May 25, 2013

Posts Comments

You are here: Home / Archives for omar minaya

The Ollie P era must be over!

May 15, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Omar Minaya’s legacy will most likely always be tied to Oliver Perez.  Giving this guy $36 million dollars when nobody else was even bidding has become a running joke.  It’s time for Omar to realize this was an abysmal failure and take his medicine.  He will forever take a hit for this horrible signing, what he needs to do now, is try to salvage some respect by making the right move, ending the Ollie P era with the NY Mets.

I don’t ever want to see this bumb on the mound wearing blue and orange again.  Enough is enough.  You can talk about bullpen salvage projects, disabled list mystery injuries, or shipping him down to the minors.  Call it whatever you want but this guy does not belong in the majors.  If you’ve watched all his games like I have about the only value this guy has for the organization is as a batting practice pitcher.

What kind of message does it send the rest of the franchise?  That we allow a guy to stink up the join every 5th day and he gets absolutely no repercussions whatsoever.  He laughs his way to the bank and collects his check every payday.  It’s time to send Ollie a clear message and to injure his vanity.  I’d love to see the Mets outright release him with a message saying his performance was no acceptable and he no longer has a place with the team.  We all know that wont happen so instead we need to ship him to the minors.  Send this guy a wake up call.  Let him know that he belongs in the minors.  No more kid gloves with this guy.  That’s his biggest problem, everyone baby’s him and I am sick of it.

For the good of the franchise moving forward, Oliver Perez needs to be removed from the equation one way or another.

Filed Under: 2010 Mets, Blogging Tagged With: , , ,

Who’s the man with the master plan?

Apr 20, 2010 By 1 Comment

I was gonna write this article last night after me and Eddie went back and forth with a few texts, but I decided against not contaminating the excitement of Ike’s Major League premiere with my negative karma. I am gonna wright it now because I feel it’s something that has to be asked, and I’d love to get an answer that’s for sure.

Who exactly has the master plan for the New York Mets? The reason I ask is because this entire debacle at first base stinks of desperation and it really illustrates the lack of an overall plan or strategy by the Mets front office. I feel this is the reason that neither Omar or Jerry should have been brought back this season, you create an environment that undermines them from the get go, because everyone knows they very likely dead-men-walking.

So who is calling the shots? Who is looking out for the Mets best interest long term? I do believe that Omar is trying to do this. I very much expected him to have no problem trading off anything in a win now type of trade, or overspending on free-agent pitching figuring what does he care if it handcuffs the team 5 years down the road … he probably wont be here by then. To his credit he didn’t do this, and I actually felt he did well by staying away from certain players (I felt Lackey was overpriced and too risky a move for the Mets).

With that said I find it hard to believe that Ike Davis has suddenly matured enough to be ready for the Major Leagues after two weeks. I can’t believe that when management said at the end of spring training that Ike needed to see more left-handed pitching, that they were talking about twenty at bats? And exactly who’s idea was it to sit Ike down for over a week at the end of spring training getting no at bats, if he was possibly being called up 2 weeks into the season.

I know nobody can predict the future, but all signs point to the Mets having no desire to call up Ike any time soon, yet here we are in game 12 and Ike has been called up. For the record I think it was the right move, and a good one, but it really makes me wonder just who is the man with the plan here.

I am a lifer. I am a Mets fan for life. I am one of those rare fans that would not mortgage the next five years just to assemble a team for this season. In fact I hate when teams do that. I have to worry about the farm system because those are the guys I will be cheering on in 3-4-5 years. So who is looking out for these things? You know Jerry isn’t. And to be true it’s kind of unrealistic to expect Omar to truly do this given his precarious standing. So who is it? This confusion has me really worried. Is it the Wilpons? Oh please God no. Is it Ricco? Acting in a sort of checks-and-balances fashion with Omar? That might sound good, but then what is the point of having Omar at all? If you have so little confidence in the guy then get rid of him already. All your doing then is turning this Mets job into one that premium candidate’s will not want down the road.

It’s this mixed message we continue to get that worries me deeply. All spring we heard how there was no way Jenrry Mejia would break camp with the club. Yet here he is on the roster. Then we heard all about Ike needing to mature, and face lefties, and polish his fielding, and two weeks later he’s called up. How is it that Ike wasn’t ready to be in the lineup on opening day, yet suddenly he’s ready to be our savior? It doesn’t add up.

I like Ike, and I would much rather watch him learn at first then either Jacobs, Murphy, or Tatis. But the truth is it sure looks like a move of desperation. A franchise that feels it’s losing it’s fan base and sees this as a move to satisfy them, and to draw attention away from other places (did you notice the news breaking of Beltran seeing the Dr. that broke during Ike’s first game? Fishy).

