it is not yet clear how the team will return $303 million to court at a time when they have exhausted all possible measures they can resort to for generating cash. Last time when
the club owed money to Major League Baseball and Bank of America, it divested some of its ventures and retired their debts this way.
Even aside from the financial aspect, their season performance is certainly going to be affected. Already they are reeling at eight losses registered in Spring Training up till now and imagine if their club is not able to trade few more players during the
peak of the season to plug up their loopholes, only worst will pan out.
Many believe their last year star performer, Jose Reyes, was lost to Miami Marlins because of paucity of the capital with the club. Reports emerged recently stating that Reyes could easily be retained had the club made an offer to him. Even people close
to Reyes confirmed that, Reyes will never think on betraying Mets even if he was offered less than he currently enjoys in his six year $108 million contract with the Marlins.
Meanwhile, a closer look suggests that financial mess they find themselves in today is not entirely of their own making. Declaration of bankruptcy of Bernard Madoff in 2008 was an event the club had nothing to do with directly but the fact they had taken
money from them and then they were proved guilty in Ponzi scheme, the team was to come under the obvious consequences. Now the club faces the imminence of squeezing itself further in terms of finances.
Even Mets have yet to pay $83 million to Picard as a result of 5 March ruling of the court, when the club was convicted of having embezzled money from Ponzi scheme’s profits. Every day is bringing new hurdles for the club both on the field and off the field.
Mets had seen a terrible last few seasons when at times their best players will get injured or sometimes due to poor back up on the roster they will not be able to stymie the attack from opponents. The fact that most of the teams are being lavish in their
expenditures on getting back up players in almost every department of the game, Mets are going to suffer hugely in this regard. Going by the experience of last few years, their fate is not going to be any different this time around.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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