"Steve Cohen has not given up on buying the Mets, but sources close to the situation say he would want the team’s majority stake in cable network SNY to justify a new bid anywhere near the Wilpons’ $3 billion valuation.
What remains unclear is whether the Wilpons have any interest in selling SNY or dealing with Cohen a second time.
The Wilpons own 65 percent of the cable network in partnership with Spectrum and Comcast. Banking sources tell The Post the network is valued between $850 million-$1 billion, with gross earnings near $150 million annually. Considering the Mets are thought to lose $50 million in an average year, the network would be hugely useful in any sale of the organization.
“Cohen wants SNY, and he wants it at fair value,” one banker familiar with the deal said. “The team loses $50 million a year in a good year, so he wants SNY’s revenue, and he might pay a small premium to never have to deal with Fred and Jeff [Wilpon] ever again."
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aren't really losing money. The 50 million in "losses" does not include SNY revenue so in actuality the Wilpons are "up" 100 million for 2019 even if the 50 million (which is disputed) is accurate. Again, the reason why SNY not being included changes the math/valuation.
Oh, I know. Drives me nuts to see the numbers like this. Wilpons are netting roughly $50 million a year and running the team like they do.
It's total BS. Most don't even buy the 50 million in operating losses (The Wilpons have expenses due to loans that impact spending) however they are making substantial profit on their investment each year. The expenses obviously eat into that more than being handed a 2 billion dollar check.
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It's gotta be make or break time for him right? If he can't at least be an average or above AAA player this season, can't see the Mets giving him a starting AAA job beyond this season.
Cohen has issued statements since the deal fell through. He's declined interviews despite being allowed to. There may be specific information he can't touch on but he's allowed to speak.
@mikemayerMMO
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Jan 31
Our top 30 Mets prospect countdown has started at
@MetsMerized
and
@Mets_Minors
. We had a large number of writers give their opinions and it's a collective list.
#30 Robert Dominguez, RHP
#29 Bryce Hutchinson, RHP
#28 Luis Carpio, INF
#27 Wilmer Reyes, SS
#26 Ryley Gilliam, RHP
DW
1:13 Keith, what's your take on JD Davis? Is he a legitimate masher or BABIP lucky? Should he be a DH? or do you think he can hack it anywhere in the field?
Keith Law
1:13 BABIP spike. Could play first base but the Mets have two better options there.
1:54 In all of these article concerning the Mets and their potential sale of the team it just seems to be reported as fact the the Mets lose $50m annually. 1) This is B.S. right? 2) Why do reporters go along with it so easily?
Keith Law
1:55 1) Right. 2) Because it's easy. Same reason so many writers uncritically quoted that bought-and-paid-for marketing report that claimed Miller Park generated over $2 billion for the city of Milwaukee, which is pure bullshit.
His ISO slg% was actually lower than most of what he did in his minors career. So the power was not an aberration unless his ability to hit the FB was.
His BA at .307 does appear inflated, likely as a result of an unsustainably high BABIP, but it would seem where he got lucky was adding more singles than normal vs. xbh. So if he loses 20 points on his BA and it's just a handful of singles that don't fall in and he can maintain his slugging %, that's not a much different player.
I'd be a lot more troubled if his SLG% was way beyond his track record more than his BABIP.
Now his scouting profile was always great raw power that hasn't made it's way into games yet, so perhaps it was him just taking that step. But I'd personally consider him a more likely candidate to regress vs. last year than JDD.
Completely agree about the defense - that's the big question to me. I'm glad they are acknowledging that reality and letting him focus on LF. That's the best chance for him to find a passable every day spot.
Agree, it's why I would have tried to trade him (ideally to an AL team) this off-season and capitalize on his "breakout" 2019.
Who knows, maybe they did try.
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I was more interested in his take defensively and I'm with Keith. This idea that Davis was "good" at 3b flies in the face of reality. People looking for something that isn't there. Hopefully he can play "below average" LF vs. horrendous LF.
Agree, it's why I would have tried to trade him (ideally to an AL team) this off-season and capitalize on his "breakout" 2019.
Who knows, maybe they did try.
If you believe Andy Martino (and I generally don't) they wouldn't even include him for Marte so I suspect they wanted to keep him.
They'd have to rebuild the ballclub to become even a 'good' defensive team. So go with the strategy of building a dominant offense and rely on that and your arms. That's what JD brings.
JD Davis is a guy that really doesn't have a position.
That to me is very different than Rosario's rough start in the field (that he corrected over the course of the season) or Nimmo not being a prototypical CFer.
