Report: Mets COO 'meddles' in team affairs

At this point, it's become clear that the New York Mets are in disarray, and now a new culprit has emerged as a cause for the dysfunction, as sources in the team's internal operations confidentially told Jerry Crasnick of ESPN that COO Jeff Wilpon is a micro-manager.

"He meddles," Crasnick's source said, "Jeff gets in the middle of everything that's going on, and he ends up doing more damage."

It's a damning report for a team that is already lacking any positive publicity of late.

Wilpon, who is the son of the team's owner, Fred Wilpon, has faced this specific criticism before. As far back as 2009, Joel Sherman wrote an article for the New York Post that at least implied he was fighting accusations of being: "A credit seeker. An accountability deflector. A micro-manager. A second guesser. A less-than-deep thinker. And bad at self-awareness."

To his credit, Mets' general manager Sandy Alderson deflected the blame away from the team's COO.

"With respect to Jeff," Alderson explained, "I would not say he's heavily involved in the medical side." The long-tenured GM went on to take responsibility for the franchise's recent rash of injuries by saying, "ultimately, these areas of expertise and coordination fall under my responsibility."

The Mets currently have Yoenis Cespedes, Asdrubal Cabrera, Travis d'Arnaud, Noah Syndergaard, Jeurys Familia, Steven Matz, Seth Lugo, and David Wright stashed on the disabled list and are operating on what is, ostensibly, a four-man rotation.