What changes will we see outside Citi Field?
Plus, the latest from Port St. Lucie
Good Morning,
We have a jam-packed newsletter for you this morning! The Mets are arriving in Port St. Lucie in force. We are one day away from the team’s first full workout. We heard from Brandon Nimmo yesterday, received an update on the new rules and learned a few more tidbits.
Today we will also discuss what’s going on in the area around Citi Field. There’s been talk of a soccer stadium, bars and restaurants – and more recently, a casino. From the glossy presentations to the “community visioning sessions,” there’s been a lot to unpack.
Luckily for us, we have an in-house political consultant – MetsFix Co-Founder Peter Kauffmann – to walk us through what’s happening and what this all means.
But first, the latest news.
👷♂️ PLAYING IT SAFE: Fresh off an 8-year, $162 million deal, Brandon Nimmo didn’t want to take any risks by participating in the World Baseball Classic this year.
“I just felt like that’s a risk I can’t take: signing this contract, being with this team and the way that Steve [Cohen] has set it up, I would really kick myself if something happened,” Nimmo told reporters on Monday. “In order to be prepared for [the WBC], I would have needed to start a month earlier and I am hoping that we’re playing well after this regular season ends. I’m hoping to add a month to a month-and-a-half of a season after this. We just felt this was best for the team if I did not.”
🏎️ NEW CAR: Nimmo has finally upgraded his 2010 Nissan Altima. The affable centerfielder celebrated his new multi-year deal by “splurging” on a Audi RS Q8. “I’m pretty proud of it,” Nimmo said. “It’s fun to drive. It’s got a lot of horses under the hood, but I’ll make sure to be nice and safe with it.”
💪 PUTTING IN THE WORK: Top prospect Brett Baty will focus on third base this spring instead of splitting time in the outfield in hopes of finding a spot with the big club.
“I think the speed has a lot to do with it,” Baty said, via Newsday. “You can’t really replicate it unless you get reps. But I need to work on a lot of things, honestly. I need to work on keeping my head still. I need to work on seeing the ball all the way into the glove. I feel like my arm can play from just about anywhere, so for me, I feel like just fielding it, catching it cleanly, taking my time, knowing how much time I have with the runner, is really crucial for me. So just kind of slowing the game down.”
⌥ OPTIONALITY: The Mets never made an offer to lefty Andrew Chafin, per The Athletic. Chafin signed a one-year, $5.5 million deal with the Diamondbacks last weekend. As we have discussed here, the front office is placing an emphasis on optionality, or pitchers with minor league options remaining.
🇵🇷 HERITAGE: Francisco Lindor and his family visited the Carlos Beltrán Baseball Academy in Puerto Rico on Monday.
🏦 BREAKING THE BANK: With a record $382 million payroll entering the season (along with over $100 million due in taxes), the Mets are expected to lose $200 million or more this season, according to estimates provided by the NY Post.
“For those who don’t believe it’s possible to lose money owning a big-league team, well, consider that Mets revenues are expected to be considerably lower than the $491 million total player and tax expense alone,” writes Jon Heyman.
🎙️ KEITH TALK: As we noted yesterday, Keith Hernandez is staying in the SNY booth on a new three-year deal. The legendary Met was reportedly seeking a raise on his $775,000 salary from last season. It took most of the offseason for the two sides to finally hammer out a deal. Keith is expected to appear in 110 broadcasts over each of the next three seasons, per the NY Post.
A few notes on the rule changes…
⏰ PITCH CLOCK: Adam Ottavino is staying positive about the new pitch clock:
“I think It'll be good,” he told reporters on Monday. “I think the only time It'll be a factor is a huge moment, a huge spot, and you're in between what to throw. You're gonna have to find a way to kill the clock there. You get your one or two step-offs. You're gonna have to know your fail safes.”
The veteran right-hander is one of the players I highlighted during the offseason as someone who will need to adjust to the quicker pace, particularly with runners on base. One out of every five pitches took him longer than 30 seconds to deliver in those situations.
👻 RUNNER: Speaking of new rules, everyone’s least favorite change, the “ghost runner” is here to stay. MLB’s Joint Competition Committee voted unanimously to make the rule permanent. This means a player will be placed on second base at the start of every extra inning.
⚾️ POSITION PLAYER PITCHING: The committee also adopted a rule to limit the use of position players as pitchers, starting this season. If you want to save your bullpen with an everyday player, you can only do so in extra innings, or as a leading team up by 10 or more runs in the ninth inning, or anytime as a trailing team that is down by eight or more runs.
📬 For today’s mailbag, we have a series of questions from Jason about what’s going on in the area around Citi Field, so I’m going to hand this over to our in-house expert on the subject, Peter Kauffmann.
🧔 Thanks JB. It’s true – when I’m not lamenting the sad demise of Happy Harvey Day or trying to figure out the value of the stolen base in the pages of MetsFix, I spend my days advising companies and organizations about how to navigate the New York political landscape.
In fact, over a decade ago, I helped the Bloomberg Administration win approval to start the development process at Willets Point – the blighted area of chop shops once immortalized by F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby as the “valley of ashes.” And yet here we are, in 2023, and Mets fans can only dream of what it would be like to be able to get a meal or a beer within walking distance of Citi Field.
Before we dive in to the specific questions, let’s clarify what we’re talking about.
There are TWO separate pieces of land that are in difference stages of the development process. There’s Willets Point, the city-owned land to the east of Seaver Way. There’s also the Citi Field parking lot, controlled by the Mets as part of the stadium lease with the City.
