|
…i am a fan of Omar Minaya, mostly because he had brought a new sense of local and national credibility to this team, and a level of buzz and excitement that i had not seen as a fan since the 80s…that being said, his poor decisions over the last year ultimately helped to contribute to the team’s biggest embarrassment since its first season in the league, and they cannot be ignored…
…it should be noted that omar was not helped out by Paul Lo Duca, Carlos Delgado, Guillermo Mota, and especially Jose Reyes, all of whom underachieved following strong seasons from the year before…also, as Moises Alou hit the disabled list, as we all expected he would, nearly every single player on minaya’s back-up list hit the disabled list, nearly all at the same time, including Endy Chavez and Lastings Milledge, among others…frankly, the loss of endy cannot be overstated…neither can the loss of Jose Valentin, who, from what i can gather, had a super-positive influence on reyes, who has been accused of breaking down mentally this season, either from exhaustion, a long pennant race, or, according to bouncers on Long Island, from partying way too much, none of which can be proven, but all of which seem plausible…
…by the way, i enjoy watching alou and Orlando Hernandez, and while i believe it is very important to have a strong number of winning-oriented veterans on the team, no team should ever rely on winning-oriented veterans who have a history of being injured…it’s one thing to have alou and el duque on the team, it’s another thing to be leaning on them with so much weight, because they will break beneath it and will take the team with them…alou is wonderful, but he can never be the center of the team’s offense…the same can be said for el duque…as i wrote the other day, while i have no problem with el duque coming back next season, especially with his current one-year, $6 million deal, at no point next season can he be considered the team’s best pitcher…if he returns as a fifth starter, occasionally as a reliever, all under the notion that he will certainly miss a chunk of the season, maybe even the playoffs, that’s fine…but if it’s mid-summer, and for whatever reason he is this team’s best option at anything, they’re going to be in trouble again…
…in other words, omar did a lot of gambling this last off season…while he gambled that John Maine and Oliver Perez would rise to the challenge, and that Shawn Green, Damion Easley and Jorge Sosa would settle in to new roles, all of which panned out, he also gambled on Duaner Sanchez and Guillermo Mota, among others, which did not…
…in fact, the loss of sanchez may prove to be most costly of all, since i suspect it helped pave the way for minaya to trade Heath Bell, Matt Lindstrom and Henry Owens, all of whom had success this season for other teams, while the players who were acquired for them all faltered or got hurt…i understand trading all three of these pitchers, especially when under the assumption that sanchez would be healthy, because not one of owens, bell or lindstrom had been touted by minor-league experts prior to the season – and if they were so valued one year ago, how come a) they had yet to succeed in the major leagues by their late 20s, and b) why did the Mets get so little in return…it’s an open market, remember…it’s not a free for all…our perceived value of them today is all based on hindsight, but try to recall their value from 12 months ago…that being said, these players would almost certainly have been helpful this season, considering the loss of sanchez and their eventual lack of options in the bullpen…at the time, i had no issue with trying to trade a 28–year-old pitcher, who had never shown any sign that he could succeed in the big leagues, for a pitcher with much more of a ceiling…i mean, who knew the team’s major-league bullpen would be such a disaster…but, there in lies the problem…while i am not a major-league general manager, and minaya is, and that lack of preparation and foresight ultimately came back to hurt him, although there is still plenty of time for Jason Vargas, and Ben Johnson to help out in future seasons, though i’m not holding my breath…
…for the record, i wrote the following on the day that Brian Bannister was traded for Ambiorix Burgos…
…i am disappointed to see bannister go…however, the Mets have a lot of bannister’s at this point, be it John Maine, Oliver Perez, Philip Humber, or Mike Pelfrey, i.e., young, very promising, highly-sought-after starting pitchers…what they do not have is a collection of strong, power-arms in the bullpen, and burgos is just that…in other words, the Mets traded from strength to fill a weakness…and i am cool with that…
…also for what it’s worth, you’ll be hard pressed to find a fellow blogger who was overtly passionate about seeing bannister go…frankly, i liked bannister, not only because he is into photography, like me, but because i always admired his poise and pedigree, two things that can never be underrated when staffing a team in new york…that being said, there is no way to know that bannister would have duplicated his impressive stats from the last-place Royals here in new york, for the Mets, in a ridiculously wild pennant race…
…lastly, i worry that minaya has created an awkward and embarrassing environment for his manager, allowing his assistant Tony Bernazard, among others, to regularly communicate with team’s players…i understand that tony b once worked with the Player’s Union, and that he can connect with the latin players in a way that maybe willie cannot, but that doesn’t make it right or effective…
…for more on this, read Bill Madden’s outstanding column for the Daily News…
…now, i understand that this may have been a good idea during willie’s first season or two, to help ease him through his first experience as a major league manager…however, this will be willie’s fourth season at the helm, and i believe he has earned the right to command his locker room and dugout as he sees fit with no downward or outside influence…he’s with his players every day, all season, and is being charged with getting the most out of that talent, and to truly be effective as their leader he has got to be their only leader…the players have got to know who is boss, otherwise pulling a player from the field for not running out a ground ball will not matter…i mean, if i’m the player, why do i care what willie thinks if i can so easily go over his head for justification and approval…minaya and his assistants should certainly keep a watchful eye, that is their responsibility, but if it is determined that their presence is undermining their manager in any way then they have got to pull back to arm’s distance…it’s only fair…willie has earned this leeway and will never succeed if he’s limited in how much respect he can command from his players…
…at the end of the day, minaya took some risks, and left himself very, very little room for error this season – as he did in the previous season, as well, by the way…this year, though, those gambles came back to bite him…i still trust in his command of the open market, his ability to work with other teams and the creativity and passion that he brings to the job…however, to bring this organization to the next level, and move past this current bump in the road, he has got to acknowledge and learn from his mistakes, which, from what i can tell, are a) putting t oo much responsibility on older players with a history of injury; b) not giving his manager the proper distance for total and necessary control; and c) not allowing for ample back-up plans at the team’s most important positions, that is to say if the bullpen is most important, then back it up and back it up again with players who are ready to contribute, if it’s the rotation, then back that up, but since you can’t back up every position equally, he must focus on what is most critical and the biggest risk and committ to it…if he does this, when coupled with his special ability to solicite opinion, evaluate talent, creativly and aggressively pursue free agents, and connect with people while always keeping the lines of communication open for trades, i have total faith that this team will return with more than enough talent to win the NL East next season, and for many years to come…
 |
 |
 |
RSS 2.0 Both comments and pings are currently closed.
“Moises Alou hit the disabled list, as we all expected he would”
LOL, that’s bs. MANY deluded fans thought and STATED that 2006 was an aberation for alou and that he would be an iron man in 2007. were YOU one of them? i predicted alou would be on the extended DL by June….who knew moises aarp would land there in may.
Madden’s column is without a doubt the best, and most level headed, report to come out since Sunday’s loss. In my opinion, he touched upon something that has been taboo to talk about the past year which is the culture in the clubhouse. For the first time, the fact that there are so many Latin players has become a problem on the Mets. The same way there were too many middle-aged white guys in the early 2000’s. The problem being isolationism. Why listen to Willie if you have the ear of his boss?