Hopefully I am just being a beaten, cynical Mets fan, but I wasn’t born this way, I was created over many years by our beloved team.

Filed Under: 2010 Mets, Blogging Tagged With: , , , ,

If Mets Struggle, Omar is D-O-N-E, DONE!!!

Apr 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I know it is bold to fire a GM in the middle of the season and Metspundit.com co-writer Brian “BMillZ” Miller disagrees with me but I feel if the Mets get off to a slow start Minaya will be fired. Let’s face it, Willie was blamed for ’07, and Jerry got a pass in ’08 because he hadn’t managed the club all season. Both Jerry and Omar got a pass for the ’09 debacle due to all the injuries.

There is no where to hide for Minaya, I am not a Manuel fan but a lot of the teams problems should be traced to the GM. Omar was responsible for signing Ollie and Castillo to long term deals. How would our team look if Lowe and Hudson were playing for the Mets instead. The Mets major need this offseason was pitching so what do we do? Sign Bay and no Lackey or anyone for that matter. Piniero, Marquis, anyone, if we had a backup plan we could send Pelf and Perez to the minors to correct whatever the hell is wrong with them. Instead the inevitable will happen next week, rough outing after rough outing.

Minaya supposedly fixed the bullpen last year and I guess that gave him a pass for doing much for it this offseason. We again roll the dice on a few Japanese guys (has that worked yet) and not much was done except for letting a few people walk. Now our situational lefty is the guy that wants the ball in 8th. How did that work in ’08? Remember when Wags was injured and everyone’s roles changed and we blew another late season lead.

With the exception of making a few no brainers (trading for Johan, etc.) Omar really has not been too successful, not too mention the debacles with Tony Bernazard and Adam Rubin last season. The Wilpon’s look to be losing patience as well as the rest of us, as the moved John Ricco into a bigger role last season. I think with how bad the rotation has looked the inevitable is coming and that is the firing of the Omar Minaya sometime during the ’10 season. I’d look for Ricco to take over on the interim before they see if they can bring someone else in. I think Jerry may outlast Minaya or there may be an old fashioned house cleaning this season but my money is on the 2011 Mets having a new GM, I cannot see how Minaya can hide anymore.

Filed Under: 2010 Mets, Blogging Tagged With: ,

The kids are kicking down the door

Mar 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Consider this your warning incumbents. Your years of experience, your huge contracts in some cases, and your incumbent status don’t mean much to a team like the Mets. You need to work your ass off and perform. Because if you don’t, your gone. The kids are kicking down the door.

Have multiple prospects flourishing in spring training is a great problem to have.  The debate about what should be done with them is fun for fans. When they fully deserve to win the starting  job, yet you can still leave them down in AAA to season a bit longer. It’s a great position to be in.

Even if they do get sent down to AAA they will still have a great impact on the big club. Just their presence down there, a phone call away, should really push players who are reminded every day by the media that their jobs are in jeopardy. Guys like Daniel Murphy and Jeff Francoeur really need to get off to good starts. They really don’t have any wiggle room when you consider the springs that Ike Davis and Fernando Martinez are having.

If the Mets didn’t really love Frenchy and what he brings to the clubhouse, you can bet they would already be considering starting FMart in RF. Why RF? They wouldn’t make that move for a 1 month audition to cover Beltran. They would want to bring the kid up and let him play.  Additionally there are a lot of people close to the Mets that don’t think FMart is a centerfielder. This is puzzling because all he does in the minors is play CF. Ike Davis on the other hand has really done everything he can to be the opening day firstbaseman. Unfortunately with Murhpy the Mets hands are sort of tied. They have to give him a chance since there is no where else to play the guy. They have to at least give him a chance to build up value so they can then trade him for some value.   If Murphy struggles either at the plate or in the field, Ike could be here sooner rather then later. I think Murphy get’s one shot, they will not coddle him like they did last year. He will get a chance to flourish, or fall flat.

There are other players that are really lighting up camp. Maybe you’ve heard the name Jenrry Mejia? If you haven’t then you really haven’t been paying attention. Aside from all the comparison nonsense I think the biggest question about this kid is do we potentially hamper his progression as a starting pitcher by pitching him in the bullpen this year? It’s really a matter of team philosophy.  He is very young so by pitching him in the pen you will limit his innings and allow him to learn in the bigs a bit.  By doing so you will slow down his development of extra pitches that are imperative if he is ever going to be a major league starter. This decision is coming, be it before or after opening day, but it’s a tough decision that is going to have to be made.  It could have ramifications down the road for Mejia, so it needs to be made with caution.

