Mets Ticket Plans: Never a Great Fit

As your middle-class Mets fan, I continue to be frustrated by Mets ticket plan options. Last year I was a 15-game plan holder. The year before, it was a six pack. Before that, I had tried Saturday and Sunday plans (which to this point were still my favorite).

As much as I would love to be a full season ticket holder, I can't even justify the time (let along the price). Coming from Connecticut, it takes me anywhere from 1-2 hours to get to the game and I simply cannot miss that much time from my work or personal life to make 20 games (let alone a full season). The perfect number for me is somewhere between 5 and 10 games, maybe 12 in a really excellent season.

So the Mets offer a six-pack. Sounds great right? Not really, you can only buy these 6-packs for terrible seats. When I go to a game, since it's such a trip to get there, I want to sit in decent seats. I don't need to be down on the playing field slapping five with the players, but I don't really enjoy sitting in the top half of the outfield promenade either.

How about the 15-game plans? Well, they offer slightly better seats, but still nothing great. My 15 game plan last year had me 3 rows from the back of the stadium, which was just too far out for my tastes. Put it this way, if I am enjoying the view more on my HD television at home, it's not worth the trip. I'll sit up there for a playoff game, but not a game against the Padres in August. The novelty of the new stadium wore off for me about a month in.

I just got an e-mail today where the Mets are now offering the 15-game plans for better seating in the Caesar's club. The seats are better, although still in the outfield corners, but at $1500 per seat I just cannot justify the cost. $100 per seat, per game, is actually OK with me, but only if the seats are solid and at that rate I am more like a six-pack than a 15-pack if you know what I mean.

So in a sense, although I am paid quite well for this area of the country, the Mets have once again priced me out of their plans, either through poor seating choices or through gross amounts (pun intended). They are forcing me to buy my tickets individually ... and using Stubhub, I can probably get better seats at the same or less money anyway.

So what is my motivation? Playoff tickets? That's a sham as well. From what I remember, when you have a partial plan, you get a ticket for one game, and they literally put you in the last row of the stadium in a corner somewhere.

Let's do the math out, for fun.

15 game plan scenario:

• $1500 x 2 (who buys one ticket?) for $3000
• You get 15 games, maybe half of which you wanted, the other half are filler
• Your seats are fair, but not good
• You get the right to BUY one playoff game ticket, which let's say is another $300
• Maybe you sell a few games of tickets for about $300, and give a few games away free
• You are locked in, in advance, with no real discount

Total: $3,300, you end up going to about 8 games or so, have to work to sell the rest

Individual plan:

• Let's say we buy tickets to 8 games, at $125 per ticket, for $2,000.
• We get good seats
• We get tickets to 8 games we want to see, no filler games
• You buy playoff tickets on Stubhub, and you pay $400 a piece for them. You get fair seats
• Flexibility ... if I lose my job, I can stop buying tickets or opt out of the playoff ticket

Total: $2,800

So, for the better seats, the flexibility, being able to choose your specific dates and games, better playoff seats, less money out of pocket in advance, and fewer headaches, why would I renew again?

The Mets Plan

Since midway through the 2009 season, I have been hearing more and more people refer to the Mets and their lack of "a plan". I want to attempt to debunk what I feel is a myth; I do feel the Mets have a plan, whether or not it looks that way at times.

Do the Mets need to have a specific plan?

One can argue that large market teams don't really need to have an overall plan or strategy. What works in baseball is not that secretive. You want players in their primes, and you want to lock them into contracts before they get to their peaks so that you have players that are worth more than they make. You want to have a strong and well stocked farm system, and you want players who can hit, hit for power, play defense well, and run well. You also want plenty of quality starting pitching and bullpen arms. You want pitchers who have healthy arms, low ERA's, and low walk totals with higher strikeout rates. Sprinkle in some veteran leadership here or there to help the youngsters along, and there you have it - your plan in a nutshell.

The thing is, almost all teams have this same plan.

If you are a small market team, or a team in financial trouble, you need a more specific plan. Perhaps you trade off talent earlier because you need to keep your budget down. If you have a unique home field situation, you may want to cater to it. If you are the Yankees, you want players who can perform under pressure and handle the media. If you are the Rockies, you want ground ball pitchers, and so on and so forth.

The Mets do have one of the larger ballparks, but not so much so that they need to bring in special players to deal with it. Jason Bay is a perfect example, showing you that the Mets do not plan to only go with outfielders that have premium range.