For me, this Madden column should be the seed which all the beat reporters article’s should be sprouting from. Forget blaming Willie or Glavine. This ship was sinking long before Sunday. Benazard has been undermining Randolph and it cannot continue.
Maybe if Willie taught his players the fundamentals of baseball properly then they wouldn’t make as many mistakes and seek Bernazard’s approval.
Did the Mets ,with half as much talent, make boneheaded plays under BobbyV? and if they did, were they punished? I still remember Jay Payton making a HUGE mistake against the Braves in a crucial game in 98 and he quickly landed in Bobby’s doghouse for the rest of the season.
Willie doesn’t believe in dog houses. they’re “his guys” and “they’re big boys” so he doesn’t have to do that. instead, Willie lets his players play lackadasical baseball and make all the mental errors they want, young, old; veteran, rookie; it doesn’t matter. it’s like little league with Willie, buck up, we’ll get em next time, everybody plays on my team!
Great Willie, pass the orange slices and fruit punch while you’re at it!!
bobby v sure did team fundamentals. it’s not like any of his players made mental errors or base-running mistakes in big spots. you know like timo perez’s base-running mistake that cost the mets a game in the 2000 world series.
that being said: bobby v did out-manage torre in that series
my dead dog can outmanage torre!
good point about the Timo thing, but at that point you couldn’t bench/discipline the guy, there are no other options and you can’t play the WS short a man. it’s also why you can’t get on Willie’s case for not benching Reyes after not running out that chopper on the last Saturday of the year.
Bobby V outmanaged Torre? How did he do that exactly by losing in just 5 games?
3 one-run games, two two-run games, and the Yanks had us toooootally outclassed talent-wise. Man o man. If we’d won that first one…
Alou has missed a quarter of his career due to injuries…how could that have been a surprise?
I think Madden’s column was more of his usual Willie Protecting….
that notwithstanding, I still feel Omar is the one who is mainly responsible from changing this team into one of the better teams in the league. Some risks he took paid off, and yeah some blew up in his face…but he’s still done more good than bad when it comes to this team. The only decisions last winter he made that I didn’t like was Mota and Schoenweis. People want to complain about letting Zito go, but who the hell wants Zito for all those years? And you’re right, nobody really was crying over Bannister when that deal was made, so hindsight is 20/20.
I still think he’s the right GM for this club and the guy to turn it around. But tying his fate to Willie’s success was not a smart move, because I honestly don’t think this team will win a world title with Willie at the helm. So I suspect that next year will be his last year if the reports of the Wilpon’s ultimatum us true.
*is true.
I didn’t like trading Bannister or Owens and stated so back then on here. Heath Bell, I never expected to be any good, let alone have the season he did.
The facts:
1) The Mets had the highest payroll in the NL for the last three years
2) Omar obtained all-star players like Pedro, Beltran, Delgado and Wagner
3) In 2006 the Mets lost the NLCS series to the Cardinals
4) In 2007, in spite of increasing their already league leading payroll, the Mets had a record setting collapse.
As far as i’m concerned, 2007 was already Randolf’s second chance…..and he led the team to a record setting disaster.
How can Willie STILL be in charge? How ?
Pedro wasn’t around for most of ‘07. We had no 5th starter, hell sometimes we didn’t have a 4th starter, the bullpen got beat up as a result, but it’s the jacket’s responsiblity to get his starters to give us qualtity starts as the season progressed. He didn’t, the numbers have been posted here before.
Where is your righteous indignation for him?
All Willie did was play with what he had, Delgado was hurt, Alou was hurt, Pedro was hurt, Duque & Duca were hurt, Chavez was hurt, Easley got hurt, Valentin was gone so was Duaner Sanchez. And we basically lost Wagner down the stretch due to injury.
But, I guess ALL OF THAT was Willie’s fault, eh? Maybe Willie beat the crap out of all of them in their sleep.
Great! Now instead of just firing him, we can bring him up on assault charges too.
It would be great if Willie called them bitches or hoes while he was beating them, then we can get Anucha to sue him for harassment as well.
What a trifecta that would be!!!
Now if only he owned some pit bulls …
I totally agree about the mangement: there has to be a structure, a chain of command. One of SPhillips’ less endearing qualities was his penchant for hanging out in the clubhouse. There was an ego battle there that, I hope and pray, is absent here; but the issue is the same.
The players must know that they work through Willie, and not his bosses. If a manager is to have any effectiveness, that’s got to be rule 1.
Steve Phillips had endearing qualities?
he ended up being very fire-able :-)
Touché. :)
Not reupping Chad Bradford was Omar’s worst mistake and could have been easily prevented. The overall bullpen is Omar’s fault. Willie and Omar should have developed more young arm options in the bullpen in Sept. If only to eat innings and give regulars a chance to rest. Keeping Heilman this long when he is clearly unhappy is not good also. Throw haim a bone and give him a start when those injury fillins come up and save Brian Lawrence for the bullpen. I fault Omar and Willy for not being more flexible and creative with bullpen.
You can’t just throw him out there to start when he is used to throwing 1 or 2 innings all year. He needs to build up to those 5-6 innings required of a starter.
Baloney.
right, cause you know…
I’m sorry, but unless your a former pitcher who went back and forth from relief to starting…you have to go by what everyone else says….that you can’t just throw him from starter to short relief
Ramiero mendoza and El Duque are examples of doing it. What ever happened to the “long man out of the pen”? These modern pitching “rules” create more problems than they solve.
El Duque never was a reliever on call for spot duty. He only did relief once in the playoffs for the White Sox. And he only did relief for the Mets this year because he was injured.
You don’t throw a reliever like Heilman out there for spot starts unless he’s been doing long relief. If he does long relief than you lose him as a setup man and he was one of the only reliable ones this year. What you do is give him a chance to start out of spring training … or trade him if you think he’s not happy in his current role.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/h/hernaor01.shtml
Orlando Hernandez relieved on more occasions than mentioned above.
But VCarver is correct that you cannot expect a man who pitches one inning to become a starter with the snap of a finger.
hey etyler88,
do you remember what happened to mendoza? his arm basically fell off.
The issue with Bradford was the three year contract, which everyone at the time thought Baltimore was nuts to do. Of course we can look at that and say “I’d have done that,” but this was relatively early on in the negotiating process when the price of bullpen help was being established…I don’t see how any reasonable person at the time could have expected 3 years at $10M would be a valid asking price for a sixth inning guy like Bradford…he gambled that two years would be enough and lost.
Fair enough, but Omar then turned around and gave 3 years to Scott Schoenweis. I’d rather have Bradford.
Absolutely…so would Minaya. That’s the point though…if he’d had a crystal ball and known that was going to be fair market value for a mid-innings guy, he would have just given it to Bradford. But who could have known Duquette would blow the market out of the water that way? That’s kind of like saying Minaya should have known 39M wouldn’t have been enough for Dice-K…who knew someone would be desperate enough to offer 50M+ just to negotiate with a guy who has never pitched in the majors…?
