Marchand writes, “Minaya could be reassigned so Ricco is the face of the front office, while Minaya still plays a vital role in player personell.”

…i talked with someone close to the team today, who basically said ownership knows a change is needed, as they’re not happy with what has transpired since 2006, and they do not like the direction things are going… i have no idea what that specifically means, but, if i had to guess, it would mean something like marchand is writing about…

Marchand also writes about what he calls the The Bobby Valentine Brigade, i.e., the New York media.

Ricco has been Minaya’s assistant GM since 2004.

I wrote the following yesterday, here, “If the Mets decide to let Minaya go, from what I understand, they’ll be most inclined to make Ricco the new GM, but pair him up with a strong, heavy-weight talent person, like a Gerry Hunsicker, and do like the Yankees did in the 90s, who teamed up a young business-mind in Brian Cashman with a veteran talent-mind in Gene Michael.”

In addition to Cashman, Rubin also points out how Rays GM Andrew Friedman, Red Sox GM Theo Epstein and Rangers GM Jon Daniels have similar academic, and not scouting, credentials, like Ricco.

…this is the new model, it seems… the game has changed, and the job of the GM is seemingly less eye-ball, talent evaluation, and more business, budgets, contracts, management, etc., though the talent end is still very much needed… and so, the new trend seems to be, to have a strong scouting and player development wing, which makes recommendations to the administrative GM, who then delegates and makes things happen… all while a separate person runs the off-field, stadium and marketing operations…

In his report, Rubin also looks at how much money the Mets will have to spend this off season, while detailing Ricco’s experience in baseball.

Speaking of management…

According to the Buffalo News, Omar Minaya said yesterday that Adam Wogan would temporarily replace Tony Bernazard.

According to Minaya, he and his staff were working on potential trades up until 4 pm, but, as he said, ‘We were just not able to get it done… We had some opportunities to do some things, but, in the end, I felt that what teams were asking for we couldn’t find a match.”

Minaya said one issue he had was knowing certain players would soon return from the disabled list, saying, “What are you gonna get for that player, and then what happens when the player comes back.”

Minaya was asked specifically about players who were traded, like Victor Martinez, who would likely have interested the Mets, to which he said:

“The cost would have probably been too high… You have to take in to account where you are in the standings, and you have to take in to account the prospects you have… One thing that has been good about this process has been that I got a good feel for a lot of the teams and how much they like our prospects.  But, some of those prospects that some teams wanted were too high to give them, and we have some pretty good young prospects… Unless it is someone we were going to hold on to beyond one year, we’re gonna hold on to as many prospects as we can.”

Minaya said he needed to balance out being six games back of the Wild Card, and protecting his farm system, while considering no one player would make up for the number of players he has on the DL.

“There are things that I left on the table that we’ll be able to revisit later,” Minaya said, speaking of players who could be had through the waiver wire in August.

According to Klapisch, despite Minaya’s apology, Jeff Wilpon said the Mets have been going in the wrong direction for years.

…in a Q&A i recently did with Oh Murph, i was asked, ‘Which was most painful: 2006, 2007, 2008 or 2009,’ and i responded:

“I am always left regretting 2006.  To me, Endy Chavez’s catch, so far, is the peak of the Omar Minaya Era.  Chavez crossed the infield, ball in glove, the crowd was electric, the rain was falling, and, despite the score, I think most Mets fans felt momentum and maybe even fate was on our side.  Then, strike three.  What happened?  Since, it feels like it has all been down hill.  That said, there are still 60 games left in 2009.”

…from what i understand, Fred Wilpon loves omar… they have a very strong relationship… let’s say minaya makes a trade today, and, coupled with the team’s recent play, changes the narrative… then, if he gets back Jose Reyes, Carlos Delgado, Carlos Beltran, Billy Wagner and J.J. Putz, and the team rallies to win a good chunk of games, i think omar will be fine… in the end, people will blame the injuries…

…the thing is, i hope this is not how ownership decides whether to keep omar at the helm… instead, the decision should be based on wilpon’s suggestion about direction… injuries aside, his instinct is correct… and so, the question will be, and it’s somewhat applicable today: what is the plan for moving forward… if omar has one, and jeff believes in it, then, there you go, omar is the man for the job… if jeff doesn’t believe in it, regardless of injuries, embarrassment or apologies, then jeff needs to find the person who can get the Mets from here to where he wants them to go… it’s that simple…

By the way, to vote in this week’s Fan Confidence Rating, click here.