Here are my primary reasons why I feel that the Mets do not appear to have a plan (to some):

• The team performed poorly in 2009. This simply reduces fan optimism. Had the Mets won the division last year with the exact same team (with no one getting injured as they did), the fans would all be voting that the team had a plan, and a good one. The media would be writing about how well the Mets were positioned for the future, instead of how they lack a plan.
• The team is lacking Major League ready prospects. Sure, we have a bunch of kids that look ready to help in the 2011-2013 years, but how many are ready right now? If the Mets had a few prospects ready to fill in at key positions (specifically pitching, 2B and 1B), fans would perceive the Mets to have a better "plan" in place. Of course, the lack of prospects in these positions is a sign of bad drafting, not a sign of no plan. The plan was to draft well, it didn't happen.
• The free agent market was weak, lacking the kind of players the Mets wanted to acquire (healthy, under 32, reasonably priced and well-rounded). Bay and Holliday were the closest thing to the mark that was out there. Holliday fit the bill, but Bay was a better deal financially with less risk. The Mets got him. Kudos. Outside of that, you had John Lackey, who the Mets liked, but had concerns about his health long term and the length of contract.
• Public relations is a mess. Let's face it, PR hasn't exactly gone well for the Mets recently. In fact, I don't really remember when it has gone well for them. They have always been the beloved loser franchise, the team in the shadow of the Yankees, and a team that is a bullseye for the media. On top of that, we hear all sorts of craziness about who is actually in charge. My guess is that Omar and Jeff are running the show in some capacity, and the two work closely enough that they can make a decision when they need to.
• The Mets say one thing, and do another. For whatever reason, the Mets have really preached pitching, speed and defense for the last two seasons in regards to Citi Field and who they want to acquire. Their transactions do not echo this sentiment. This is all part of the point above (PR problems). My guess is that we have a combination of misdiagnosed marketing (the team feels that is what fans want to hear) and also a lack of quality pitching, speed and defense on the free agent market. Sure, Lackey was out there, but what if Lackey had zero desire to go to the Mets to begin with? The Mets need to zip the lip (as Craig Carton would say) on what they are looking for, and instead go back to what Omar used to say: We're trying to acquire the best talent we can. They you can justify anything, from a slugger like Bay to a defensive whiz.

So, without further ado ... I present to you the Top Secret plan of the New York Mets:

• Sell tickets, merchandise, concessions and ads ... in other words, make profit. This is priority #1, and everything else below rolls up to this.
• Put a competitive team on the field every season. Obviously 2009 was a disaster for that part of the plan, driven almost exclusively by a massive number of injuries.
• Acquire plus talent, at the right price. We hear about pitching, defense and speed, but the true Mets plan is to acquire premium talent, at a good price. Jason Bay is known for neither his defense nor his speed, but he is a talent, and the Mets nabbed him. They also traded for ace Johan Santana when they needed to. They have time and time again acquired top talent every year: Pedro, Beltran, Delgado, Wagner, K-Rod, Santana, and now Bay. That is the pattern.
• Retain prospects. Right now, the Mets are being more conservative with their farm system in an attempt to re-stock it at the higher levels. We have seen plenty of evidence of this.
• Ensure employees in the organization (from top to bottom) can handle the NY media professionally. We have seen examples of this as well, with a more recent one being the departure of Lastings Milledge. Part of the Mets marketing plan has always been "family friendly", and this is part of that. They want pros, and maybe even role models. This is also why Minaya is suddenly doing fewer pressers.
• Have a strong international presence, leveraging large market team resources and cultural diversity to the team's advantage, giving the team an unfair advantage in the international market. We have also seen a lot of evidence of this.
• Do not pay over slot value in the Amateur draft. Like it or not, this is clearly a part of the Mets "plan".
• AAA depth. This is emphasized now following 2009 - it obviously wasn't a large part of the plan last year. This is why the Mets now have 4 catching options (Coste, Santos, Blanco and Thole), and about 80 guys who can play first base. They do lack middle infield options, however - another reason they overpaid Alex Cora.
• Veteran leadership. Again, like it or not, the Mets plan entails signing guys who are leaders in the clubhouse. Cora is a perfect example of that. He really brings little to the table statistically, but the Mets paid him handsomely for everything else he brings to the table.

So yes, I do believe they have a very intricate plan, and I think the evidence is there and has been there. I know it makes a sexy story to claim they don't have a plan, but I feel that a failure to execute well should not be confused with lacking a plan.