Omar has already been forced to change his mind. Two weeks ago he said publicly there was no way Mejia was staying up with the club for opening day. That he was definitely being sent down to the minors. A few days ago he changed that statement saying he was definitely in the competition for a bullpen job.

There are other guys too: Josh Thole and Reese Havens to name two. Wonderkid Wilmer Flores is still very young, but all of them are showing promise. Lets hope the days of fat-cat players that are rich and lazy for this team are over. We need to build within in order to push the players at the top. Let’s also hope that Omar doesn’t go and completely trade away the farm in an effort to save his job, which is a big worry of mine. I am a fan for life so I think long term/big picture, Omar is a GM for another year, at best.

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Mets front office accounting doesn’t add up

Mar 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

This isn’t meant to be a bash piece. I don’t pretend to know the dollars and cents behind my beloved Mets. Problem is at times, I feel like neither does the front office.

When you sit down and think about it, the Mets really did pinch their pennies this season. Some people will call me stupid pointing quickly to the Jason Bay signing. I agree that’s a nice signing and I like seeing him in a Mets uniform. But since he got here Omar has been the king of the obvious. What he has lacked is finding depth and those diamonds in the rough that are so important to winning teams. We lack the role-players and veteran leadership that we need. This is because as soon as Bay was signed, the Wilpons slammed the checkbook closed. I really think they thought to themselves “Ok we signed them (the fans) Bay, they should be happy, now not another dollar more!”

Lets use two examples of players we knew absolutely, 100%, wanted to play for the Mets. I have been screaming and yelling for Orlando Hudson for two years now and for two years now we have missed the boat. It’s no secret that I think he is just what the Mets need. A good hitter and a great fielder up the middle. His presence would be an upgrade in the lineup, and a huge upgrade in the field. How in the world, when so much is riding on the performance of your flaky pitching staff, can you not make this move and upgrade a middle infield spot? The real kicker is for two years in a row now Hudson has signed for a $5 million dollar, 1-year contract. That is such a bargain. And I am not even taking into account his clubhouse benefits.

Along with Hudson another guy that publicly came out and said he wanted to play in Queens was Jason Marquis. He signed a 2-year $15 million dollar contract. Your telling me that the Nationals can afford to sign him but the Mets can’t? Am I supposed to believe that we couldn’t use another arm? Look at the Yankees, they get it, they had a stud rotation last year, and they went out and jumped at the chance to make it stronger when it presented itself. The Mets instead chose to pass. Now let me slow it down a bit by saying I don’t think Marquis is a top of the ladder starter. He’s not the solution for the Mets. But I fail to see how he wouldn’t help us? We need to sign anyone who wants to be here. After watching so many players that didn’t want to be here (ie Tom Glavine, Aaron Heilman, et all) we need to welcome people who want to play for us (hell you could debate even the owners don’t want to be in Queens!).

Take these two contracts and it adds up to around $12 million dollars. If estimates are correct that the Mets payroll is somewhere around $120 million for the year, that would mean an increase of only ten percent. For a ten percent increase you would add a Gold-Glove second baseman and another good bat to your lineup. You would add another professional pitcher and deepen your rotation that much more, and in turn strengthen your bullpen. Not to mention adding to guys who would really be excited to play in New York, and not just because of the dollar signs.

It’s kinda crazy when you think about how the front office had no problem adding that extra year to Bays contract even when nobody else was bidding against them. It’s moves like this that drive me bonkers. It’s like Omar and the ownership get dazzled by the big names and get tunnel vision and lose sight of the actual goal. The goal isn’t to put a big name up on the scoreboard, it’s to put a winning team on the field.

The thing I think they fail to see is that a winning team will sell a LOT more tickets then adding one good player (lets be real, Jason Bay isn’t even a great player, and no superstar). The fact remains that be refusing to spend a few million dollars more fortifying your roster, you will lose many million more in lost revenue when nobody is coming to games in August.

Filed Under: 2010 Mets, Blogging Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Sit down Mets fans, we need to have a talk

Mar 11, 2010 By 1 Comment

Please have a seat.  It’s time we talked man to man about our beloved Mets.  It’s spring training, for the other 29 teams it’s a great time of year.  As a fan your allowed to dream big, you can imagine your team playing important baseball in September, maybe it’s a playoff run your looking to, maybe it’s even getting all the way to the World Series.  It’s all possible in spring training, and that’s why it’s such a cool time of year.

