The Loan Is Dead … Long Live The Loan

The Mets have refinanced their $250 million loan which kept the team from insolvency, bankruptcy, and moving to Portland, OR. It no longer contains stipulations which limited the Mets payroll.

(!)

"There is a bit of a silver-lining for critics of Wilpon and Katz: There are no payroll limits written into the re-worked loan, a source added. The existing loan restricts the team from greatly expanding payroll."

This is why nothing Jeff Wilpon says should be taken seriously. Remember this from June of 2011?:

“He'll have all the opportunity in the world to bring anybody he wants in. The way for him to do that is to bring the ideas to us and we'll talk about it. But he does not have restrictions. We'll deal with everything on a case-by-case basis."

Get that? Sandy Alderson did not … have … restrictions. Except for that one about the $250 million loan which restricted payroll. Which means that every case-by-case basis ended with the case being closed. That's one giant restriction. The Bartolo Colon of restrictions, if you're scoring at home. The Mets were basically owned by banks for two years. All your ATM surcharges? They went towards paying back this loan, while we had to watch Chin-lung Hu attempt to play baseball as a result. Years of my life gone because of a loan.

But the old loan is gone. And this new loan will not come due for seven years. Which means current ownership will remain current ownership for the foreseeable future.

Here's my enthusiastic reaction to all this:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=
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