In the New York Times, Ben Shpigel writes about the future of Mets GM Omar Minaya, noting:
“Fred Wilpon and his son, Jeff, were furious that Minaya embarrassed the organization… But they are still supporting Minaya after a second straight late-season collapse.”
By the way, Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com believes Jerry Manuel is likely to return as the team’s manager next season as well.
…as i have been saying, i believe where omar goes, jerry goes… the thing is, i think it’s becoming more and more clear every day that ownership will come up with a new dynamic following this season… the voice and fan of management will need to be John Ricco, who people think can control a message a lot better than omar… all while omar does what he does best, which is be personable, off the record, working face to face, building relationships with other GMs, agents, free agents, and focusing on talent, etc… who has what title, i guess, remains to be seen…
…i don’t own the team, so it’s not my decision… but, i just hope ownership isn’t making this decision in the wrong way…
…as i have said before, the decision to keep or dismiss jerry and omar should have nothing to do with blame… instead, the question for ownership must be: Where do you want this franchise to go, and who are the best people to get you there?
…if jerry, omar and ricco are those guys, great, keep them… if not, let them go and get the best people for the job…
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The Mets need something to sell the public on this off season heading into next season. Yes the injuries were the sole reason why this team didn’t even compete for a playoff spot down the stretch, but with this season coming off two straight collapses the Mets saying “we’re getting guys back next season” is not going to excite fans into buying tickets for the 2010 season.
Sure the die-hards will always be there but to fill up Citi Field like the Wilpon’s will like the Mets will need to do something significant this up coming off season if they hope to have a good 2010 season. If ownership is going to hold onto Omar and Jerry Manuel and if they are going to cut payroll and not make any big moves, what exactly are the Mets going to sell the public on?
Exactly. And the answer is nothing.
The Wilpons have pushed the patience of Mets fans to their limits, and they are about to get a rude awakening as to what that means.
It started with the Madoff mess, and what we all know were lies about their financial standing and its impact on the ballclub.
It continued with selfishly buiding a shrine to Fred’s childhood memories, which was a slap in the face to Mets fans, including those oldest Mets fans who came to the Mets through the Giants and not the Dodgers.
The lack of Mets-ness in the stadium wasn’t just a cosmetic oversight, it was a true window into the complete lack of understanding the Wilpons have of their own fans. If you know one Mets fan, you know we are all passionate about every part of our team, including history, and we are forced to justify that history in the face of the other team in town who rams theirs down your throat 24/7. CitiField is a lovely park, but fans want to be proud of their team and it should have been a shrine to the Mets. Shake Shack does not make me proud to be a Mets fan, it just gives me a tasty alternative to the cardboard garbage the Wilpons served me at Shea for 25 years.
I defended keeping the CitiField name and still do, because naming rights are a viable business and marketing expenditure and bailout finds were given to keep these companies viable. But again, we all realize now that this was not gravy money for the Wilpons, but vital to keeping the team afloat.
But nothing is more significant that the obvious Wilpon-mandated ’stand-down’ order given to Omar and staff in the face of thie season’s decimation by injury. They were NEVER going to allow payroll to go up a dollar to replace anyone. We were fed the nonsense of ’staying afloat’ with a bad AAA roster, waiting for players we now know were never coming back, just to make sure fans kept coming to the park.
A big free agent or two is not going to cut it. I think virtually all fans see the Wilpons for who they are – businessmen who know that financially, there isn’t a whole lot of difference between competing and contending…and winning. I understand, no matter what blustery nonsense we’ve been subjected to from Steinbrener over the decades, that an owner can’t guarantee a winner, but this team has always stopped short of putting the team over the top. Is there any question now why ARod wasn’t added to the 2000 NL Champs to put them over the top? 25 and 1? Please.
The Mets play “Eminence Front” by the Who when they take the field. I love the Who, but next year I suggest “We Won’t Get Fooled Again.”
The thing is the Wilpon’s should know they need to do something. As much as we knock them, you don’t make the millions they have by being stupid. They’ve invested hundreds of millions in Citi Field and SNY. I would think they would want to do everything possible to maximize their profits and limit their losses.
I’d like to agree, but Real Estate and Baseball are two vastly different animals. Owning a baseball team is a public trust, not a provate hobby, which is why the Dodgers nonsense is so apalling.
But ona business front, again, I didn’t say they don’t want to be successful and don’t want to make money. I am just telling you that I am sure they saw last season as a success. Sure they lost out of playoff revenue, but they were in it until the final day, meaning the place was full until the final day. I am sure they see the whole Minaya era til now as a success, after all, this is the first sub-.500 team we’ll have since he got here. They are willing to invest to compete, but they will never be willing to do everything it takes to win, and more importantly they will just never understand what it means to own a baseball team in New York City.