I hated the Schoeneweis signing when it happened. But on further review, Schoeneweis, was not the problem. Willie’s use of him was. Here’s his splits this year:
Lefties: .204/.306/.247/.553
Righties .316/.382/.574/.956
You see, Schoeneweis WAS effective at getting lefties out. In fact, even more effective than Bradford was at getting righties in 2007 out:
Righties: .282/.318/.315/.633
Lefties: .321/.394/.395/.789
Last year, Bradford held righties to a .607 OPS against righties. So Schoeneweis is better at getting lefties out this year than Bradford, was at getting righties out last year in his marvelous season.
Yet Schoeneweis faced 43 more RH this year than lefties. Last year Bradford, by most accounts a RH specialist, faced 112 more RH than LH.
Seems as though Bradford was put in a position to succeed. Schoeneweis wasn’t. Is that the fault of the GM, or the manager?
Cool stats. Hard to place fault here as the GM and manager were the same for both seasons. What changed?
holy cow…all 36 runs charged to him were from RH hitters…
…and ALL 86 RUNs charged to him in the LAST 3 YEARS were from the right side!!! This guy should never pitch to righties! Bad, bad usage…
They both deserve some blame- Omar should be telling Willie don’t pitch him against righties. But Willie is the manager, he’s supposed to know that. I think with Bradford having a submarine delivery and not great stuff, it sort of lends you to the obvious that he’s a specialist. His motion is only going to be effective against RH.
I think Willie sees Schoeneweis’ stuff and thinks he should be more than an a LOOGY. Problem is, that just isn’t the case.
This where I get on Willie the most ; his bullpen usage. If I can dig these stats up easily, why can’t he?
are you forgeting that
willie’s bullpen has no roles
There is no getting around the fact that Omar’s moves backfired. He deserves the blame for screwing up what had been a very effective bullpen.
But that doesn’t mean he’s a bad GM. Anyone is capable of making mistakes, and I’m still glad he’s the one running things.
F Omar. F Willie. F the players. F the Wilpons. F everyone and everything.
I want to die.
Calmly step back from the ledge.
We live to play another day.
Dude get a grip – its been three days. Life will go on and hope springs eternal. Chin up – and don’t stop believing
Matt, generally I agree with you, but your position in this post, I find a tad too charitable to Omar. First, as for the injuries, the “Great Collapse” happened when virtually all the starters, except for El Duque, were back from the DL. It was the team that Omar created that imploded here, not a team of second stringers. In short, it is clear that he did not create a team grounded in character, grit, and determination.
Second, of course none of us critiqued the trade of Bannister and others at the time. Like most fans, I certainly do not have the information necessary to evaluate such moves, except in the most obvious cases. All trades, good or bad, are evaluated based on hind sight. But if we are going to credit Omar for the Maine and Perez trades based on subsequent performance, the same is true for his poor record in 2007. Moreover, you have chosen not to address the failure to resign Oliver and Bradford, arms with determination and character, which underlay the collapse of the BP.
The Bannister trade is the trade everyone harps on, but it is the one trade in which I AM willing to give Omar the benefit of the doubt. A projected 5th starter who was behind Pelfrey, Humber and Sosa on the depth chart for a young, 100 MPH flamethrower who might succeed Wagner as closer. Totally defensible. He could have made a huge difference down the stretch – in fact, I believe we’d still be playing it he’d not gotten hurt.
It’s the OTHER trades I can’t stand:
Owens and (especially) Lindstrom for two finesse pitchers in Vargas and Bostick – basically the Bannister deal in reverse. Trading power for finesse rarely makes sense unless you’re getting Greg Maddux.
And the Bell/Ring for Johnson/Atkins deal was insane. Our top two AAA relief pitchers – guys who’d been up and down for us for a couple of years – for a 6th outfielder and a BAD reliever? And again, Bell was a power arm – a guy who threw high 90s with a decent breaking ball. You don’t give up on that without getting something better in return.
Matt, can you post the “we got a young outfielder with huge upside/former All-American for those two schmucks?” entries from last offseason?
The bottom line is look forward, not back….not all trades work out. At least we don’t have Duquette anymore…
I disagree. Having Alou and Duque for a few more games could have resulted in a few more wins which would have made a difference in the pennant race.
Omar needs to admit and learn from his mistakes. And on that note, the Wilpons have to open the purse strings more proactively instead of reactively. They balked at bringing back at Bradford but obviously once the relief pitcher market was established, they realized they couldn’t make any improvements with anything less than a 3-year contract, thus Schoeinweis is brought in. I still think three years for a middle reliever is excessive, but if you have to overpay, at least do it for a known quantity.
You can harp on Omar’s age obsession until the cow’s come home but I still think it’s an overrated fault of his. Down the stretch, the young guys came up as small as the vets. Yes, Alou and El Duque got injured, but Reyes collapsed, guys like Maine, Perez and Joe Smith hit a wall. In other words, I don’t think purging the team of all “old guys” and replacing them with player’s from our minors is a solution either.
Bottom line, the whole FO has to be willing to pay for things that seem overpriced if it adds stability and consistency to the team, and I think if Omar is going to make trades, it has to be for established talent, not more projects. I have no problem with bargain hunting, with minor league contracts, but that’s really the only avenue Omar should be playing that game this off-season.
I was/am a big supporter of Minaya’s — but I have to be honest, I feelt quite wounded by this whole debacle. I bought into the system, because for the first time, there seemed to be a system. I doubt that now. So now I return to the type of fan I was 7-8 years ago, where no success is taken for granted, and a GM is always one move away from screwing up royally.
I agree about opening the purse strings, but have you seen this year’s free agent list? It’s brutal…
True enough … then the FO has to explore a trade on the pitching front, and we as fans I think, need to be reasonable about what to expect in return. Pelfrey and Milledge won’t net Santana, but maybe a Javy Vasquez. What’s the price for a player like Orlando Hudson or Ronnie Paulino? Maybe you give Jason Jennings the inevitable 4 years $40M contract. I just don’t think you can go into next season with Pedro, Maine, Perez, El Duque and then the flavor of the month from Pelrefy, Humber, Vargas and whatever AAA journeymen they find. The same goes for RF — a guy like Moises Alou can be your #5 hitter, nor can they throw Carlos Gomez out there every day and hope for the best. Unless offensive improvements are made at other positions, Minaya has to get consistency both in health and performance out there every day, whether by trade or FA.
The Mets have the resources to restock the farm through the International Market and through their ability to draft Boras clients and other high price draft picks. Rather than appease Bud Selig and let back-end picks who have dropped for bonus money concerns go unsigned, just pony up the dough and do it.
I was taking a look at the free agent relief pitching corp and that is going to be tough. Outside of Matt Herges, who the Rockies will most likely gobble up with the way he has pitched this year, and Riske I do not see much. Francisco Cordero will not come here to be a set up man. Riske has had pretty good numbers his entire career. He is currently the setup man on KC.
