Saturday, April 17, 2010

Letter to Mr. Wilpon

Today I'm excited to have a guest blogger: Rick Holman



Dear. Mr. Wilpon:

I wanted to take the time to write this letter to you on behalf of a former Met fan -me. Of course, you may check my remarks on twitter and get angry but I’ll try to be polite in this letter, although it will be difficult.

I think you know that Met fans are unhappy with the teams performance and the management. I thought I’d tell you why people are so unhappy in an effort to help you decide what to do in the next few months.

Well, to begin with, most of the Met fans don’t like Omar Minaya. I know, it doesn’t take a genius to see that. Just go on twitter and do a search for Minaya and all kinds of remarks will come up, including my remarks. And then there are other Mets fans that I run into all the time that say that I hope that the Mets have a bad season so Minaya gets fired. That’s the frustration that I see.

Sure, there are some people who like Omar. I see them on message boards on Fox and ESPN. " Mets are going win 95 games...,give the pitchers a chance and they’ll win 20 games each this year ... we’re off to a slow start and we’ll come back after the all star break ... " Those comments really hurt me after I fell on the floor laughing. I nearly sprained my ankle.

Yes, I know, you say Omar has done a good job. Look at what he brought us. K-Rod. Beltran. Delgado, Santana. And.... and...did I say Santana. And Santana.

Yes, the self proclaimed best pitcher in the NL east. But people are still upset about Glavin, Pedro Martinez, El Duque, Livan Hernandez, Gary Sheffield, Gary Matthews, JR, J.J. Putz, and Oliver Perez. Did I say Oliver Perez. Oliver Perez. I'm sure there are others.

Last season you said that we can fix this. Injuries were the problem. While other teams like the Seattle Mariners came out aggressively, your GM said “Our pitchers are just as good as the free agents that are out there.”

I mean, lets face it, those ridiculous comments seem like a convenient excuse to cover up all the mistakes that management has made. If anything comments like this have put even more pressure on this rotation and the expectations are that they will be able to pitch over their heads. In the meantime, Met fans can only be even more upset when Pinero mows down the Yankees and says the Mets are weird. Seeing Nate Robinson in a Marlins uniform doesn’t help either.

Yes, I can see you raising your fist and saying “Hey, what about Jason Bay?” Yes, brilliant move. Good power hitter for a pitcher friendly Citi Field. Hey, I’m not knocking that Citi Field is a pitcher friendly stadium even though you have your players and announcers say it’s not. Lets face it, if the walls were closer, the home runs would be really be flying out of there from the other teams.

Yes, your management has over evaluated players, Yes, your bullpen collapsed and didn’t make the playoffs even though your bullpen was over worked with many relief pitchers coming in for 90 games when the average is 60-70 during a time when your only competition was the Phillies. Yet your back on that same strategy this year. Look what happened last night.

Fans can only put up with this disappointment for so long. Many of your players said that things can’t be worse than last season. I beg to differ. Things can spiral out of control and you can end up like the Knicks who get blown out of games by other teams. Kobe Bryant scoring 61 points and the fans showing up again to see if LeBron James can score 70. It wouldn’t be so great to see Ryan Howard hit 3 home runs against the Mets or Tim Lincecum throw a no-hitter in Citi Field. I’m sure you’re not looking forward to seeing the Yankees this year either.

My point is that hard decisions have to be made Mr. Wilpon. And if you compare your problems to the other team in the Bronx, that owner didn’t put up with anything. He fired his medical staff and fired managers and general managers when they failed. Maybe he was too harsh but it’s still a business in the end.

I know, you’re still skeptical. You’re just taking things for granted like you did last season. Hey look, nothing lasts forever. I mean, do you think that people are still renting Steven Seagal and Van Damme movies? Did you see with Steven Seagal in “Kill Switch?” I mean, the fight scenes looked like a video game because you never saw Seagal fighting, just the other guy getting knocked around.

In any case, good luck with your season and the Cardinals. And remember, it’s always tough to win back the fans that used to root for you, not the ones that are with you now. All of us fill up Citi Field and watch the Mets on TV. If you ignore us, you can look at the attendance in Toronto to see what will happen.

You know, I should talk to my wife and see if she wants to see the Blue Jays. I mean, you can get seats right on the field. And I can run after the foul ball in the stands. They’re a pretty good team right now. I have to go talk to her. Bye.

Rick Holman


1 comment:

Frank Angelone said...

This was a fantastic guest post and I think summed up the feelings all the fans have towards the Mets and upper management. Changes need to be made and the more the Wilpons linger around, the more they show they truly don't care about winning a championship. As a matter of fact, all the Wilpons care about is putting fans in the stands. Money is the bottom line to them. The fans all recognize it which explains why only half the stadium is filled. Plain and simple - poor product, no sales. I will always love the Mets, but not the people running the show. There's a couple of decent players on the team, but for the most part it's a bunch of negative, down in the dumps players. We need a leader, multiple leaders and some energy brought back to this team. The baseball culture needs to return in Queens and it starts with a firesale and starting fresh. Let's rid us of the 2006 NLCS and all the horrid events that came there after, leading up to today. All the Met fans want a new product!