Wilpon bought into the Mets like Citizen Kane would have bought Rosebud if he saw it at a garage sale. To satisfy some lost childhood memory. Personally, I’m no longer interested in his muse.
they lost $700mio to madoff. that’s really goddamn stupid.
hahahaha…
that $700M came from Larry King, so consider the source. Early on, the Financial Times speculated they lost in the neighborhood of $300M to Madoff. Still a sizeable sum (I mean, they paid $391M to buy out Doubleday in 2004) and I’m sure its affecting their operations more than they are admitting.
larry king may be a ghoulish clown when it comes to everything else but since he is a lifelong friend of fred wilpon as well as a fellow madoff victim i think he’s a pretty good source on this
otherwise, just compare mets’ spending decisions before and after the madoff news
And its Fred Wilpon who is successful, not “the Wilpons.” Jeff Wilpon is the classic case of a guy who was born on 3rd base and thinks he hit a triple.
A good businessman leaves his enterprises in the hands to trusted advisors who have worked their way through the organization and learned at their side – they don’t just hand over the keyys to their spoiled little failed-minor-leaguer son whose public speaking makes Omar sound like James Earl Jones.
By all avvounts, I am sure Jeff Wilpon is a good man – I’m not accusing him of being Jim Dolan. But what does he know about running anything, much less a baseball team? And how scary will it be to find out?
dave27 you hit the nail on the head man… I’ve been saying this for so long.. The problem with the organization starts from the top. Fred Wilpon has his spoiled son with no experience running a billion dollar organization – that is the problem and it always will be if the Wilpons are still around.
Besides monatary reasons (that is the reason which is typical Wilpons) could someone give me one reason why Omar shouldnt be fired? Why is he staying around? What has he won?
Just to clarify – do you want Omar fired or removed from his GM position? Because those are two different things.
If Omar is fired, he still gets paid by the Mets for the remainder of his contract. For every million the Mets spend on the front office, that’s one less million going onto the field where it is desperately needed. I don’t want that.
If Omar is transitioned to another position within the front office, a position better suited to his talents (that Matt outlined in his post) and John Ricco becomes GM, that means there is no additional money being spent on the front office. I do want that.
ideally, I would like him gone…but i understand why that may not happen. Its better financially to transition him to something different,but I fear by doing so he’ll be a lame duck employee.
That’s a good point if the Mets are cutting their budget and can only either upgrade the players on the field or revamp the FO and coaching staff which would you prefer?
To me long term the latter is more important. Outside of Matt Holliday none of the better FA’s this up coming off season I am interested in signing.
Omar only makes 1 million per year for the next 3 years. I dont think losing 1 million per year is going to effect the Mets spending on free agents… Never mind we are talking about the Wilpons
If you are talking about a complete Front Office and coaching staff overhaul then it’s going to cost more than just Omar Minaya’s salary.
No I’m just talking about Omar. I dont mind John Ricco as long as Bobby V is here
I was calling for Omar to be fired after the 1st collapse at this point I’m furious. If he gets fired or removed from his position I dont care at this point. Eitherway I want him out!
Dave I understand your frustration, and certainly I fall in the camp that the Mets should actually remove Minaya and whomever the next GM is should likely remove Manuel, but I think that should be a GM choice of who he wants on the field. But the reasoning is they simply did not succeed at the task as outlined specifically Minaya.
I am going to take a poke at what I find to be at the core of Mets fan insanity…
“If you know one Mets fan, you know we are all passionate about every part of our team, including history, and we are forced to justify that history in the face of the other team in town who rams theirs down your throat 24/7.”
I am one Mets fan, and I know many many others, that would all agree with the following statement:
What history? Of two scatterred championships and a handfull of misssed opportunities? The Mets have NO history and that is what I think is at the core of the Met fan obsession with CitiField and its lack of Mets history, the plain as day fact that the Mets history is about as rich as the Marlins.
So sure we could have had Ed Kranepool Way, Koosman Alley, the Strawberry Patch, Dykstra’s Digs and a host of other silly named sections to please the appetite for what is the incredibly mediocre history of the Mets. Should there be a little more Met feel to citi-field absolutely. But it is not nearly as bad as people complain about.
Moreover, the Met fan even attempting to sit in the same arena with a list of justification with a Yankee fan is never going to get anywhere. Nothing about the Mets history in even the most obscene orchestration of celebration would be anymore than a pale and hollow comedy show to that of the Yankees.
Accept that, and you will come to peace at being a Met fan. Justification in the face of the Yankees because they happend to play in NY too is a waste fo time. You could live two life times and even if everything went the exact opposite of 2009 for the Mets franchise they would in the most rosey scenario probably get half way to the Yankees history.
