EXCLUSIVE: Leaked Mets internal memo regarding 2015 shortstop acquisition

MEMORANDUM

CONFIDENTIAL: FOR INTERNAL¹ USE ONLY.

To: Sandy Alderson and Baseball Operations Department

From: Ownership

Re: 2015 Shortstop Search

Date: November 15, 2014

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It has come to the attention of Ownership² that for the last two (3) Major League Baseball (hereafter "MLB" or "baseball") seasons, the New York Mets Baseball Club of the National League (hereafter "Mets") has failed to adequately fill the position of "shortstop" (hereafter "SS" or "shortstop"). It has come to the attention of Ownership that, on occasion, some teams will shift the shortstop to the first base side of second base, effectively running without a shortstop at all. We highly suggest you employ this strategy on a full-time basis in order to avoid having a shortstop at all.

However, if you believe that having a full-time shortstop is a necessary element of having a functional, profitable baseball team, we defer to your judgement on the matter. We, therefore, hereby authorize the Baseball Operations Team (hereafter "Team") to acquire a shortstop for the 2015 MLB season.

In order to streamline your search, please hereforth find our rules for this acquisition.

Rules of Shortstop Acquisition

1. Salary and contract status:

   1. Under no circumstances may the player earn more than $12 million (twelve million dollars) during the 2015 season, nor any season after that.

   2. The player must be under contract for no fewer than three (3) but no more than three (3) seasons, including the 2015 season.

   3. The player must agree to defer $5 million (five million dollars) of his annual salaries for seven (7) years, at a rate of approximately 1.5% per year, as is our usual practice.

   4. The player must agree to donate $100,000 (one hundred thousand dollars) per year to the New York Mets Charitable Fund.³

   5. The player must agree to attended three (3) annual "voluntary"⁴ mini-camps run by friends of Ownership, at the player's expense.

   6. To the extent that the player is a free agent, you must trade Dillon Gee as a precondition of the signing, in order to reduce the short-term budget impact of the signing. Further, you are strongly advised to further cut salaries by any means necessary short of murder.⁵

   7. To the extent that the player is currently under contract with another team, please see section 2, titled "To the Extent that the Player is Currently Under Contract with Another Team."

2. To the Extent that the Player is Currently Under Contract with Another Team

   1. Under no circumstances are you authorized to trade any of the following players:

      1. Anyone on the 40-man roster making less than $1 million (one million dollars) per year

      2. Anyone who, in the last three (3) years, has been mentioned as one of the Mets top ten (10) prospects by Keith Law, Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, MLB.com, John Sickles, Jerry Seinfeld, Fang Raps, or Harold Reynolds.

      3. David Wright, unless the acquiring team will assume his entire salary.

   2. The other team must take at least one of Dillon Gee, Jon Niese, or Bartolo Colon in the deal; assume the full salary of the named player or players; and remit to Ownership a 15% service charge (cash only⁶).

3. Medicals and Grission

   1. The player must not have ever used performance-enhancing drugs. We will require a signed affidavit from the player attesting to this⁷.

   2. The player must be willing to play immediately after suffering a concussion. We will require a signed affidavit from the player attesting to this⁸.

   3. The player must have played at least 154 (154 is too long to type out in words) games per season over the last four (4) seasons.

   4. The player may not be older than 28 (twenty-eight) year of age as of this writing.

   5. You are to conduct a survey of no fewer than 100 (one hundred) English-speaking Major League Baseball players, asking those surveyed to rate the player's clubhouse presence from 1 to 10, with 1 (one) being the worst and ten (10) being the best. The player must score at least a 8.75 (eight and two thirds).

   6. The player's last name should be relatively easy to spell⁹.

   7. To the extent that the player is a father or will soon be a father, he must be married to the mother of his children.

4. Player Ability

   1. The player must be a "true" shortstop — if he played even an inning at second or third base in his career, he is ineligible.

   2. The play should have a demonstrated history of 5 WARF¹⁰ seasons; or have had at least two (2) All-Star Selections and/or at least 2 (two) Most Valuable Player awards.

   3. The player must have at least one (1) World Series ring.

We are confident that these rules will provide you the necessary guidance you need in order to acquire a shortstop for the 2015 MLB season. However, if you are unable to do so, please feel free to use any already-acquired assets¹¹ until an opportunity consistent with our rules presents itself. However, please advise us by May 1, 2015, which player you have selected for this stop-gap role. Ownership has budgeted $500 (five hundred dollars) for a backchannel public relations smear campaign against the selected player to mitigate any negative effects.

Finally, please forgive Ownership for writing this Memorandum in crayon on the back of an Uno's Chicago Grill menu. Due to budget cuts, we have been unable to replenish our office supplies and have instead relied on creative solutions. No children were harmed in the acquisition of the crayons nor menu, except for the one from whom we surreptitiously obtained¹² the items.

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[1] For sake of clarity, the phrase "internal use" is to be used as a corporate practices term and not a medical term. For example, it would be inappropriate for an intended recipient of this document to share it with a member of the media, let’s call him "Ruben Adams," next time Mr. Adams lobbies for a front office job. To the extent that the intended recipient of this document wishes to blend the document and add it to a milkshake, that is acceptable but not required nor, as Jeff learned the hard way, advised. ⏎

[2] The term "Ownership" should be construed only to extended to people who are related to Fred Wilpon, and really, not all of them; please use your discretion. In no situation should the term "Ownership" be construed to include the limited partners we brought in when we needed a cash infusion to forgo having to sell the team or declare bankruptcy; we have no idea what those guys are up to and honestly, we don’t care as long as they don’t ask for any money back. ⏎

[3] Please note that, as of 2008, the "Wilpon Legal Defense Fund" has been renamed the "New York Mets Charitable Fund." ⏎

[4] The quotation marks are there to imply that the mini-camps are not voluntary. ⏎

[5] Kidnapping and other criminal activity is okay. ⏎

[6] We prefer small, unmarked bills (whatever that means, it sounds cool). ⏎

[7] As has been our practice to date -- see, e.g., Bartolo Colon and Marlon Byrd -- exceptions will be made on a case-by-case basis. ⏎

[8] NO exceptions. ⏎

[9] For budgetary reasons, please do not acquire a player whose last name requires the use of a lowercase "d" on the back of his jersey. As you know, those are custom-order and expensive, and we have been forced to use uppercase "P"s instead, which is just embarrassing. ⏎

[10] Please re-send the memorandum explaining the WARF statistic. We also renew our objection to naming a statistic after a Klingon. ⏎

[11] For example, you can choose any of Wilmer Flores, Ruben Tejada, Nick Evans, Matt Reynolds, Michael Cuddyer, Jay Horwitz, Wilfredo Tovar, Wilmer Flores. As previously discussed, however, under no circumstances are you authorized to use Cesar Puello in this or any other fashion. ⏎

[12] The lawyers won’t let us use the term "stole" here, but you get the idea. Don’t tell anyone, okay? ⏎