Yankees ghosts of players past haunt Mets owner Fred Wilpon

The Yankees have for far too long employed a disastrous business model. In keeping with the season, Mets’ owner Fred Wilpon recently tried to show Hal Steinbrenner the folly of his ways.

The Yankees are in trouble. Their spending now and in the past has shackled them. And it will inevitably lead them to a financial hell, forever dragging bloated contracts through a bleak baseball future. Just ask the owner of the Mets, Fred Wilpon:

"Wilpon believes such an economic model is “unsustainable,” according to a source, a sentiment he has held for several years as the Yankees have made blockbuster acquisitions. Wilpon’s reaction to the Stanton deal was hardly unexpected by those around the team patriarch — he was so rankled when the Yankees traded for Alex Rodriguez in 2004, according to sources, that he called a Mets executive who was on a family vacation to complain. “[Wilpon] keeps saying the Yankees can’t keep this model up,” a source said."

Fortunately, Fred Wilpon recently rented the spirit of Christmas past to illuminate Hal Steinbrenner. As usual, he was too cheap to get all three spirits.

And as is true for his GM’s press conferences, Fred was nowhere to be seen, but it was clear that he had instructed the spirit in what to say.

Expect the First when the Bell Tolls One

“Spirit: Rise, Hal Steinbrenner, and see the mistakes of Yankees past. Look, it’s 1977, and you’re just a boy. But your father has already set the Yankees franchise on a path of ultimate failure. By signing Reggie Jackson, he has doomed himself and all of baseball to death!

Deeeeaaaaatttttttthhhhh!

Hal: Well, the team won back-to-back World Series and made it to three in four years. Some would say that was pretty successful.

S: Yes, but that is only short-term success. It cannot last! Nooooooo, the only wise course of action is to win with only homegrown players. Look at the Mets.

Even as he built his real estate empire in Westchester, Fred could see the only sustainable model was homegrown players and an Ebeneezer Scrooge-level yearly investment in the club. He knows, he has always known, that an owner does not build a team; he waits for it to appear from the minor league system completely intact magically.

Fred knows there is no correlation between adding great free agents to success on the field. And he knows Mets fans like it that way!

They won in ’86 with almost exclusively homegrown players or players traded for. In faaaaaaact, they did not win until they got rid of their only high priced player, George Foster.”