The Mets in the past few days have "altered two perceptions about the way they run" by signing LF Yoenis Cespedes to a three-year, $75M deal and announcing that Baseball HOF-elect Mike Piazza's No. 31 would be retired, according to Richard Sandomir of the N.Y. TIMES. The "twin bill of news will please the many Mets fans who had long grumbled that their team had become a big-city franchise with a small-market wallet and was also too stingy about retiring the numbers of its best players." The financial commitment to Cespedes "goes against much of what has occurred" since the Wilpon family learned in late '08 "that their fortune had been plundered" by Bernie Madoff. But the Wilpons and GM Sandy Alderson are "now dealing with the obligations of sudden success." Signing Cespedes "suggests that the owners’ once-dire cash situation has improved, or that they are anticipating that ticket sales at Citi Field for a suddenly renascent team will help pay for Cespedes’s contract." His salary will "elevate the team’s opening day payroll" to around $140M, a level the Mets "have not reached" in several years. Meanwhile, Piazza's honor marks the first time the Mets will retire one of their own numbers "in 28 years." The club appears to have "needed the Hall’s imprimatur before deciding to retire his number." Sandomir: "Why else wait more than eight years since his retirement?" The retirement of Piazza’s number will be the "fourth time a Met has received that honor." The other three were P Tom Seaver (No. 41) and managers Casey Stengel (No. 37) and Gil Hodges (No. 14) (N.Y. TIMES, 1/26).
TURNING OVER A NEW LEAF: On Long Island, David Lennon wrote Cespedes' new contract puts him "into the annual-salary stratosphere." The Mets figured out a way to make Cespedes fit, which is "what a good front office does, with the necessary backing of ownership." There has been "plenty of howling over the Mets’ business plan in recent years, and deservedly so, given their decidedly small-market approach to operating in the sport’s biggest, most expensive market." But the Cespedes deal "seems to indicate that those dark days are over." Factoring in his $27.5M for this season, the Mets have spent roughly $68.75M specifically for '16 on seven players (NEWSDAY, 1/24). SNY’s Jonas Schwartz said the Cespedes contract was a “far more team-friendly deal than anyone thought was possible.” SNY’s Sal Licata: “All you can ask for is for your ownership and your team to put themselves in a position to contend for a World Series. They may not win, they may not make the playoffs, but at least they tried. That is why you will hear no more complaints from me about that” (“Daily News Live,” SNY, 1/25).
