The Mets Police

Front Office Sports reports the Mets have

… laid off about 25 members of its business operations staff Tuesday, sources confirmed to Front Office Sports.

The personnel moves mark the latest in an extended series of dramatic events for the team in the last eight months as Steve Cohen (above) has poured unprecedented resources into the franchise, but he has yet to see the full returns of that expenditure and ambition.

The layoffs are not a direct result of New York’s 75–87 finish in 2023 that was far below the World Series expectations of many pundits, were not dictated by Cohen, and do not extend to baseball operations. Rather, the moves were led by M. Scott Havens, the Mets’ new head of business operations, who, after arriving in January, conducted an extensive review of the team’s staff and then made the cuts. The layoffs represent a single-digit percentage of the Mets’ overall business-side personnel.

“Over the last several years, many of our departments have grown well beyond sustainable levels, and larger than our peer group with Major League Baseball,” Havens said in a staff memo obtained by FOS. “While I understand this type of change is difficult and impacts all of us, these decisions were a necessary step in helping us evolve as an organization, and more importantly, to set us up for long-term growth and success.” (Via Front Office Sports)

Oh, just one more thing.  If the Wilpons didn’t sign Ohtani, laid off 25 people, were clearly rebuilding but not admitting it, and were mainly focused on building a casino on parkland, how would that go over?

Also, don’t solely blame Steve here.  Most press release refer to Mets owners Steve & Alex Cohen, so she’s on the clock too.

I never said 3 to 5 years.  Maybe you said 3 to 5 years.  I didn’t.  Is it me? 

Wow there are a lot of cached websites from 2020 that quote Steve Cohen as saying the below..

Anyway, I am sure you guys will free pass Uncle Steve because he pops on twitter after 4 game win streaks and you guys don’t seem to ever hold him accountable, so let’s just rollover and accept this nonsense because he talks to reporters and Jeff didn’t.

Steve Cohen clarifies his 3-5 year World Series window comment from 2020:

“I said I’d be slightly disappointed…in the end, you’ve got to set big goals” pic.twitter.com/WoJ8B3rz1B

— SNY (@SNYtv) March 17, 2024

In an annual tradition, there’s nothing like a Mostly Rerun Post. The week got away from me so this is mainly a rerun…

As always, we begin with the Green Murph.

The one above is not mine, but actually Nick’s.  Nick is not messing around. He also has the Kid 8 patch on his 28 who emailed me a few jersey pics.

Nick really brought his A game. Here is a 1985 version via Mitchell & Ness. If you don’t know who 18 was on the 1985 Mets then you are in the middle of the wrong post for your level of nerdiness.

This next one Nick says is late 1980’s, but MBTN shows Mark Carreon wearing 45 in 1990 – regardless, Lukas is gonna lose his mind when he sees the font.

The next one Nick says is early 1990’s. Hubie Brooks? D.J. Dozier?

Next, Nick shares his 2006 Joe Smith.

And finally Nick has this 2008 style. I think I boycotted these or wasn’t in jersey-mania mode yet. You know who #5 is right?

This next one wasn’t an on-field one, but it’s back from when the Mets did Player’s Choice jerseys (those were cool fun) and this is one of my favorite possessions which I got for $30 in the team shop the year Murph was out and you Ike Hypers thought we’d never see Murph again.

You can see the cool front here…

 

Here are some Mets caps from over the years.    I find the third one “racist” (for this post lets just use the word to mean perpetuating a stereotype, and we can parse language some other day).

People get mad at me for calling out this cap.  (It’s cool to be racist as long as its Mr. Met being racist or something.)   I would like to point out that the Mets have not broken this out in a few years.  Bravo Inclusive Mets.

The first one cap is boring and the middle one an abomination.

 

Again, good job by the Mets moving away from that ill-advised stunt cap.

This was the boring 2016 cap.  Looks like this is a league wide template and everyone gets white on green. Zzzz. At least it doesn’t have a stereotype.

 

For 2017, this cap

And for 2018 which is not as nice as 2017’s.

 

Here’s my not-inexpensive Green Reds Seaver.  I don’t think I have worn it, maybe once, because I am afraid to get it dirty.

 

 

Here’s a screen grab I took in 2015.  There is that yucky racist Mr. O’Met.  Again, for those of you who get mad why don’t you imagine what that cap would look like on say Cinco De Mayo or Chinese New Year and tell me it’s still cool.

Fortunately this cap seems to have disappeared as people become more aware of the issues.  In general, I didn’t find too many offensive stereotype driven products this year.  Good job everyone!

 

This is my old Original Irish Night cap I have from way back at Shea whenever they did Original Irish Night.

And here’s probably the best of the Irish caps.  The Irish hybrid.  And yeah that’s Regis Philbin!

And now the non-rerun part.

This is the 2019 cap.

And the 2020 and 2021 cap.

Here are, in order,  the 2022, 2023 and 2024 caps, each worse than the one before

The best of the set is the “Regis Philbin” combo.  The Mets should do this.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, and remember don’t embarrass my Irish ancestors by acting like a buffoon.

The week got away from me and I didn’t get to update this for 2024. Here’s the 2023 edition.

…

This is something I do every year, and is usually one of the most controversial posts of the year because I always accidentally leave someone out and people with hit me with things like “didn’t you know Player X’s grandmother was Irish” etc.

The rules? Be Irish, have Irish Ancestry….or be “close enough” that we can include you (you’ll see what I mean soon enough).  No birth certificates will be checked.

I don’t think we have any new players on the All-Irish Team this season, but let’s keep an eye on Tanner Murphy and Matt O’Neill down at AAA.

With that, let’s send it down to the field as Bob Murphy introduces the team.

And it is a Happy St. Patrick’s Day from William A. Shea Stadium (and a big thanks to Bill Shea for giving us the gift of baseball).  Tim McCarver is up in the TV booth.

Our manager and coaches.  Please welcome back our old friend Terry Collins, along side bench coach Regis Philibin.

Introducing the pitchers:

Our starters: Nolan Ryan, Tim Leary, Terry Leach, Jim McAndrew, and David Cone. (Half-Irish Matt Harvey has a photo shoot and is unable to join us today.).  

The bullpen:  Sean Patrick Gilmartin,  Colin McHugh, Tim Burke, Greg McMichael, Chuck McElroy, Tug McGraw, P.J. Conlon & Roger McDowell. Sam McWilliams joins the AAA All Irish Team in case we need to bring someone up mid-season, and Sean Reid-Foley has a shot at making the squad.

Behind the plate: James McCann. Mike Fitzgerald, Todd Hundley, Duffy Dyer and of course Charlie O’Brien

Third base: Daniel Murphy gets moved over to cover.  Murph is a good guy always willing to switch positions to help the team.

Shortstop: Roy McMillan

Second base: Jeff McNeil has taken over for past incumbent Doug Flynn

First base: he is part-Irish on his mother’s side, The Captain, Keith Hernandez

In left: Kevin McReynolds

In Center: Brian McRae

And the Right Fielder: Dave Gallagher

We have room for five players in the bench: Super-sub Joe McEwing, Justin Turner (with that hair I am assuming he is Irish), Jeff McKnight, Doug Flynn, WBC Team Israel’s star Tyler Patrick Kelly (son of Patrick Kelly),  and Tom O’Malley is depth at  AAA All Irish Team.

Pete Flynn will take care of the grounds, so let’s play ball!

Every year I miss somebody, let me know who.

LGM