Smart move. Name one good player that has ever come from the minors. Can't do it. Cut your losses!

This isn't a big deal. There's no particular reason why the Mets need both an Appy League team and a complex team, especially since they also have a team in the NY-P.

-- MWE

This isn't a big deal. There's no particular reason why the Mets need both an Appy League team and a complex team, especially since they also have a team in the NY-P.

-- MWE

Probably true, but the timing sucks.

How is the NL going to do the schedule if they drop the Mets? Oh, I'm sorry. They meant another minor league team.

I initially read it as the Mets were going to drop to become a minor league team. That's not a bad idea, they would probably win the International League title.

This isn't a big deal. There's no particular reason why the Mets need both an Appy League team and a complex team, especially since they also have a team in the NY-P.

-- MWE

The Cardinals -- for one -- have teams in all three. They use the GCL team for the rawest high school draftees and foreign players coming stateside from the DSL for the first time. Appy team is more polished high schoolers, some of the down-draft collegians and a holdover or three from the previous year that may need more time. NYPenn team has a lot of the previous year's draftees who don't make it onto a full-season team out of camp and get stuck in extended spring training.

This isn't a big deal. There's no particular reason why the Mets need both an Appy League team and a complex team, especially since they also have a team in the NY-P.

This is very much like letting Reyes go. (Sound like a bizarre comparison? Hear me out.) You could argue -- perhaps quite rightly -- that the deal the Marlins gave Reyes was too rich and the Mets would have been (key term: would have been) perfectly justified on the merits not matching (or even coming particularly close to) those terms. The problem is that under the circumstances, nobody should believe that the Mets' decision was, in fact, actually based on the merits. They never even made an offer, and the only reasonable conclusion (at least in my opinion) is that the decision on Reyes was based instead on the poverty of the owners. When you look at the whole body of evidence -- not just the lack of an offer to Reyes, but the lay-offs in the front office, the inability to pay back Selig, the inability to attract the supposed minority investors, and now the $40M bridge loan -- the obvious conclusion is that the Mets didn't get into the bidding to retain one of the best players they've ever developed because they couldn't afford to. That is separate and apart from whether, in the final analysis, even a Mets' team flush with cash would have smartly dropped out at (say) 6 years, $95M or something like that.

Same here. Even if a smart Mets' FO with a well-heeled ownership, would, looking at all the evidence about what the minor league system should consist of, decide not to have a GCL, this is not that Mets organization. The best evidence is that this is a cost-cutting move, not a move based on the actual merits of the issue. You have a fundamental and consistent pattern of cost-cutting on every front: major league payroll, front office (low-level) personnel, minor league organization. You have steady, growing, consistent accumulation of debt, and no sign of an ability to repay, and no actual evidence of ability to attract real investors.

Every sign points to a desperate ownership trying to save every dollar to survive as long as possible, hoping for a miracle -- whether it be on the field or in the form of a patsy investor. You'd think at this point I might start to feel sorry for the Wilpons, as they flail about in their desperation. Nope. Not a bit of it.

I had the idea the the short-season NY-Penn league was for players who actually wanted to get their degree/diploma and finish the school year.

This is a big deal for people in Port St. Lucie who like to watch baseball. Sucks for them.

The better players will still get to play in other A-ball cities, but the quality and depth of the minor league organizational players will suffer a bit.

More talent for the Brooklyn Cyclones...the team the Wilpons really care about!

Sam has it exactly right. Every defense of the individual decisions narrows to that particular decision. And the problem is the whole picture.

This is a big deal for people in Port St. Lucie who like to watch baseball. Sucks for them.

Yeah ... Port St. Lucie is pretty close to Jupiter, though.

Maybe one of the two Jupiter teams will move to PSL!

This move makes the Gulf Coast League even more concentrated on ... well, the Gulf Coast. As opposed to the Atlantic Coast, now represented only by Jupiter and Viera.

This is a big deal for people in Port St. Lucie who like to watch baseball. Sucks for them.

Not really. They'll still have the St. Lucie Mets of the Florida State League; it's only the GCL team that's being eliminated. GCL games rarely have more than 20 people in the stands.

Anyway, the complex leagues are the worst and the Mets have a thin system. This seems like a smart move, regardless of the optics.

The problem is that under the circumstances, nobody should believe that the Mets' decision was, in fact, actually based on the merits.

How much does the Wilpons' motivation actually matter, if the decision was the right one? It's not like a successful outcome here is going to have any tangible benefit for their reputations, so the risk is limited.

Not really. They'll still have the St. Lucie Mets of the Florida State League; it's only the GCL team that's being eliminated. GCL games rarely have more than 20 people in the stands.

Oh, duh, you're right.

How much can a GCL team cost to run, since they play at a complex that the Mets have to maintain anyway? What do they save by doing this, just the signing bonuses of 30 low-level prospects?

The fact that this will save so little money means it's more likely to be a decision made largely for baseball reasons.

How much can a GCL team cost to run, since they play at a complex that the Mets have to maintain anyway? What do they save by doing this, just the signing bonuses of 30 low-level prospects?

