This Week in Mets Quotes

there are still plenty of idiot sports commentators to quote. Hell Murray Chass is still writing about baseball.

basically got where he was because the organization gave him lots of money to throw around (Pedro, Beltran), had a farm system that was ripe when he was coming on board (Wright, Reyes), got lucky with a few “market corrections” (Delgado, Lo Duca), and genuinely made a few good low-impact trades/signings that turned into high-impact trades/signings (Maine, Endy, Valentin, Dickey). Other than that, though…Meh.

Yes he gave out big contracts to big name players which fit in with Ownership’s needing to make a bigger splash to sell SNY and to sell the idea of a new stadium. Ownership, who was behind such deferment plans as Bonilla’s 25 year contract, operated under a Madoff mentality that there was near unlimited sums from investments and loans for an unlimited amount of time. All you have to do is to look at their financial strategies to realize the money Omar gave out was less important than the press coverage. He did after all work for the Wilpons, not independently.

The only place the Wilpons went on the cheap was the draft, not out of necessity but out of a desire to kiss Selig’s ass with adhering to the slot money. That wasn’t Omar’s idea, and all you have to do is to look at our Top Prospects to see the excellent job he did going around the restrictions he had in the draft by mining the international market. If you want proof how good Omar was as a GM look no further than the fact that Sandy & Co. has kept the international department in tack, no changes, it’s Omar’s guys.

Steve Phillips admitted that he knew Madoff very well and Madoff name was mentioned in almost all the discussions about contracts and how they were to be structured. We can be sure the same was true during Omar’s. So don’t blame Omar for anything more than making two moves which didn’t work out, the size of the contracts were irrelevant. Look at all his successes in this year’s team alone where he has a responsibility in either acquiring the player, drafting the player, or signing them to extensions: Davis, Reyes, Wright, Thole, Bay, Pagan, Beltran, Pelfrey, Niese, Dickey, KRod, Parnell. That’s the heart of our team. Try a little balance.

And we could hammer him on Ollie all day but the fact of the matter was Ollie was 25-15 the 2 years leading up to free agency. He showed a propensity for pitching up to the situation in 2008 against the Yanks and Phils, obliterated lefties and he proved he could pitch in NY up to that point. Look at what Silva and Wolf and Suppan and Meche got..That was what the Market was…

lobbies to fire the pons. I think we are all behind that

of all the negativity. who gives a shit if others in the interwebs are negative or positive? everyone will have their day and if you want to be a bitter or hopeful fan, knock yourself out. But know that if this is a reality based community then some bad news about the mets is bound to besmirch our precious ears occasionally.

The “Steve Jobs hitting the lottery” bit is really true too

Meant as response to gbaked.

Guys like Theo and Cashman went to 4 year schools. Sandy was a military man and has like 24 degrees.

It has nothing to do with the old boy network. It has to do with putting guys in a management position that are qualified to be in management. Being a scout and assistant to Steve phillips for a couple years does not make one qualified to negotiate $ 100mm contracts.