Omar Minaya will speak with reporters today from the dugout in Citi Field at 11 am.

…i hope they set up prompter… or, just have him read directly from notes, ‘I apologize to Adam Rubin, P.S. Have a nice day,’ and get off the stage…

Update, 11:20 am:

Minaya told reporters that he talked with Adam Rubin in person in New York City yeterday, he apologized, and they both look forward to moving on.

“For me to say those things was not right,” Minaya said, “I was wrong.”

He says Rubin and he agreed to keep the conversation between them.

He says the decision to fire Tony Bernazard was his descision, based on the investigation, an had nothing to do with Rubin’s report.

Minaya says ownership supports him and has always supported him.

“You guys know Omar, and this was not an Omar action,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s time to move forward, we have a baseball season to play.”

Update, 11:24 am:

He says this has not stopped him from working the baseball side of the business in advance of tomorrow’s trade deadline, noting he is talking to clubs everyday.

“I even turned down a couple of trades yesterday,” Minaya said, saying he has talked to teams about big-time players.

Update, 11:33 am:

In the end, he said he apologized to Rubin, he aplogizes to ownership, amd he apologizes to Mets fans, because, as he put it, “This was a distraction.”

In a report for Newsday, Wallace Matthews writes:

‘“He’s this close to being out of baseball,’ Wilpon told me, holding his thumb and forefinger a half-inch apart.”

…wallace is the only guy to write this, so i assume this was an exclusive moment between him and jeff… that said, it’s telling…

…personally, i can’t see minaya being fired, or resigning, during the season… instead, the team is playing well, they’re on a roll, guys may be coming back from injury, and this is what it is… if the Mets slip, and return to falling, and miss the playoffs, regardless of injuries, i would not be shocked if omar is replaced… if the Mets pull off a miracle and make the playoffs, the vibe around them and the perception of the team will change, the story will be how minaya’s players pulled themselves up to make a miracle, and it will be a new day… frankly, knowing there is no way he is dismissed before the season ends, i’m looking to the results on the field… once the season is over, i want to know where the team is headed and what is their plan… if omar is the right man for the job, great… if not, it’s time to move forward… but, there are still 62 games to be played, and i am far more interested in what the current 25 guys and coaches are doing…

That said, in the New York Post, Jay Greenberg argues in favor of firing Minaya, while Mike Lupica, in the Daily News, says to judge Minaya on his body of work with the Mets, ‘not the Tony Bernazard mess.’

Speaking to reporters from the press box, Minaya said he is sorry for out Rubin, noting it was the wrong forum.

Minaya, however, stood by his statement that Rubin lobbied the team for a job.

…so, he’s not sorry for what he said, he’s sorry for where he said it…

Speaking from the press box, Jeff Wilpon later said Rubin is not the first writer to ask him for job advice.

…jezuz, please, guys, stop calling press conferences… good lord, quit it now, i’m begging you…

…i must have missed the One Step Forward, Two Steps Back method to crisis management in college…

…i don’t know what to think of all of this… i really don’t… i wish omar would just come out and say what he was trying to say about rubin… i mean, technically, he never talks of his opinion of rubin’s motives… he only repeatedly states rubin lobbied for a job, which rubin denied… however, it’s pretty clear, based on the course of events and what omar was alluding to, that he was trying to imply something, be it that rubin had it out for tony b, or rubin wanted a job, or something… but, he never says so… i hate when people are coy… just say what you want to say, and prove it…

Prior to tonight’s game, SNY’s Ron Darling said on air, “It’s an awful day here in Met-land… This is a very interesting thing, for me, how you move forward from this, because this is something that will be there for a long period of time.  How do you talk to Omar now without thinking something is going to be on or off the record?”