The fact that this will save so little money means it's more likely to be a decision made largely for baseball reasons.

Probably salaries for 3-4 coaches, a trainer, equipment guy. Bus fare, hotels and meal money.

The $400K-$1M in the excerpt seems reasonable. Probably the lower end, b/c of the shared facility.

The $400K-$1M in the excerpt seems reasonable. Probably the lower end, b/c of the shared facility.

Doing the math in my head, it seems like health insurance for 30 extra people might be the biggest expense/saving, with another $100,000 to $200,000 possibly saved by cutting the GCL manager, coach(es), and trainer. Unless there's some creative accounting, $400,000 seems about right.

The Times has it at around $750-800K.

When you look at the whole body of evidence

Agree, agree, agree

That is still a good number of minor league teams. I remember people like Rany making a big deal when Dayton Moore came on and increased the number of Royals minor league teams to eight - the Mets will have that number with this reduction.

The fact that this will save so little money means it's more likely to be a decision made largely for baseball reasons.

I tend to agree with this. I mean, you're only saving at most less than half of the money that went to sign Jon Rauch.

Not the Wilpons still aren't tight-ass scumbugs.

The Blue Jays got rid of their Appy League team after 2006, and then for 2011 the new regime added an Appy League team again. (taking over the Orioles' team - the 53-year history of the Bluefield Orioles came to an end)

This sort of thing happens a lot, I think.

The Times has it at around $750-800K.

I was only thinking about the actual GCL season in #16, but the preceding two-plus months of extended spring training has to add another $200,000 or so.

Depending on how the Mets go about reducing player personnel, there could be a lot more players than usual fighting for jobs in spr. tr. and extended spring. Not a Merry Christmas for fringe 1A and Rookie League players in the Mets' system.

Not a Merry Christmas for fringe 1A and Rookie League players in the Mets' system.

Nope, some of them will likely end up getting kicked to the curb, sooner rather than later for most of them. I'm sure that some/most of them will filter down to the independent leagues, if they want to remain in baseball.

The fact that this will save so little money means it's more likely to be a decision made largely for baseball reasons.

Perhaps, but they didn't save all that much money (in the larger scheme of things) with the lay-offs in the FO, either, and I have zero doubt that was done for cost-savings reasons. I think it is completely plausible to see them in the mode of having decided to cut everything to the absolute bone, and given the history of meddling done by Jeff Wilpon, it is not at all hard to see him going line by line through the budget, asking about this or that employee, this and that aspect of the minor league operation, and demanding that every $50,000 be justified.

Now, that isn't necessarily a "bad" thing -- any company in hard financial times should look to serious cost-cutting. But it would be an indication of the seriousness of the financial straits they are in (which is true, of course, even if Jeff Wilpon isn't running through the offices demanding that every penny be watched as it goes out the door . . . .)

In some parallel universe, the Wilpons never got involved with Madoff, they kept their noses clean, and in that universe, they aren't in the same desperate position. I guess we'd have to be in that universe to know if they still jettison the GCL team. I tend to doubt it, but it's certainly not impossible.

the Mets are the new Brewers

This isn't a big deal. There's no particular reason why the Mets need both an Appy League team and a complex team, especially since they also have a team in the NY-P.

-- MWE

I've talked to grizzled scouts that waxed the days of 17 affiliates per team, or something like that.

Now, that isn't necessarily a "bad" thing -- any company in hard financial times should look to serious cost-cutting. But it would be an indication of the seriousness of the financial straits they are in (which is true, of course, even if Jeff Wilpon isn't running through the offices demanding that every penny be watched as it goes out the door . . . .)

The Mets' finances seem almost irrelevant to this discussion, though. With a thin farm system and three remaining short-season teams in the NY-P League, Apply League, and DSL, the GCL team seemed like a waste. It's not like the Mets have a deep farm system and decided to be penny wise and pound foolish by jettisoning good players to save a few bucks in 2012.

Dumping a GCL or Arizona League team seems sensible for a few other teams, the Astros probably chief among them. The Astros are one of only eight MLB teams with seven U.S. MiLB affiliates, which is at least one team too many for such a thin system.

When are they going to drop the major league team?

The GCL (and AZL) have come pretty close to being eliminated in the last two major-minor league agreements; I wouldn't be shocked to see that elimination finally come to pass in the next one.

If this were any other team, it would be a blip on the offseason radar, at best (if it even got mentioned at all). But it's the Mets, it's the Wilpons, it's New York, and so it just *has* to be, somehow, indicative of a team struggling to stay afloat financially.

-- MWE

Not really. They'll still have the St. Lucie Mets of the Florida State League; it's only the GCL team that's being eliminated. GCL games rarely have more than 20 people in the stands.

I didn't realize this. So they dropped the St. Lucie JV. Not a biggie unless your employed by them.

so it just *has* to be, somehow, indicative of a team struggling to stay afloat financially.

Well, the team *is* struggling to stay afloat financially. Is there any reason to doubt that?

So, has anyone asked Sandy Alderson lately how it feels to be the GM of a big market team?

DB