Few Tears for Omar Minaya

WHat has he done for this team in the last few years? He brought in Pedro, a vet, at the end of his game, who, only gave us 2 years, at best, of a four year deal. I got us Santana, who, was a gift, and, has not really done anything for this team. Beltran, he is a big bust, and Bay, who, has played AAA level ball since he got here. When the team was in first place and had a chance what did he do, NOTHING AT ALL!! He sat on his thumbs in 07, 08 , 09 and 10, he didnt make any changes at all. He signed Ollie and Louie to long, bad, deals, and, we have the race card to deal with as well. IF we had won in 06, things mightnot be as bad, but, we didnt. Since that time Omar has sat and watched this team spin out of control, and, done nothing to correct it, Im sorry, but, its his time to go. SEE YA!!!!!!

Omar has strengths, and he has big blind spots as well. He does a good job of bringing in guys who can provide value on the cheap. Then he turns around and re-ups them when he should really walk away from the casino. He also does a good job in trades. He doesn’t really get fleeced, but then he turns around and hands them a stupid contract.

Omar made the Mets relevant again, and it could be argued that an ill fated cab ride, a few bad breaks ruined his legacy. However, it would have just covered his short comings.

Omar isn’t the worst, but the fact remains that there are better options out there. The Mets can improve themselves at GM, so they should go out and do it. It would be a disservice to us if they did not.

I am ok with the heckling as long as its good natured. From what I have heard, Omar is a nice enough guy, so he doesn’t deserve intense vitriol.

He is a pretty good talent evaluator. He know’s the trade market and played it like a genius with Santana. There were people begging to give up Reyes and Milledge and F-mart for Santana. He could have overpaid early, instead he played it well. He won some trades and lost some, but never did he make a trade that I hated at the moment (I actually didn’t like Seo for Sanchez, but score one for Omar there). His colossal weakness is a loyalty to players he likes and a poor read on the market for mid-level talent. The Castillo signing was obviously one or two years too long at the time. He may have been burnt because Eckstein turned him down early, but if he waited, he would have gotten Castillo or comparable for less money and fewer years. The Perez signing was also horrible. He showed admirable restraint in bidding the right amount of money and years for Lowe, but after that, there was no market for Ollie. 2 years 16 million would have done it easily, or going for Randy Wolf would have worked. He should have DFAd Ollie the moment he wouldn’t take a minor league assignment and cut Francoeur two months ago. Gary Matthews should have been DFA’d sooner also.

He seems to have learned from his mistakes a bit. He liked Benji Molina, but wouldn’t budge for a second year so we got close to the same player in Barajas. I also liked how years earlier he did not let Molina hold him hostage, and said sign now or I am trading for LoDuca. (That was him, right?)

Trading him 3 months ago, hmm. Did anyone really want him? Beltran wasn’t back. Most projections systems had him at about a .320 wOBA (James .324, Chone .327, Marcel .319, Zips .322, even fans, probably mostly folks from this site, had him at .320), which sucks for rf, sure, but he face-planted so completely in July and August. Call up F!? He didn’t produce. Duda hadn’t had a full year to make us think he may be an answer, and f course he’s looked AAAA in his tiny sample so far.

Sure, it’s his fault Frenchy was the rf. And most people here can say I told you so. But if you look at almost all these “bonehead” moves, all of these guys way underperformed, froggy being the only one in a decent sample: jacobs, matthews, Cat, frenchy. They were poor to begin with and then completely sucked it up worse than their own bad histories. Which doesn’t excuse having them around, but the team was luckily in contention until July. Bay went down, Frenchy fell back into the abyss, beltran came back ice cold, Castillo was Castillo and Tejada wasn’t ready to replace him. The team did have another second half collapse, it just started earlier. Oh well, good thing we didn’t trade Ike and Havens for Lee or something like that.

I blame Omar to a large extent for this mess, but i wouldn’t heckle the guy on a plane. I don’t heckle the players either.

than I would say no to the open mocking. But those signings were both so so bad (at the time and after) that I can’t say I wouldn’t have let loose a joke or two if I was on that flight. Castillo’s overall performance kind of cost them the division in ‘08, since he was one of the worst everyday players in baseball. And Ollie’s contract is one of the worst for value in recent history.

By the way, my comment to him on the flight would have simply been: “Six starts to Brian Lawrence in ’07?! Why???”

other than lousy contracts. He’s a terrible communicator, with the media and the fans.

to me, he is on the top ten worst GMs in baseball, easily bottom 5.
second, he screwed up this franchise to laughing stock team that it has become.
third, he is a high profile GM who is being paid well, if he screws up, who ELSE but the fans will let him know he’s doing a bad job?

you’re right Gina, he’s given nothing to spend on draft wise, so that hurts a lot. but, given his past draft picks—whoopee.
didn’t he get the green light to wildly spend on Latin American talent, that was supposed to fill the void of an empty draft? [ still waiting…. so far, only a so-so Carlos Gomez, a potentially ruined Mejia, and….]

but his other multitude of faults have been talked to death on AA, so I won’t rehash here heh.