RF and LF options are just disgusting. Outside of trading for Jose Guillen, who is just run of the mill, I don’t see much.
I do believe the Mets are going to empty the farm system this offseason via trades. I think the trade route is the only way the Mets are going to be able to adequately fill their needs.
I see that Vlad is a FA after 2008. We can only hope.
“Francisco Cordero will not come here to be a set up man.”
Make Billy win his job, then!–meaning, Billy’s already here and under contract; pitch him in the 8th!
I know, I know, never happen…but I’d do it anyway. Money speaks loudest, they could buy Cordero if they put their wallet to it. Then if Wags becomes unhappy, trade him-he would get reurn value, even if the Mets were perceived as having to trade him.
this free agent class is not brutal.. it just doesnt have any real big sexy quick fix names. if you actually go through it and i did look at every name, there are plenty of pieces that will fix this team. If Dunn’s option is not picked up i think we have to sign him to play LF and then move to 1st once delgado is gone. Or you could sign him, trade delgado for whatever you can get and then go after someone for the OF since alou can not be relied on to play more than half the season.
I would love to see them make a deal for Husdon. He is a perfect fit for this team .
wayyyy off topic but i just spoke to one of my buddies from college who is from philly and was at the final game of the season and stuck around after the game for the celebrations..he said the phils totally mocked the mets by doing wat they did last year with teh hose and the signs and all that coming back on the field
That’s pretty funny…they can’t even be original in their celebrations, they have to copy ours.
Well, be fair. They have absolutely no experience in this area.
I also agree about the management part, Matt. You make some good points. I think Omar had some bad moves over the winter, and some things blew up on him, but come on, he put together a team that could have put this division race away MANY MANY times this season. The team he put together was seven games up with two weeks left. I put 90 percent of this seasons failure on the players, and to a lesser extent, Willie.
Just think back to the last three weeks. You could have taken any major league team’s worst bullpen pitchers and given up less runs. Our bullpen could not get an out. It wasn’t tired arms or overwork, it was a mental thing. Our tripple A pitchers could have been run out there, and they would have given up less runs. Plain and simple, the players didn’t play. The errors, the starting pitching, the relief pitching, all of it. Every player played below his potential (even DW made some bad errors at the worst possible times). Omar put the players in place with the ability compete, and they didn’t compete.
If anything, I would fault Omar for not putting a team together with mental toughness.
The one thing that I see here is that the Mets (and probably most organizations as you can see with the Knicks) are made up of an entire collection of “egos”. These are people who can never admit to being wrong. Omar will never admit that letting Tony B run around the clubhouse was wrong, or that signing Mota and Franco was wrong, or that bringing Rickey on was wrong. Willie never admits fault to using his “gut” when it backfires. He never thinks he is wrong for this lack of double-switches or bullpen mismanagement. As fans, we have the benefit of hindsight (although some of us complain as the whole thing unfolds). That being said, I think I would respect these guys more if they owned up to their failures, acknowledged that they have learned from their mistakes, and moved on to making the organization stronger. I think this is part of the frustration.
Regarding why I blame Peterson in the last paragraph. Note the following trend in Mets ERA:
April/Mar. 2.96
May 3.73
June 4.20
July 4.50
August 4.93
Sept./Oct. 5.14
And, remember April – May was when Pelfrey was getting slammed regularly. After the all-star break, we nary heard a peep from the Jacket. Then after Maine’s masterpiece on the last Saturday of the season, suddenly the Jacket was in front of every microphone. Hey, Jacket, where were you in the 89 days prior to Sept 29. The Wilpons hired you and Tom before Omar got here. You have some explaining to do Rick. Frankly, I am still waiting for my explanation for why you didn’t “fix” Zambrano.
It is a complete disgrace that I hear fans saying that Jose Reyes is a culprit of the Mets downfall this season. I’m not saying that his season was spectacular, but ending a season with 119R, 191H, 12HR and the most stolen bases on any individual in 15 years (78), is not an example of a horrendous year. In fact, the all and mighty Derek Jeter started off the 2004 campaign the same way Reyes ending this one.
If you’ve watched the Mets from start to finish, however, and are able to remember back to those games in april, may and june, when wright and delgado were non-existent, it was Jose Reyes, who literally took the team on his back and sent them and kept them in first place. Any true mets fan knows that without Jose Reyes, the mets would not have been in first place for a single day this season. The idea that a 24 year old with his proven ability and talent should be traded for anyone, including Santana, is a farse. Reyes is the backbone of this franchise.
He is the backbone of this franchise, and that is the scary thing. There is something up with the guy and I really don’t think it is limited to being out late simply drinking, if you know what I mean. I don’t want to believe it, but unfortunately it is very believable and could set our team back for a decade.
amen fortleemets!
how did the stories on Reyes do a total 180 once he stopped hitting? and now “bouncers from LI clubs” are reliable sources. Bouncers are big f’ing meatheads. what team’s fanbase invites and embraces big fat meathead behavior? (hint: they play in da bronx) could there be a correlation here?
on a sidenote, Jose deserved the abuse he got on the last day of the season, but unlike Willie, Jose should get a clean slate on April 1st, why? because he has a successful track record. He is a baseball machine, if we turn into janko fans and start abusing our best player and run him out of town, like they tried to do with ARod, it will be an embaressment!!
I have to agree with this entire post. Omar, the rest of the execs, coaches and players all felt they would win the division with the team as is. I hope they all learn from this and get ready to make a real run at the division title next year. Championships are not built over night (except in miami).
This team needs to step away from the buddy mentality of things. They need to evaluate who will help this team next year, and if they can’t then they should not be pursued or attempt to trade them away. No more, I scouted this guy…I have a soft spot for him….the only question should be is, can this man help us achieve our goals.
It is a very cold way of looking at things, but it is the only thing that matters in the end. It is tougher in baseball than football with the guaranteed contracts but you just need to cut people lose sometimes.
Omar was on the right track when he pulled his contract offer to Al Leiter when he first started as GM…..Leiter was a feel good story, but quite frankly he was useless to this team. Piazza was left unsigned….as he should have been…..he was no longer useful. He did that with getting LoDuca. He offered the same contract to two different free agent catchers….when they screwed around…he pulled the offers and acquired LoDuca…..sentimental feelings have no place in fielding a championship team.
Reyes for Santana and then break the bank and sign A-Rod. Am I a good GM or what? DO IT!
We have to remember that a GM has to plan not only for this year but for the future. Having said that, some of this past winter’s moves backfired for this year. However, the team that he fielded still should have taken first. We were playing poor teams with a 7 game lead with 17 left to play!
As for everyone saying that the team is horrible and we should get rid of everyone and rebuild – please relax. We finished one game out of first. Many injuries, bad calls for us, and good calls for philly (a grand slam by Colorado that was ruled a double) could have made the difference in the year. That is baseball! We will make some moves over the offseason (hopefully) and be back next year.
I have absolutely zero faith that Omar Minaya will learn from his mistakes.
