Just when you thought the New York Mets couldn’t get any more dysfunctional, Fred Wilpon comes to the rescue.
There’s plenty of blame to go around when it comes to the New York Mets’ lost 2017 season. But the ire of the fans who have been clamoring for change should be directed at one person in particular—owner Fred Wilpon—according to a new report.
Everything you need to know is in the first three paragraphs of Marc Carig’s article for Newsday:
Mets owner Fred Wilpon repeatedly protected manager Terry Collins, even as chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon and general manager Sandy Alderson sought the manager’s dismissal at various points during his tenure, an example of rifts that resurfaced as a season of promise slipped away, according to more than a dozen team insiders interviewed by Newsday.
People with knowledge of the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, described organizational dysfunction, discord between the manager and his players, and a broken relationship between the manager and the front office.
Despite what the front office perceived as Collins’ constant tactical blunders and concerns about Collins’ relationships with the players, sources said efforts to seriously explore a change were thwarted by the elder Wilpon.
That’s a lot to digest, but…wow. Just wow. And believe it or not, it only gets worse.
“Once [Collins] falls in love with you, he abuses you,” one official told Carig. “He has run players into the ground. He has no idea about resting players. Even when you tell him, he doesn’t listen.”
The criticism hurled at Collins didn’t just come from the front office.
“It was Murphy’s Law in Queens this year, that’s the bottom line,” one player said. “And with that type of stuff happening, there’s almost no choice but for turmoil to follow.”
All of this begs the question—why did he insist on protecting Collins from those in the organization who understand baseball and clubhouse dynamics far better than he does?
“He got too chummy with him,” one team official said.
There you go. Collins and Wilpon are pals—and Fred didn’t want to see his buddy Terry out of work.