…i still have to wonder, is that Chilling Effect the point… that exact freeze, is that what omar and the Mets were trying to accomplish…

…here are my conspiracy theories, based on nothing:

…omar got emotional, went rogue, and said, ‘Screw it, if I’m going down, you, Adam Rubin, are going down with me, for making me fire my friend, Tony B,’… and, by doing so, omar is ready to face the consequences, since he’s already had to fire every one else he brought on in 2005, when he was given ‘full autonomy.’…

…or, rubin did try to get a job in player development, tony b said no, an rubin intentionally got the ball rolling to take him out, and the minaya had every right to fight back…

…or, maybe this was coordinated… maybe omar, ownership and others, were not happy about having to fire tony, and they were tired of the leaks through the media, and rubin, who broke the story on tony, and who wrote a ‘scathing review of omar,’ as he put it, was thrown under the bus in an effort to spook him and his colleagues in the press box…

In the end, Buster Olney of ESPN.com writes:

“He will not survive this, and this has nothing to do with whether what he said was accurate or inaccurate. He won’t survive because Minaya now has become a public liability, a target of criticism, and if there is a defining characteristic of the Mets’ organization, it’s a devotion to the whims of public opinion. Within seconds after Minaya’s press conference ended, talk radio in New York erupted with criticism of the general manager for how he handled the situation. And that’s just the quick response. This will only worsen in the hours and days ahead, as the blogs and columns of reaction are posted and the Mets fall out of contention.”

Update, 5:20 pm:

…hey, omar, in case you forgot, your team is five games below .500 in late July, and you’re trailing seven teams for the Wild Card…

…like my friend Roy O wrote me, “So now the Mets are what they Yankees used to be: a crappy team with more drama than a soap opera, and old players who are injured.”… great, so, then, can we bring back Rickey Henderson…

…here’s a shovel, Mets, keep digging…

Update, 5:15 pm:

Rubin said Minaya’s decision to call him out by name is a ‘low blow.’

Rubin acknowledged that he wrote a ‘scathing review’ of Minaya earlier this month.

“I thought Omar had a thick skin, obviously not,” Rubin said, adding:

“The bottom line is, too, they fired Tony Bernazard because he did the things I said he did… For them to change the story like this, personally it devastates me.  This is my livelihood.  Look, I have tremendous relationships with most of the people in uniform.  I guarantee you if I walk in to the clubhouse right now I’ll have more pats on the back, unless people are just scared to do that because it’s their bosses.  I could assure you they just made my job impossible to do in the short-term.”

Update, 5:02 pm:

Andrew Marchand of 1050 ESPN Radio asks, “We don’t doubt that Rubin tried to get a job with the Mets. That probably happened, though, we haven’t independently confirmed it. But what does that have to do with anything, even if true?”

In the end, Marchand explains why this is the beginning of the end for Minaya.

Update, 4:53 pm:

In a post to Twitter, Can’t Stop the Bleeding writes:

“Here’s a list of things the Wilpons and Minaya don’t understand : 1) public relations, 2) journalism, 3) ponzi schemes, 4) baseball.”

Update, 4:35 pm:

Rubin told reporters that he once probed Jeff Wilpon about how to get a job in major league baseball, ‘but that’s it.’

Rubin said he never asked for a specific job from the Mets, he just asked general questions on e-mail about how to go about finding a job ‘in the industry.’

“I’m floored,” Rubin said, “I don’t know how I’m going to cover the team now… To make this type of accusation is obscene.”

Rubin will also be a guest on SNY’s Daily News Live at 5:00 pm.

…i hope omar had Jeff Wilpon’s blessing for calling rubin out by name, because if not, and omar did this on his own, and just caused more heat, he better look out…

…John Ricco, hide in the closet, man…. no subtle movements…

Update, 4:30 pm:

Rubin will an on-air guest of SNY in the next few minutes.

…like Clark Griswold said, ‘This is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy.’… i can’t believe omar called rubin out during this press conference… i mean, this was supposed to be a day of clearing the air, turning the page from last week, building on two wins in Houston and looking forward… instead, omar throws rubin under the bus and here we are at the cross section of Unique and Sensational, and as one fire goes out another is set…

Update, 4:15 pm:

During today’s press conference to announce the firing of Tony Bernazard, Mets GM Omar Minaya was clear to point out that Adam Rubin of the Daily News, who wrote the initial reports about Bernazard, had been lobbying the team for a job in the team’s player development department.

…interesting… so, maybe this will finally answer my question of why rubin is always wearing a suit… seriously, always with the suits…

…seriously, though, the insinuation, which is pretty serious, as i hear it from omar, is t hat rubin wrote this story about tony to try and get tony fired, because he was seeking a job in the team’s player development department… this is an amazing accusation, and omar better have proof…

Rubin, in the audience, then told Minaya, to his face, that he is ‘despicable’ for alleging that he set out to ‘tear Tony down’ to take his job.