He’s dreadfully overrated. His entire reputation is based off 2006, in which he basically drew into so much luck that he should’ve entered the World Series of Poker.
I’d rather have a GM that relies on TALENT rather then having to rely on luck
This organization never learns. Can we ever have a front office that isn’t full of overrated control freaks?
There are a lot of contradictions in some of these arguments.
For one, if you say that this team should have done better than it did – that it had a 7 game lead and was going to play bad teams down the stretch – that it had the talent to succeed but couldn;t get it done – then how can you now place blame on anybody else but the players themselves?
Fact is our bullpen was shot – a lot of it due to the inability of our starters to go deep into games – and on the whole, lost confidence in themselves coming into games to keep the team in the game. That’s the reason we didn’t win this division.
I don;t have the stats in fornt of me but go back an d look how many games this bullpen trashed – from Heilman, Shoe, and Pelfry early on to Mota, Feliciano, Sosa and Wags at the end. These guys were the culprits to me – its plain and simple – and they started allowing the team to look too long into the abyss.
omar is facing three issues:
1. success came to quickly with omar’s program. this franchise went from an absolute joke in 2004 to the best team in the nl in 2006.
2. he needs a top-of-the-rotation starter and two very solid relief pitchers in a year that has neither available in free agency.
3. how does omar balance the aging vets with young talent on the horizon (f-mart, gomez, milledge, pelfrey)? if you trade this young talent for the needed pitching this becomes a short-term winning team. win now (2-3 years) then rebuild. if he keeps them…it won’t be until 2008-2009 that the mets can re-load in free agency (santana, sabathia, peavy*, o. hudson, texiera, vlad*, manny*, crawford*, nathan) available.
Totally agree that we need a starter and 2 relievers.
Do you feel those 2 relievers could be Duaner Sanchez and Padilla or 2 more relievers in addition to those guys. I know they are unknowns but Im thinking no one is taking Mota, Sho off our hands so we’ll have a bunch of guys fighting for spots.
P.S I dont hate you (from yest.)
if i knew 100% that sanchez and padilla would be healthy that would be enough with wags, heilman, feliciano, sosa
drop mota, sele. schoeneweis can be the “pitch in a blow-out” guy
i don’t think omar can count on sanchez and padilla to be healthy though. i want to know for sure entering the 2008 season that the bullpen has the arms to win.
of course, no hard feelings :)
Yeah I hear you on the cant count on Sanchez and Padilla, which is so frustrating.
Im gonna be greedy and also ask for a #5 hitter (OF) which I think you ve said you’d go with Milledge which I could try with Alou coming off the bench (he has to be ok with this after playing all of 40 games last year (exaggeration alert)).
The Sanchez injury is what really screwed this team last year. Look at the records of this team before and after. With Sanchez not getting hurt, we also keep Nady – we don’t get Green, the team chemistry is different and we probably win the whole enchilada last year. That cab ride really screwed this team.
Much of the explanation for the skyrocketing ERAs late in the season may come down to the fact that Maine, Perez and Humber (and to a lesser extent Pelfrey and Smith) were pitching far more innings than they ever had before.
Which brings up a possible silver lining to the past weekend’s debacle. Maine, for instance, ended up pitching 40 more innings than he ever had before (151.2 in ‘06, 191 in ‘07). Had he gone into the post-season, he might well have pitched 210 innings, injured himself and taken himself out of the running for next year (as it is, the hip problem is fairly ominous). Any more work from Pelfrey (29 more IPs than 06) or Humber (68 more IPs, following TJ surgery) might’ve cost them as well. Ollie had one prior season with comparable IPs, 2004, during which he threw 196 innings. The next year, he was injured much of the season.
A small silver lining, maybe, but it should mean that next year, these guys are ready to go the whole season.
I’m going to sound crazy here, but I don’t think any of the move Omar has made (with the exception of Lidstrom and Owens and maybe schoenweis) are all that bad. Consider this:
Heath Bell? that dude got more than a fair shot to stick here, and he flopped. He always put up great numbers in AAA and got shelled everytime he called up. It’s convenienct
Bannister? I’m sorry; I don’t want a right-handed Tom Glavine in my staff for the next 5-10 years. You win with power arms, and Bannister was not a power arm, nor was he necessarily young. And what did we get in return? A flame throwing, 22-year old, who even with TJ surgery, will be back to throwing hard at the tender age of 25. I’m not going to pass judgement on this one just yet. oh yeah, and if anyone wants to wager on Bannister coming close to duplicating his output for this year, I’ll gladly take it. That was an aberration and everyone knows it, so please stop complaining.
Mota? Three things; 1) he pitched HORRIBLY for Cleveland right before we got him. And while it’s easy to just say he lost what he had because of ‘roids, common sense tells us that he was probably on the juice in cleveland too, and his resurgence with us probably had more to do with Peterson fixing him than it did anything else. 2) Find me a reliever who throws as hard as he does that was willing to accept 5m over 2 years in this market. 3) stop using steriods as a reason to argue that we shouldn’t have signed him. He got busted, and served his time. He shouldn’t get blackballed becuase of it. I think a more logical answer to his struggles is pitch selection. I’ve seen dude throw 5 or 6 changes in a row to hitters…the throws just as hard as he ever has, he’s just got the iq of a turd.
Alou? Poeple forget we have some really good young outfielders in our system… Find me a guy who can hit like that, and play for the amount of money we gave him, and will accept a contract short enough so as not to block the kids…not so easy, is it? Yes he was an injury risk, but that’s still a risk I take.
Any more complaints about his personnel decisions?
“i have total faith that this team will return with more than enough talent to win the NL East next season, and for many years to come…”
THATS EXACTLY WHAT EVERYONE SAID LAST YEAR!!!!
Bottom line: this team has now supposedly had the best talent in the NL for 2 years and has no WS appearances to show for it. Either TRADE a big name or FIRE a big name. Its time to shake things up.
I agree largely with what Matt wrote and with what most people on here are saying.
I firmly believe, based on last year’s sucess (relative) and the fact that save for September’s collapse, this team was goin to win roughly the same amount of games, the “malaise” that afflicted this team was a result of the management structure vis a vis Omar and Tony B.
Yes, some of the moves Omar made backfired–and hopefully he’ll learn from those mistakes–but a few poor decisions (hindsight) didn’t transform this team from a possible 95 win team (from the August perspective) to the 88 win team we ended up with.
I just think that both we as fans and Omar & Co. as managment need to concentrate on the managment structure of the team before we think about blowing up roster and acquiring a bunch of new players.
why is a front office assistant, tony bernazard, getting press or attention? i’ve never heard that before from another team or with the mets. we don’t need the drama: fire him
why is a base-running coach or first-base coach, ricky henderson, getting press or attention? shouldn’t that be the least heard from coach? did you ever hear drama from mookie or hojo doing that job? fire ricky
i don’t want to hear from fringe guys on the team or in the organization. period. that includes fred’s son “paris” wilpon.
let’s get some pitching, omar.