Unless your a Mets fan.

It’s time we took a look at our beloved Mets.  We need to realistically start to come to terms that this season is much more likely to be a train-wreck then it is to end in any semblance of pride.  The news about Beltran first and now Jose Reyes is like going to a five year old on Christmas eve and telling him Santa doesn’t exist.  I feel robbed of my spring dreaming.  I knew it was a long shot trust me, but I allowed myself to have hope.  To imagine everything actually going right like Omar and the Wilpons have cooked up.  It’s time to burst that bubble.

When a guy knows his best-friend’s girlfriend is cheating on him, he doesn’t just sit there and listen to him croon about how in love he is, he sits him down and tells him.  It’s to protect him from great pain in the future.  Consider this your warning folks.  Put down the blue and orange Kool-Aid and listen to me.

Lower your expectations.  A lot.  We haven’t even had one meaningful pitch yet this season and we have lost arguably our 2 most important players for a long period of time.  The Mets are saying Reyes is out for 2-8 weeks.  This is a bit misleading  from my point of view.  The way I read it is he is restricted from physical activities for 2-8 weeks.  What are they going to do just toss him back onto Citi Field the day he is cleared?  No, he’s going to need at the least a mini-spring training to get into shape.  Remember this is a guy coming off leg issues that sidelined him for most of last year, so you absolutely can not rush him.  If Reyes is back before June 1st I think we should consider ourselves lucky.

Run through a scenario with me.  Lets say Reyes is cleared and good to go by opening day, that’s less then 3 weeks away.  He’s now ready to do an extended spring training down in Port St. Lucie to work back into game shape.  Jose is the type of guy that wants to get back as soon as possible and want to prove people wrong.  Not to mention he’s playing for a contract mind you.  Tell me you can’t see the reports now of Jose suffered a setback to his hamstrings because he was working too hard too fast?  Remember that Omar and Jerry don’t have the liberty of patience.  They absolutely need to be off to a good start, anything less and they could be, should be, gone.  There are no excuses this year.

Call me a pessimist but this season is quickly unraveling before our eyes.  We are supposed to believe that things can go completely right and we can compete and make the playoffs.  Unfortuantely wheels are already flying off!  Things are already NOT going right.  Now we are expected to compete with Pagan and Cora playing long stints?   How long till Cora’s thumbs fall off again?  It’s gonna be like domino’s.  And that’s not even considering any setbacks by Beltran.

It’s time for us to open our eyes and take a good raw look at this team, even if the management wont.  Let them continue to count their billion dollar business on “hopes” and “maybes.”  I am starting to feel like we used up all our baseball karma in that Game 6 so many years ago and we have been repaying a deal with the devil ever since.

Filed Under: 2010 Mets, Blogging Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Short Term Solution vs Long Term Success

Mar 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment

There has been a lot of talk about how Jenry Mejia and Ike Davis should be on the opening day roster with the Mets.

Both have been performing spectacularly during spring training thus far and there is a lot of excitement surrounding these two.

Everyone loves prospects.  They are like that unscratched lottery ticket, they can be anything you want them to be.  Unfortunately for the Mets they all too often turn into that scratched ticket that was one liberty bell away from a free soft-drink.

I am not concerned about the merits of either play breaking camp with the big club.  What concerns me is my growing fear that the manager and GM don’t exactly have this teams best interest in mind when making these kinds of decisions.

There is no denying that both men are on very hot seats, and they have to get off to a good start this season or their careers in baseball could be over.  For an individual that’s a lot at stake.  So much in fact, that you will really consider doing anything to give yourself an edge.  This is what concerns me, will they decide in favor of a short term solution that may harm the teams overall long term success?

Big picture I would really rather see Mejia and Davis both spend a year down in AAA with the likes of Josh Thole and Fernando Martinez.  Letting these guys season down there and learn to be professional athletes will serve them well for years to come.  Rushing them up and putting them under the bright lights when they might not be ready could crush their careers (see the vast list of Mets failed “cant miss”  and “five tool” prospects from the past).

Could Mejia or Davis make this club?  They are sure making a case for it.  I’d rather Mejia spend the season being a starter and build a nice base of results for us to make decisions.  I do not trust this teams baseball sense to make that decision based on “hunches” or “instincts” or what they see.  I want to know he isn’t cut out for the starting pitching role before we convert him.  I understand that making him the 8th inning guy wont mean he can never be a starter, but I also don’t want another Joba Chamberlain scenario either.  And lets be honest, the 8th inning is a pressure cooker role.  It’s not like he’s coming in for mop-up duty.  Look what it did for Aaron Heilman, that kid wanted out of New York in the worst way.