…this just took a fascinating turn… i have never heard of anything like this, which is about to make national attention, i would think, in terms of sports and media…

In a post to his media watchdog blog for Newsday, Neil Best called this press conference one of the “strangest in the history of New York media!”

To watch Minaya’s comments, click here.

During today’s press conference, Minaya said:

“I made a decision after the investigation of Tony Bernazard… Human Resources started the investigation before reports were out in the newspapers… They presented the facts, I met with Tony yesterday, showed him the facts, and when it was all said and done I have to make the recommendation to ownership that we needed to let him go… I relayed the information to Tony this morning.”

Minaya said situations that have been published by Adam Rubin in the Daily News were ‘not exactly accurate,’ though Rubin’s report did help to expedite the human resource department’s investigation.

…jeez, only the Mets would have an on-air press conference to announce the firing of a guy with a position on the team that most fans of other teams have never heard of…

Minaya said Bernazard’s position will be filled internally.

Update, 3:24 pm:

To learn of two reasons why Bernazard was fired, check out Sherman’s follow up post to the New York Post.

In a on air report for SNY, Kevin Burkhardt said, ‘This clubhouse was really not to keen on Bernazard.”

Original Post:

“The Mets have fired Tony Bernazard,” reports Joel Sherman of the New York Post.

…so, i assume this is what the press conference is for…

…i never like smiling when a man loses his job, a man with a family, etc… that said, i think it was pretty clear the Mets had to pull the trigger on this, if for no other reason than fans were out for blood, some one was feeding the press with stories about the man, and until the situation was dealt with, it was going to keep causing trouble for the team… plus, in the last day or so, i have talked to a handfull of agents and people from other teams, some of which praised tony’s tough approach as assertive, but others who said he was no treat to deal with, he was starting to be viewed as a liar, as a spinster, and was giving the organization a bad name… so, public relations aside, this may be the start of a new, cleaner day for the Mets… since, i sense Omar Minaya was in favor of the dismissal, though we’ll probably never know that for certain…

…in the end, the way i understand it, bernazard may have been hired by omar to handle player-agent relations, but he ended up being Jeff Wilpon’s eyes and ears for all things on-field baseball operations, and he collected more power than omar, in the sense that, as one person put it to me, ‘If Jeff is the Boss, Tony is his Consigliere,’ for those who watch Sopranos or Godfather…

…i hope omar now leans more on Assistant GM John Ricco, who i hear lots of good things about from people in other organizations… he’s smart with money and contracts, stats, etc., and he and omar have a vision for this team… i have heard people say omar should be left to do talent evaluations and negotiating, based on the financial and statistical recommendations of ricco… hopefully, together, it’s a good start for a new direction… we’ll see…

“Perhaps, more significantly, Jeff Wilpon, the man in charge of the team’s off-field operations and the son of the club’s majority owner, has not been heard from in months.

“In normal times, a chief operating officer’s public silence would go unnoticed. On many teams, general managers do most of the talking because they are responsible for the team on a day-to-day basis. But when the problems spill off the field, higher-ranking executives often step in to clarify the team’s goals and project stability… This would seem to be one of those moments.”

Meanwhile, in a post to NY Baseball Digest, Mike Silva writes:

“Jeff Wilpon needs to stand up and take control of his team. Show the players, employees, and fans that there is actually some semblance of a chain of command. So far we have gotten a little spin and a lot of silence. That doesn’t make me feel like we will see the right decision made. That is a huge indictment on ownership and the future of this ballclub.”

…i actually agree with the team’s efforts to keep wilpon more behind the scenes, and out of the public eye… frankly, if he speaks, it would only make matters worse i bet, because media and fans love to pick him apart, so no matter what he says it will likely get ripped on…

…the problem, instead, is not that we aren’t hearing from wilpon, it’s that Omar Minaya looked paranoid and confused when he did talk to reporters the other day… had minaya controlled the message more, been assertive and made sense, nobody would care to hear from wilpon… from a public relations point of view, this is more polictis than business… its sports… its entertainment… though it is a business, and i’m sure their back accounts can prove it, from a perception point of view, it’s less GE and Exxon-Mobil and more Jon and Kate Plus Eight…