I agree with almost everything Mett said, except that I never liked the Bannister trade. It made no sense. Omar in effect traded a hard-throwing reliever who couldn’t throw strikes (Lindstrom) for a promising young starter (Vargas), and then turned around and traded a promising young starter (Bannister) for a hard-throwing reliever who couldn’t throw strikes (Burgos)! What was the point?
And while it may be fair to compare Bannister to Maine and Perez, he was certainly more major league ready than Pelfrey or Humber. We knew Bannister could pitch at the major league level, while we hoped Pelfrey could. We all knew, due to his recovering from TJ surgery, that Humber would spend the season in the minors.
If last year’s failed experiments with bad starters taught us anything, it was that you can’t undervalue starting pitching. If starting pitching were such a strength, why were we carrying Chan Ho Park and Aaron Sele?
I think the difference between Burgos and Lindstrom was that Lindstrom wasn’t that young anymore (27) and only had marginal success in the minors (never pitched in MLB), whereas Burgos was only 22 and had MLB experience and did OK for himself at such a young age. So Omar probably figured that Burgos had more upside. That could still end up being true, but for this year, it hurt. Lindstrom turned out to be pretty good and he certainly could have helped.
I think in the cases of Bannister, Owens and Lindstrom it is easier to pitch in places where nothing is expected of the team. No pressure, ok, less pressure.
I like what I hear from eltruth, except I think he’s way too generous with Mota. Having the IQ of a turd has proven a death knell for many a promising player, and that’s one of the things you have to scout for.
The Alou signing was brilliant. There is no one else, as eltruth said, on whom you can count to produce like Stan Musual for half a year and give Gomez and Milledge opportunities for the other half. Alou was having your cake and eating it too.
I say:
Sign Texiera
Trade Milledge and Delgado to the Braves for Escobar and prospects.
Cut LoKooka; Keep Castro, platoon him with somebody.
Santana you sign in ‘09.
If Muniz and Sanchez are gangbusters, you can trade Wagner the Choke-Artist for yet another stud.
2009:
Your lineup: Your Pitching Bullpen
Reyes Santana Sanchez
Escobar Maine Muniz
Wright Perez Feliciano
Beltran Pelfrey Heilman
Texeira Humber / other stud Burgos
Alou/Chavez/FMart Joe Smith
Castro
Gomez/
Sounds close to a dynasty to me
I have some other ideas…
The Mets trade Reyes For Santana, Heilman & Milledge for Joe Blanton. Pelfrey or Humber & Gomez for Carl Crawford.
Release Glavine, Green, Loduca. Free up about 35 mil
Resign Castro, Anderson, Alou.
Sign Arod (FOR WHATEVER IT TAKES!!!), Francisco Cordero.
Lineup
RF Crawford
2B Castillo
SS A-Rod
CF Beltran
3B Wright
LF Alou
1B Delgado
C Castro
Starters
Santana
Pedro
Blanton
Maine
O. Perez
Bullpen
Wagner
Cordero
Sanchez
Feliciano
Schoneweis
Joe Smith
El Duque can be the ‘08 Darren Oliver that we lacked. Which is why the bullpen just faded in the end.
Bench
Anderson
Gotay
Chavez
Valentin
Defelice
I know Santana, Crawford are FA’s the next year, but you make the deals contingent on being able to get them signed (have a signing window). You don’t want to fight the open market for these guys.
Now you have a dynasty!!!
Wow. Any plan that starts with releasing players who are already free agents is doomed to fail.
U R correct, sir.
I didn’t mean release, I meant don’t re-sign.
Texeirea isn’t a FA, and he went to Ga Tech and will likely sign with ATalnta, like Hudson, et al. There is nothing more annoying than these posts listing rosters and FA wish lists. Totally arbitrary and wishful thinking. And when in our lifetime are the MEts and Atlanta going to make a trade, particularly one that includes a washed up overpaid defesively challenged first baseman.
I just don’t understand how the Mets organization can never seem to get out of its own way. Whether it is an apparent lack of communication at the front office/management level or between management and players; or the ridiculously embarassing marketing that the team does. I had hoped they had moved past, well, their past. I understand winning makes that all moot, but it just is hard to deny that more often than not, regardless of who is invoved, the Mets are amateurish way too often.
They need to fix this crap now along with the bullpen and rotation.
I agree, cept i think we need some postion players too
20 years since the last ws title
longest drought in mets history
wilpons have been there the whole time
with the same soap opera
and we thought doubleday was the problem
these petty squabbles lead me to seriously question the mets ability to both assess and develop young talent and to attract and utilize the veteran talent it acquires (david wright and pedro martinez the only exceptions I can think of – reyes and beltran still remain queston marks to me)
The Mets collapse is pretty simple and it had very little to do with hitting. Look at the numbers
First 145 games: averaged 4.9 runs a game
Last 17 games: averages 5.8 runs a game
So we averaged MORE during that miserable stretch.
So what happened, look at runs scored against Mets:
First 145 games: averaged 4.4 runs against Mets a game
Last 17 games: averaged 6.8 runs against Mets a game
That means our pitching, and to some extent, our fielding, let us down. That’s what we need to focus on for 2008. We started the year hearing we didn’t have enough pitching, and that came true at the end. So, let’s get to work and stop the whining.
Why do many fans keep mentioning A-Rod? Can we please stop mentioning yankees for assinine trades? It’s not going to happen..nor will trades with the braves happen…
Bosco,
he’s a free agent after this season. so the Mets could easily aquire ARod if they wish.
Is $30 mil plus per year easy? Come on the wilpons will not do this…spend the money on a starting pither and the bullpen…..
the mets print money these days. between the revenue from the extra attendance (3.9M paying cust. this year), SNY, the $20M/year from the CitiField name that will start rolling in in ‘09 there is no excuse to be cheap anymore.
anyway i just wanted to point out that they don’t have to trade for ARod.
He’s a free agent. No trade involved.
Forget ARod. Mets are the one team, and I include the Red Sox in this, that the Yanks will not allow ARod to go to. And by not allow, I mean throw so much money at him that he will come back and sign with them.
Only thing Omar will do by entering the ARod sweepstakes is drive the price up. No shot whatsoever. I dig ARod, and love the fact that he grew up a Mets fan. But forget it. We had our shot in ‘01, Phillips screwed it up, and we pay for it to this very day. Could have had an infield of Wright at 3rd, ARod at short, and Reyes and 2nd. That’s the alternate reality I’d like to be living in right now, because this one sucks, at least baseball wise.
I know there is no trade involved for A-Rod but that ship had sailed for us four years ago when steve phillips did not get him…..Don’t want A-Rod now for $30 gazillion dollars per year
Nothing is set in stone when it comes to A-Rod, especially with all the crap he has went through last year in the Bronx.
I have to disagree on Bell and Lindstrom.