McNeil might be the teams best defensive player.
as a non-roster invitee or just as a visitor?
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Damn, Valdespin is in Mets camp despite once calling Terry Collins a "c*&ksucker"? Forgive and forget? lol
as a non-roster invitee or just as a visitor?
They are hosting an open tryout today. I don't think that means guys off the street but he's not officially in camp as of yet.
..as long as he doesn't like have security escort Paul LoDuca out and ban him from Citifield at some point.. haha
Wanna trade someone to the American league trade Cespedes. He's a career ending injury waiting to happen.
But, he has very little value.
JD Davis would be trading someone, who has possibly peaked, at their high value.
And the strategy of the defense isn't going to be good, so why not make is disastrous is not a strategy I would support. Even acknowledging defense isn't a strength, I think some of the concern is overblown. Rosario, McNeil, Conforto, Nimmo, Ces (?), even probably Cano should all play Ok D. Even Alonso's reputation as a butcher was overblown.
Ramos and Davis are really the anchors and when you have other players who are just average or slightly below. Having those two in the lineup daily is like pouring gas on the fire instead of replacing them with better defensive players and lifting the others up.
Davis made sense to trade, since with his value the Mets could have gotten a solid defensive catcher to spell Ramos and bullpen help. Cespedes, sure trade him if you can get something of value for him, but it's an apples to oranges comparison.
His real value to this team is providing depth and his professional approach coming off the bench late and close. He was a tough out last year in big spots.
If managed correctly, it should work out fine.
Davis made sense to trade, since with his value the Mets could have gotten a solid defensive catcher to spell Ramos and bullpen help. Cespedes, sure trade him if you can get something of value for him, but it's an apples to oranges comparison.
The only player who got traded this offseason who I'd have traded JDD for is Betts. So trading JDD "high" is highly speculative and I'd go as far to as to call very unlikely because there were hardly any players who are even good enough to qualify who changed teams this offseason - same as Dom. Kind of like wanting to trade down in the first round of the NFL draft for a haul of picks. Sounds great and everyone wants to do it, but rarely happens.
Margot would have been an interesting discussion but as it turned out he got traded for arguably less than JDD, and Marisnick isn't much different and was cheap to acquire. Maybe Liberatore if they thought he is an absolute stud P prospect. He's currently ranked about the same as SWR who they dealt with Kay for a less valuable asset than JDD - point being they'd have to be very high on him to think that makes sense value wise. Kluber would have been debatable if you think last year was an aberration but I'd have passed since he's 33.
There's also a very small universe of players who are as young as JDD and put up similar production (2.5 war) last season. 36 to be exact, including 3 Mets, and the only 1 who got traded was Betts. So it's hard to realistically envision what "trading high" would have even looked like because when you read through the other 31 names on the list most of them are beyond unlikely (Bregman, Bellinger, Harper, Machado, Lindor, Devers, Moncada, Baez etc).
The speculative deals I would have been intrigued by for either Dom or JDD would have been for 1 of Toronto's 2 young catchers. Or perhaps someone like Keibert Ruiz. But who knows if that's anywhere in the ballpark of realistic.
How many Kelenic's were traded last off-season (top 6 pick less than a year after he was drafted)? How many Cano's? How many 24-year old league leading closers?
Not many, yet that trade still happened?
so, because no JD Davis like players were traded means a Davis trade was unlikely?
Is that your point?
How many Kelenic's were traded last off-season (top 6 pick less than a year after he was drafted)? How many Cano's? How many 24-year old league leading closers?
Not many, yet that trade still happened?
so, because no JD Davis like players were traded means a Davis trade was unlikely?
Is that your point?
Not really, the main point is not that only 1 player good enough that I would have traded JDD actually got traded.
We have no idea what other GM's may have been willing to do because we are merely arm chair GM's, but the fact is none of them pulled the trigger on giving up assets that = the value of JDD.
So saying "trade so and so high" is usually an unlikely/unrealistic hypothetical. Like saying the Giants should trade down for a haul of draft picks. I'd love to do that also, but you need to have another team interested to do so.
again, not sure of the point.
JD Davis wasn't traded, so either BVW doesn't feel the same way as me, or he didn't receive an offer that he felt was fair.
I'm also comfortable saying maybe just because BVW didn't trade a player doesn't mean he made the right decision.
Other than the JD Davis trade and the Matt Allan draft pick he hasn't done a ton of things I think were great decisions.
Nimmo and Cespedes are obvious health risks. Conforto is a good player but he's getting really close to FA. The Astros guy they traded for is only on a one-year deal and his best offensive season was appears to be heavily aided by cheating.
