Jeff Wilpon and the myth of a free-spending Mets winter to come | Capital New York

Howard Megdal pours some cold water on the hopes of Met fans thinking the club is capable of spending money this offseason:

"So now consider the real winter ahead for the New York Mets owners. They have less than a year to either find a way to pay J.P. Morgan Chase $320 million, or convince the bank to give them more time. And they'll have to do so with more than just a Fred Wilpon press conference sunnily declaring his money problems a thing of the past. If the bank believes, unlike Standard and Poor's, that the Mets are on the cusp of profitability, or that a forced sale now will produce less revenue than giving ownership more time, then a stay of execution is possible.

But it's more complicated than that. Any additional time built into this loan needs to also pass muster with the group holding the more than $600 million in debt against ownership's S.N.Y. holdings in 2015. The structures of the two loans, both held by ownership's parent company, will need to be reconciled.

At that point, can the Mets spend money to sign new players? In theory, if J.P. Morgan Chase decides that an infusion of new talent is worth seeing a bunch of money go to, say, Shin-Soo Choo ahead of the bank to help turn the Mets profitable. And if the S.N.Y. creditors agree."