Bell, while not coming up and setting the league on fire, showed enough in ‘05 in terms of stuff and demeanor to suggest he would become a solid reliever. He worked his butt off to drop weight and was working on new pitches. He also threw fairly hard. I’ll always remember him coming into a game against the Yanks at Shea and k’ing Jeter with the bases loaded… he went right after him. It has been floated around that the Mets, particularly Peterson did not like his roller blading as a way of staying in shape. Also, I have read that Peterson clashed with Bell, likewise with Bannister (and some guy names Kazmir). Lastly, The Hardball Times had an article that stated Bell would significantly help the Mets bullpen in ‘06. Unfortunately for Bell that bullpen was loaded and he never really had a role. Sure he didn’t pitch great when called up, but can you blame him? He was constantly scuttled between NY and Norfolk and he could never get into any kind of routine or rhythm. Minaya did a bad job writing him off so easily instead of giving him a shot this year with Mota starting the season on the DL and Bradford being signed by the Orioles.
Lindstrom, while up in age, had been on the 40 man for a few years. Admittedly, when perusing the 40 man I would wonder, “who the heck is Matt Lindstrom?” The only conclusion I could reach is that he must have had talent and the team was showing patience with his development. But to say he wasn’t spoken about by minor league experts is wrong. He closed out last year’s futures game and was very impressive. I remember someone on ESPN (I think it was Keith Law or maybe Jim Callis) suggest that the Mets could include him in a package for a starting pitcher… a real starting pitcher, not Jason Vargas. So while it may have took Lindstrom a bit to mature, there were indications last season that he was making strides. And you know what? This guy throws 97-100… what are we doing trading a guy like that away for 2 soft tossers?
And yes, is this a bit of a rant about two “older” prospects? Perhaps. But I was always high on Bell and remember being curious to see what Lindstrom could do, given how hard he threw and his Futures Game performance. Owens, I can understand dealing. The guy is a converted catcher, had a funky delivery, and had some arm problems. That was a case of selling high.
The bottom line: when you lose Bradford, Mots starts the season suspended for 50 games, Sanchez and Padilla are coming off of major surgery and Heilman was coming off of elbow surgery himself… how do you trade 4 high level relievers? It just doesn’t make any sense. Sure, he got Burgos back and Smith stepped up… but there really wasn’t any need to deal all four of Bell, Ring, Owens, and Lindstrom. We began the season with a prospective rotation of: Glavine, Duque, Perez, Maine, and a competition between: Sele, Park, Pelfrey, and Humber for the 4th spot. Dave Williams came back at one point, and we signed Lawrence. There are always pitchers released who could fill out a rotation (Joel Pineiro anyone?)… did we really need Vargas and Bostick? And even further down the pipeline… we had Kevin Mulvey, who had a very solid season at AAA. So we were pretty well covered in the rotation. Trading these 4 guys really depleted out bullpen depth.
i always wanted bell to do well, but if you think that he did well when he was called up to the big club, you werent watching him. he was terrible actually. he had a chance in many mop up situations to excel, and instead, he ran long counts and could not put players away. it was rare he had a 1 2 3 inning and relied to much on his fastball that had little movement. i really thought he would finally get it together, but he never could, after having so many good minor league seasons.
banister, i was sad to see go, because i thought he had a lot of promise, but at the time, the mets did have a surplus of young starting pitching, and more highly touted rookie starting pitching in the wings.
I thought that Tex was a free agent. I stand corrected if I’m wrong.
However, Lastings for Escobar seems very reasonable and real, considering that the Braves need a Center Fielder and have surplus middle infielders. and we need a Second Baseman, but have surplus outfielders.
And no, as far as I can see, Texiera is not signed for ‘08. If we can get this guy, the Braves would need a 1st Baseman, and might take Delgado if he could be packaged well.
But correct me please if I’m wrong on Tex.
Your wrong
We have surplus OF’s? Who are they? Endy Chavez is not an every day OF, and Carlos Gomez is clearly not ready. 2B is pretty easy to fill, either resign Castillo, or go with a Gotay/Easley platoon, or, what I would like to see, give a call to David Eckstein and see if he’ll play 2B. He’d be perfect for the Mets.
If you like Castillo, who’s knee might crumble at any moment, Gotay, who cannot field a lick and who seems to be a .275 10HR guy, and Milledge (who should turn out OK) better than Chavez, Alou, Beltran, Gomez, and Escobar (.325/.380/.451 his first year and a fine fielder), that’s up to you. I seem to recall people screaming that Chavez should be an everyday player over Green in ‘06.
That fans are already giving up on Gomez when he is only 21 years of age is incredible. Almost as crazy as trading Reyes for Santana when you can get him for cash NEXT YEAR and screaming “Freddy Coupons” when you’ve got the 5th highest payroll in the league.
First, what incentive do the Braves have for trading Escobar?
None, he makes no money, this year at a high level. Will he do it next year? They sure hope so, because they already have him. Chances are they won’t bring back Renteria, which means SS is his. The reason the Braves can give A. Jones his walking papers, is because they have the next big thing waiting in the minors. And they only need a stop-gap until then probably a cheap defensive-minded-with-pop CF like Mike Cameron will probably do the trick.
Second, you try to get Santana next year, because you are trying to WIN NEXT YEAR. In addition to that if you don’t grab him somebody else will and god forbid that somebody be the Braves or Phillies or Yankees. If he was just an above average player, it would be a case of addition by subtraction, but with Santana’s talent it’s more like Mets to the power of N vs the square root of the Mets.
The fact is that the Braves still have 3 very good infielders. Any one of them would be fine with me. If they let go of renteria, I’d be glad to take him. Kelly Johnson perhaps I’m not so high on, however. Castillo might be better than he.
And no, you do not keep trying to “WIN NEXT YEAR” because that philosophy never works. You build to win consistently for as long as possible.
Anyway, the only value, from what I hear, of trading for Santana is that the Mets get first dibbs in his contract year, which is next year.
That might be enough to justify giving something up. But I’d be in no hurry unless I can’t get him in ‘09.
“move past this current bump in the road”
wow. a bump in the road. i’m going to remember this when that day next season comes, and omar and willie are gone. too many people around here are taking this way too lightly.
I do remember Bell throwing that hard actually, but I don’t remember him having that slider he had when he came to Shea with the padres. They are all good points, but I think if there is a theme to all of Omar’s moves, it’s that he swings for the fences. In almost every case, he traded a player who may have seemed more advanced for a guy to may pan out later on down the line. I likes to have young players with high celings, and he signs veterans to add depth to the major league club. This philosophy has netted us Oliver Perez and John Maine on the young side, and guys like Endy Chavez, Damian Easley, Marlon, Anderson, Roberto Hernandez, Chad Bradford, Darren Oliver, Duaner Sanchez, etc on the veterans side. I guess my point is two fold: a) because of his phiosophy doesn’t yield instant returns, you should refrain from passing judgement on his trades immediately, and b) an OVERWHELMING amount of his moves have panned out for us, so to start complaining about the few moves that (on the surface) haven’t worked out seems a bit rash.
i have no problem with omars moves, to be honest. he gambled, and they didnt pan out. every GM has that issue. but its not rash saying that these moves led to the poor play, in addition to other factors.
you’re saying that the moves led to poor play (which is fine), but that’s not the general sentiment on the board. Alot of folks here want him gone, which isn’t rational given how many of his moves have panned out. Whatever the case, I don’t necessarily think his moves are what caused our weak play. We were in control of the nl east for 90% of the year, and we blew the lead at the last possible minute. That’s not Omar’s fault. You want to blame Wille (and I do partially) for the collapse? you want to blame the players? that’s fine. But Omar’s acqusitions were good enough for 90% of the year, NO GM can forecast that happening. Another thing. There’s a reason most teams have deficient bullpens: it’s really hard to predict performance for year to hear. Save for a few elite relievers, most guys are wildly inconsistent from year to year, regardless of how much money you spend. So we could hope they sign a bunch of arms to big money this offseason to appease you, but it won’t change the odds that someone’s gonna spring a leak.
like i said, those moves, in addition to other factors, led to the mets collapse. it comes down to player performance, but some of these performances severely hampered other deficient aspects of the ballclub, like the bullpen. hey, i like omar, but he needs to do a better job next year.