There's no real replacements in the system for these guys (Tebow? lol). Having a guy who hit like Davis did last year, and is pre-arb, is a good asset to have around, even if he's initially blocked in 2020.
Like trading down it's a perfectly fair opinion but in most contexts is unrealistic.
Let me put this another way, you mentioned Kelenic earlier. I think it's a very realistic criticism of BVW to say that had he been more patient last offseason he may have been able to get Realmuto for a package around Kelenic. Dealing him for Diaz was obviously a mistake but forgetting that there's a factual example of an alternative player who was actually worthy of dealing Kelenic.
I think it's just a drop less fair to criticize a move not made when there is no alternative we can point to. Like proving a negative. There's plenty to criticize with BVW but there aren't too many guys who got traded this offseason or were rumored available even I think he missed out on. Like Marte, I'm glad he didn't trade JDD for Marte.
Maybe. But JDD's best year, by far, was last year...after his two years with the Astros. The Astros were definitely aided by the cheating but it's hard to quantify how much it helped them.
That being said, Marisnik's look to be aided by the cheating in 2017. The baffling question is why didn't the cheating help his numbers any in 2018 and 2019?
I also don't think we have a similar definition of "realistic". Trading down is always realistic, it happens in every single NFL draft. Just because something didn't happen, doesn't mean it's not realistic.
What may be unrealistic is the trade down trade proposals made by Giants fans, but simply suggesting "the Giants should trade down" while may be annoying because it's overused, it's not unrealistic.
but, I'm not doing that (so far), simply suggesting trading JDD for a defensive catcher and bullpen help is not unrealistic, even if it wasn't done.
Straight up? Yes, probably.
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Straight up? Yes, probably.
That's fair. I probably wouldn't have done that because of I'd rather spend the extra $10m the next few years on P or C depth, unless the scouts thought Marte was a big upgrade over Nimmo defensively in CF. I don't trust defensive metrics all that much but they say he's regressed a lot.
So i'd have preferred to save $ for pitching and roll the dice on JDD's bat because the upside he showed last year is as good as Marte's best years.
I don't underrate Davis, I just feel like he's a luxury that is not essential to the Mets and his value to them is more in a trade.
I'm ok with Nimmo in CF. I too don't trust defensive metrics, so I won't lie and say I watched Marte enough to know if he has regressed defensively or not, but I watched Davis enough to know he's a liability in the field.
Nimmo may not be a prototypical CFer, but I don't consider him a liability despite what metrics may say. I once read metrics that had Alfonso Soriano as he best LFer in the MLB (2007) and then two years later (2009) he was the among the worst. I'm not sure defensive analytics are reliable yet.
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Yah posted about this last night like 10 posts up...
It would be an upgrade from the Wilpons simply because of spending power.
4 in the top 100.
Mauricio the highest - says with a good year he can be a top 5 prospect next year.
Mauricio #17
Alvarez #48
Allan #92
Baty #95
FWIW: Kelenic #8
Mauricio signed with the Mets in 2017 for $2.1 million, then the largest bonus the team had ever given a player in the international free-agent market, and made his full-season debut less than two years later at age 18. He was the youngest regular in the Sally League last year — the only qualifying position player in the league born in 2001 — and held his own against older competition, finishing above the league median in batting average and contact rate, although he also had a ground ball rate of nearly 53 percent. Mauricio is a very athletic shortstop who’s already above-average at the position, while at the plate, he has lightning in his hands, and has power that he hasn’t gotten to yet because he’s still so young and because he’s putting the ball on the ground too often. I don’t think it’s entirely in his swing, but he will need to try to get underneath the ball more consistently to get to his 25-plus HR ceiling. A shortstop with this kind of bat speed who can already make contact against pitchers two to four years his senior has huge potential, and could easily be a top 5 prospect in a year with a solid showing in High A.
Wasn't he an underslot that afforded Vientos (who was kind of rumored to be in play with the first pick anyway)? I have been all that high on Peterson and still aren't but the MLB draft is just such a crap shoot it's hard to get too frustrated with 1 poor/mediocre late round pick.
Everyone crushed Sandy's drafts overall and on the whole they've been among the most productive over that time period. I don't remember where I saw it (Athletic maybe?) but someone added up the war and the number of players over a certain threshold and the combo of Nimmo, Fulmer, Conforto, McNeil was way outperforming the field even prior to Alonso/Smith breaking out.
Pitcher velo is one of the most important things to look at this time of year. Remember those seasons when he heard about how good Harvey felt and then his FB was 92-93 instead of 96?