I’d probably lean more towards Ike Davis staying up if we had any other use for Murphy.  Truth is Murphy can’t play anywhere else and by keeping Davis we are basically giving up on Murphy.  Davis is 23 years old so more mature and probably more prepared to handle the New York sports climate.  But with all the hype you bestowed on Murphy last year, the Mets owe it to him to give him a shot.  Let the guy go out there and see what he can do.  Let’s be honest, this isn’t a World Series caliber team anyways, so it’s not like your undermining a potential championship by doing so.

My biggest fear is that Jerry and Omar will make decisions to save their jobs, not to make the Mets a better team big picture.  You can’t exactly blame them, but at the same time I really can’t trust them.

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: , , , , ,

Reyes should be fine, back in action soon

Mar 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Yesterday Omar Minaya spoke to the press before the Mets spring training game against the Braves.  He reiterated that Jose Reyes does in fact have “elevated thyroid levels” and that the team is waiting for the results of further testing to decide on a method of treatment.

Jose will stay in New York until these results are in, probably Thursday or Friday, and then return to Mets camp after that.

Like they said over at MetsBlog.com the Mets fully expect Jose to be back in uniform and playing in games next week.

The only baseball related question that remains from this scenario is if Jerry will still try to make Reyes his number three hitter in the lineup?  Now that he’s missed at least a week of games and potentially another week, is it really wise to ask him to do this?  I guess time will tell as it seems that Jerry is very determined to make the move, at least until Carlos Beltran is back.

Filed Under: Breaking News Tagged With: , , , ,

What happens if the Mets falter out of the gate

Mar 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Eddie’s poll asking if Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya would last the entire season with the Mets got me thinking. For me the question is not if they will last, but how they will get fired. As much as I try to be positive, I just don’t see how either of these guys keep their jobs past 2010 the way things are already going.

So how do they get fired? It’s interesting when you think about a team trying to firing both it’s manager and it’s GM during the season. It’s not common that a team needs to clean house entirely in the season, let alone go about and do it. This is why the Mets should have fired Omar Minaya this past off season. Allowing him at least another season only handcuffs the team, limiting options they may have had otherwise.

The reason for this is under no circumstances should Omar Minaya be able to hire another manager here with the Mets. Willie Randolph was his guy, and that was a poor choice for New York. Even worse was how he went about firing “his guy.” We learned quickly that Willie wasn’t really the problem when Jerry Manuel went out and accomplished the same level of incompetence by collapsing and failing to make the players in his own right. The next manager of the New York must not, I can’t stress this enough, be selected by the Omar Minaya. It’s time for a change now, it’ll be even more so then.

How do the Mets do this though is the real question. I’d be very surprised if they fire their general manager in the middle of a season. It would be a new low mark in a history littered with lows. So if they can’t fire Omar during the season what do they do?

Chances are they will remove Jerry and install Bob Melvin as the interim head coach to limp the Mets home for another of our patented seasons. The reason I say Melvin and not Wally Backman is simple. One because Backman would really make more sense, so you know they wouldn’t do it, and two I think they want to give Backman more time in the minors to prove he is able to walk that straight and narrow line. Personally I’d love to see what would happen if you injected Backman’s style into this team filled with spoiled brats. It would probably end in an unmitigated mess but it would sure be fun to watch.

To many the type of switch at manager that would happen from Jerry to Wally needs some time to adjust. It would need a spring training where Wally could ramp up his personality over the course of the camp. Just dropping him into that clubhouse would be nuclear most likely. These players have been coddled and protected for far too long, actually making them accountable, and calling them on it, would be a major culture shock.

we would more then likely be stuck with Bob Melvin carrying the team home to another lackluster season. Melvin is not a bad coach, he has a good resume, it’s just more of the same with the Mets. But if it means that during the off season Omar Minaya is gone, and we have a total fresh start here for the 2011 season I could be convinced to put up with it for a few months.

The key to the entire scenario obviously, and to the Mets future as a premier franchise, is the willingness of the Wilpons to keep their hands off. Good owners are businessmen. Good owners are smart enough to know what they don’t know. I’ve been told that you know your doing your job well in business when you hire people smarter then you. The Mets need to start operating like a smart business, and not a family toy.

Filed Under: 2010 Mets, Blogging Tagged With: , , , , ,

POLL: Will Jerry and Omar survive 2010?

Mar 9, 2010 By 1 Comment

[polldaddy poll=2814717]

Filed Under: 2010 Mets, Polls Tagged With: , , ,