Do me afavor and go to an Astros game, or a Padres game, or a Royals game…and tell me they don’t do 10x better a job recognizing histories far less accomplished than the Mets.
We don’t all have to be the Yankees. Stop buying the BS we get from Yankee fans. We have history, we have an identity, we should have a brand. But we don’t…we have an endless string of gimmicks and promotions.
And again, the point is less what types of pitcures are hung where, but the bigger picture that these guys who have been here for 30 years literally had no clue that anyone would care about this at all. THAT is what is scary. They can hang up more pictures, but that won’t change how out of touch the Wilpons are.
Dave, you are the one who said you find yourself trying to live up to the Mets history next to Yankees fans.
The celebration of “history” that Mets fans want it a vain attempt at being mini Yankees. Sure we could right ahead and retire a slew of players whose numbers do not deserve to be retired, to feel more historic, but in the end it does nothing.
we got nothing else going for us…our history is all we have. Its shame that we have idolize the 86 team so much, because that shows how poor our team has been since then. We just want to root for a winner, and if that is a 23-year old memory so be it.
I am total agreement that we want to root for a winner.
I am in total agreement that the two championship teams the Mets have should be celebrated.
I think it would be wise to have some sort of monument on each side of the entrance to the rotunda one for 1969 and one for 1986. Those are pretty easily done, Koosman and Orosco for the final out. Or the pinnacle moments of each series the catch by Swboda and Knight scoring in game 6.
I think the trophies should be able to be seen and they could drum up some memorabalia around each in discrete areas.
Where I draw the line is retiring numbers just because.
To me the only numbers that should be retired are players that came through your organization. Unless in a rare occurence that a player came to the team and was integral to several championships.
The Mets have two numbers worth retiring currently. 16 and 18. The former took me a long time to get comfortable with, but I think both warrant it.
you are right that Mets history is thin at best. I mean, forget the Yankees; Mets history pales in comparison to the Pirates or the Reds (though I think your comparison to the Marlins is a bit harsh).
But I think what sticks in most Mets fans collective craws is that the Wilpons have replaced Mets history with that of the Dodgers – at least with regard to the main entrance. I don’t mind CitiField looking like Ebbets Field (in fact, I think it’s kinda cool). I can even live with Jackie Robinson Rotunda as he was an integral part of New York baseball history. But selling old Dodgers gear in the main fan store and that giant “42″ in the rotunda is a bit irritating.
Selling Dodgers memorabilia and naming a sutie area the Ebbetts club are annoying.
42 was Jackies Number and that is more about Jackie Robinson and his legacy on life in general, baseball second, and really nothing to do with the Dodgers other than he wore that number.
you just made me think of Gisueppe Franco
Unfortunately, the change needs to come from above Omar. We need new owners
I really dont have a problem with Jerry staying. I mean I want him to get fired so we could bring back Bobby V who is my favorite manager of all time but I think the man we should all be pissed at is Jeff Wilpon for wanting to keep Omar around and in effect Jerry as well.
Te more I think about it, the more obvious it is that Omar and Jerry’s hands were totally tied my ownership this year. Omar’s roster – which I do believe was flawed even at 100% – was never given the chance to prove itself and he was never allowed to make replacements other than Francoeur in a salary-wash. Jerry has been given a AAA at-best roster all season – the best managers in history couldn’t win with this crew.
As important – if they were somehow forced to replace either, the extra salaries will come out of player payroll, so honestly, I’d rather just see whatever investments they plan to make be on players. We’ll evaluate these two based on 2010 I guess.
Jerry is the worst manager the Mets have had in my lifetime (29 years). Even though IMO a General Manager is more important than an everyday manager, Jerry is more deserving to be fired than Omar. The Mets could do a lot worse than Omar, I don’t think the Mets could do worse than Jerry Manuel.
Be careful when you blame ownership or talk bad about ownership like everyone above us did.. VCARVER will harrass you all day long on this thing. He’s the biggest Wilpon apologist.
I can’t blame ownership for the amount they give Omar when he has the 2nd highest payroll in the game. If Omar doesn’t spend the amount he is given wisely, then that is his problem. Other large market teams (excluding the Yankees) spend less and get better results.
Now I can blame ownership for not holding Omar accountable for the results. That is where I think the flaws with ownership are.
I think everyone is running to blame blame blame. But adding salary to this team based on what was available and all the injuries this team had would have put a bandaid on Niagra Falls for 2009 and probably severly damaged 2010 and beyond.
I think it is reasonable for people to be annoyed and lack optimism that the Mets will do the right thing going into 2010, but only time will really tell the story.
They could make significant roster moves and still cut the payroll and field and effective team. I’ll believe it when I see it, but is is possible.
Which manager could win with all these injuries? It is impossible. Omar or the Wilpons are to blame for the last three seasons. Can’t blame Jerry.
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