"No Financial Restrictions"

Not a lot of people can lie, directly and repeatedly, to their customers and maintain their business.

“He’ll have all the opportunity in the world to bring anybody he wants in,” team COO Jeff Wilpon said yesterday, without giving the GM carte blanche. “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.”

“The next three to four weeks will tell a lot,” said Alderson, adding he will keep finances in mind when he considers any potential move, but won’t make it the overriding factor. “The focus will be on the baseball side.”

These quotes were lifted directly from a New York Post on June 21, 2011. Wilpon details the financial situation regarding the improvement of the Mets and, as he did multiple times, ensured the fans that there were no restrictions monetarily. We have come to find out that not only were there restrictions from a financial standpoint, but they were legally enforceable through the Wilpons' loan contract.

I'm not naive. I know that people lie, and people as rich as the Wilpons lie frequently. Yet, if you knew the terms of your own contract contained actual financial restrictions, why would you repeatedly make claims otherwise? It cannot have been to save face or maintain a good public image, because the family has been battered about in the media and by the fans regardless. Why not just go silent until you could refinance?

There is one person that comes out of this looking better: Sandy Alderson. This should permanently divert the blame he had been receiving for an unwillingness to spend back onto it's rightful owners. Other than that, this is just one more media screw-up from a team that is the king of them.