Bullpen pitcher generally = small sample sizes.
yup and now that its probably become the most important part of the game, not making good decisions in the bullpen (which are very hard decisions to get right because of the year to year volatility) can prove disastrous.
GO ROCKIES!
this is a good team. i thought that when they swept the mets and yanks this year.
But many players on this team DID GIVE UP when things looked bad.. not running out ground balls, dumb mental errors, playing listless, lifeless baseball, walking the leadoff man, etc. Not the example I want my kids to follow… acting and carrying on like a bunch of immature brats and not backing it up.. Hell, Glavine wasn’t that upset after the worst start of his career and blowing the season, he just wants to go back to Atlanta. At least Jimmy Rollins backed it up. Kudos to him.. .Delgado with a Jeter jersey in his locker, please! Most of these players just don’t give a crap, and for that I blame the manager and the GM for not setting it straight during the season. Changes? get rid of Willie and Omar… they orchestrated one of the biggest collapses in baseball history. And who bears the brunt of that? Who? Not the players, they got paid and they move on. The fans, that’s who, 3.8 million of them this year. Just taking our money.. Willie and Omar stay, I am not. Period.
Did you see the wildcard play-in game, or watch today. Players playing with passion, emotion. I love baseball also, Love it. Great game. I watch my kids play as much as I can, and my boys love it also. Loved Cooperstown.. But with this team, sorry, I have been played for a sucker and a fool. They just want to take my money. Spend good money to see washed up losers like Chan-Ho Park, Brian Lawrence, Mike Pelfrey, Phillip Humber, Jason Vargas and TBD as starting pitchers…Not to mention Mota and Schoeneweis… Sorry, but it will be awhile before I sip this Kool-Aid again.
Who takes the blame for the historic collapse? WHO? Willie says he is winner.. BS…HIS TEAM JUST HAD ONE OF THE BIGGEST COLLAPSES IN THE HISTORY OF BASEBALL… LOSER!!!!! he says he is a New Yorker, no, he is a Yankee. they just didn’t want to eat 2 years of his contract. 5 and 12 down the stretch… lackluster play… pisspoor bullpen management… Sorry, I’ve been sold a bill a goods. Giving this clown a vote of confidence was the first dumb move of the offseason.. and has me pissed off royally. I hope he gets booed, although I won’t be there to do it. Let’s hope he gets fired after they continue their slide into next season…
First dumb moves of the off season was not to fire the manager.. again, I ask, how do you justify keeping him… And Omar is awful, at the trading deadline, we need bullpen help, and he gets a 2nd baseman and ANOTHER utility guy. What a freakin’ moron…
Buh-Bye.
don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out
imho
these words are more fittting for the likes of tom glavine, carlos delgado and billy wagner to name a few
I agree with a lot of what you said
you don’t GOTTA believe
you can CHOOSE to believe and like you I am not buying it
what distrubs me most is that no one in management nor any player has either reamed or challenged delgado on his boredom and his assessment of talent
circling the wagons and smugness just won’t do
you can see below about what i think about the wilpon owned mets
can the soap opera – give me hard playing major leagures and i’ll go to the wall with them
To what degree Omar is part of the problem is unclear, but the fact is, the Mets are terrible judges of talent & character
Heath Bell had heart, to anyone who was paying attention – I was devastated when he was traded, only happy for him to get a chance in a place that would give him a fair chance
Carlos Beltran not only has no heart, he doesn’t know what a heart is – he is gutless. He was playing well towards the end of the season, but he is often literally lifeless, and therefore a problem
Aaron Heilman is the last Mets pitcher to have a complete game 1 hitter – another misused talent. I hope he leaves and becomes a Cy Young winner somewhere else.
Pedro is a liabilty now, as he could breakdown at any time, much as I love him as a person
El Duque as well
Giving the ball to Glavine for game 162 was literally suicidal, his last few outings were such crap.
And we gave away one of the best talents in recent years in Scott Kazmir (I know that wasn’t Omar as he wsn’t with the club then)
Who made all these decisions?
I suspect Jeff WIlpon to some degree is a large part of the problem
This isn’t fantasy baseball.
The Red Sox have it figured out – and much as I hate them – so do the Yankees.
The culture of all organizations filters down from the top inevitably.
Wilpons – please sell the team.
i agree and am growing weary of the wilpon soap operas
20 years since a world series champion
longest drought in mets history
wilpons have been there the whole time
and we were told that doubleday was the problem
i would add the indians, dbacks, rockies, mariners and angels to your list of teams that have figured it out
the indians and angels have been retooled to playoff contenders twice in that time without the soap opera
i would add that the figuring it out is that you start with a core of young players and add vets to complement
the way the mets assess, develop, and mishandle their young talent should be held up to closer scrutiny
but how can this be accomplished with the political agenda that is being issued from the top
david wright appears to be the only exception to date but give the organization time
omar’s mistakes weren’t limited to latin players though:
*schoeneweis a 3 year contract
*sign aaron sele
*david newhan on the opening day roster
the cultural issue in the clubhouse is an interesting one; however, it wasn’t an issue last year with the same team make-up as the mets blew away the division. losing created issues. if they get off to a great start next year si will be writing about the “mix master” again
i am not saying that his problems are because he ALWAYS chooses latin ballplayers, but an unspoken goal he has is trying to create a latin team that the latin world can embrace, much like how mark cuban tried to make an international team for years.
of course it wasnt a problem last year, because they were winning, but if left to fester, it will be a problem.
I think the latin world can embrace a team currently with more than 50% of latin ballplayers….the goal should be a truly melting pot team since this is NY….it should not be a goal to be 90% latin players only……Omar needs to simply get the best players.
The only thing Ill say abt this is please no Japanese players. Ive seen enuff of them on the Mets.
the team isnt 90% latin, though. he hasnt done that. and i dont think he is making it a latin club for nyc, but also for the international market. there are a ton of new international met fans (like in the DR) because of omar. that might provide an edge in singing the premiere young latin players. its like how so many older black fans love the dodgers.