🏟️ The first phase of the Willets Point development is on its way to becoming a reality, with a target completion date of 2027. This project is being done through a public-private partnership that includes New York City, the New York City Football Club, and the Queens Development Group (a joint venture of Related Companies and Sterling Equities, the Wilpon family’s real estate company). Mayor Adams unveiled the City’s vision for this 23-acre portion of Willets Point last November, and it will include a privately-funded $780 million soccer stadium; 2,500 units of affordable housing; open space; a hotel; and retail.
🅿️ The plot of land you’ve been reading about lately, which is under control of Steve Cohen and the New York Mets, is the Citi Field parking lot. This is the subject of the recent “community visioning sessions,” sponsored by the team. Even though it’s a paved parking lot, this land is legally considered parkland, which is significant because state law requires that any parkland lost to private development must be replaced within close proximity.
For the Mets to build anything on this land, they will need to find 50 acres of new park space somewhere nearby. The parking lots were also part of the $650 million in bond financing that went towards the original construction of Citi Field, so elimination of those lots would likely require changes to that deal.
❓ Now that we have that straight, on to the specific questions:
📨 Cohen is going to build up the area around Citi Field. That's great in broad terms, but what are the details, and what does it mean for the people of Flushing? Will these neighborhood investments improve the neighborhood for everyone? Or will it drive up rent and other costs and lead to an increase in gentrification?
Unlike a lot of development projects, this one is unlikely to impact the immediate neighborhood in a negative way. When the City first started the development process in Willets Point over 10 years ago, there was just a single resident claiming to live there. This is a unique opportunity to develop a brand new neighborhood, with affordable housing and local retail that will be able to serve residents of Flushing and Corona.
📨 Is Cohen getting tax breaks from this neighborhood revitalization or something? Sports stadiums are often built on the public dime...is the city going to lose further revenue via tax breaks for this one man to reshape the area?
Public subsidies have not been part of the discussion so far. With the soccer stadium being built in Willets with all private funding, it would be difficult to imagine the City or State handing out subsidies to the billionaire owner of the Mets. The casino licensing process is actually a significant revenue generator for the State – the application fee is $1 million and the three winning bidders will be required to pay $500 million for the license itself.
📨 Is there going to be a casino next door to Citi Field?
Make no mistake – this effort is ALL about building a casino in the Citi Field parking lot. New York State is set to issue licenses for three full casinos in the New York City area some time later this year. Conventional wisdom is that one of those will go to Resorts World, the racino next to Aqueduct Racetrack, and one will go to Empire City, the racino next to Yonkers Raceway. That leaves one license up for grabs among several bidders – with proposals that include partnerships between casino operators and real estate developers at sites like Coney Island, Times Square, and the Citi Field parking lot.
📨 What do the residents of Flushing think about all of this? Are there details about public meetings? Is there opposition to Cohen's plans? Will Cohen win?
This is all very early in the process, although initial feedback from the visioning sessions has shown strong interest in things like bars, restaurants and open space – with little desire for a casino. Whether or not Cohen is successful will depend in large part on his ability to mobilize support and neutralize any opposition. In 2017, the Wilpons’ attempt to build a mall in the parking lot was blocked by a state Court of Appeals ruling over the loss of parkland.
Cohen’s political operation is of a much higher caliber than the Wilpons, and they have been gearing up for this since Cohen took control of the team. Cohen has personally donated $1.5 million to Eric Adams’ mayoral campaign, and unlike his predecessor, Mayor Adams has been very clear about his desire to be on good terms with wealthy business leaders. A skilled community outreach effort, combined with investments in the community and well-placed political donations all give Cohen a strong chance to win a casino license, or at the very least, approval to develop the parking lot.
📨 Finally, is all of this going to raise ticket prices?
We can imagine a project like this in the Wilpon era, where every investment in the team was quickly used as an excuse to raise prices. That era is over. Also, remember the point of adding these amenities. They make money! Steve Cohen wants to build bars and restaurants (and yes, a CASINO!) in the parking lot because people will spend money at these places. Money that will get reinvested in the stadium, the team, and a host of other assorted fan-pleasing amenities.
🏟️ Having said that, ticket prices will continue to go up. Not because the franchise is in need of money to build a casino, but because there is increased interest in the team. That’s the free market, and in this new era of dynamic ticket pricing, the price of tickets will go as high as people are willing to pay. If you rushed to buy your Wild Card series tickets directly from Mets.com last October, only to see seats in the same section available on StubHub for half the price, you know what can happen with dynamic ticket pricing. But that’s a topic for another day.
◾️ Yankees starter Nector Cortes will not participate in the World Baseball Classic due to a low Grade 2 hamstring strain.
◾️ Nationals owner Ted Lerner passed away at the age of 97 from pneumonia complications.
🔗 Steve Cohen now needs Mets’ financial losses to translate to wins on the field, by Jon Heyman, NY Post: “Even before a pitch is thrown, the Mets are the talk of baseball. And it’s all because Cohen’s the first owner with almost total disregard for the bottom line.”
🔗 Getting caught up on a wild winter before spring training, by Tim Britton and Will Sammon, The Athletic ($): “I never heard anything definitive about the Mets pursuing a full-time designated hitter or even another big-time bat (outside of Correa), especially once they re-signed center fielder Brandon Nimmo. I imagined they’d again go with a platoon, with Daniel Vogelbach seeing most of the action against right-handed pitching. Mets officials and rival evaluators were baffled by how poor Ruf was last season against lefties. Regardless of how Ruf and Vientos perform in the spring, Tommy Pham also lingers as a capable option for the weakside DH platoon.”
And we close this one out with a look at the 2023 Brooklyn Cyclones coaching staff, including new manager Chris Newell…
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Good one. How does Keith’s deal look compared to colleagues around the league in big markets?
The idiotic ghost runner rule - just ruins the traiditon of baseball ! Kudos to Nimmo for not getting involved in a useles baseball tournament - The WBC