I’ve supported Omar Minaya ever since he first took the reins of the New York Mets after the 2004 season. He took an organization that was in complete disarray and put the Mets back on the map. He said that the Mets would be rebuilt and taken seriously, and he gave us his five year plan that would make the Mets significant again, competitive, a contender and so much more. Wow, what a vision…
I became more hopeful and more sure of Omar when the Mets over-achieved and won 83 games in his first year thanks to the additions of Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran. In 2006, we won 97 games and more importantly we finally broke the hold on first place that the Braves had for over a decade. We came within one out of the World Series. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and what I was feeling. Two years in and Omar did what few expected. Sure he couldn’t have done it without taking the $80 million dollar payroll he inherited and enhancing it to the tune of $125 million dollars, but who cared man, we just won a division title!
That was the high point in Omar’s tenure. We didn’t know it back then, but Minaya had just peaked and it would all be downhill after that.
I’m not going to take you through the painful journey of the 2007 and 2008 seasons. You were there just like me. Suffice it to say that we were all feeling a little shocked, dejected and even outraged. Two straight seasons that began with such high expectations had spiraled into despair and shockingly so.
As far as I was concerned, they could have fired Omar after last season, and I wouldn’t have been surprised or disappointed. In this town, you win and you’re in, and there’s no guarantees you keep your job when you lose, especially when you choke the way the Mets did.
As it happened, Omar kept his job, and even got a 3-year extension which had the baseball world wondering if the Wilpons were tuned into SNY for the last two season. C`est la vie…
Fast forward to this past off season…
The Mets needed a complete overhaul of the bullpen, and that’s exactly what Omar did.
But what about the gaping holes in the rotation and the great big black hole in left field?
Were we really going to plug three spots in the rotation with waiver wire fodder and an erratic lefthander who didn’t get one phone call from another team as a free agent?
Mike Pelfrey was being tabbed and counted on as the number two pitcher? Really? When did Pelf suddenly become Lincecum-esque? Pelfrey is just another basket case cut out of the same mold as Oliver Perez. As I said last week, he is now good Pelfrey- bad Pelfrey. (mostly bad, last night not withstanding)
What good is a great bullpen if you’re not going to have that many games to save?
We had other questions going into the season too…
Do we roll the dice on Carlos Delgado knowing fully well that he had a hip that could go bad at any second? Why didn’t we have a capable backup plan? Remember, Daniel Murphy was anointed the everyday leftfielder, so obviously if there was a backup plan, he wasn’t a part of it going into the season.
Was Luis Castillo and his gimpy knees really coming back for an encore? Luckily he rebounded nicely, but lets not forget Mets fans wanted him out of town, and watching the boos and jeers last season each time he took the field, had become painful to watch.
The word was already out as far as the new park went. Everyone knew it would be place where homeruns go to die unless they were really crushed, and yet not one attempt is made to pack some extra punch?
The list of questions going into this season was long, even with the revamped bullpen that featured a setup man who Omar traded a few key players and prospects for despite Putz’s decline in velocity, strike out rate, ERA, WHIP, and of course his bone spur which Omar was aware of. (Why did we pay full price for damaged goods?)
You know what? I’m still willing to wipe the slate clean. (Again!)
It’s a new season, spring is in the air, expectations are high, it’s going to be our season this year. Yeah right!
This post is giving me a splitting headache, so I will quickly get to my point.
Omar, despite your few successes, the failures have become too much to overlook. By your own words, when you first took the job, you are a failure. You said that in five years we would be in the post season. It doesn’t look that way. You are on the cusp of losing as many games as the 2004 team you were supposed to fix. But even if we were to put all of that aside, you completely let all of us down yesterday when you stared into the cameras and refused to come clean.
Do you really expects us to believe that while other teams pointed fingers at us, and laughed, and whispered behind our back, that you had no idea of the things your second in command, Tony B had done?
Do you really expect us to believe that yesterday morning was the first that you ever heard of these shocking allegations and discouraging reports regarding Tony Bernazard?
- A verbal altercation with Johan Santana.
- A shouting match on the team bus with Frankie Rodriguez?
- Boasting that Delgado would start hitting once Willie was fired because he wouldn’t play for him.
- Undermining Rick Peterson and pushing for him to be fired.
- We all know now how the Willie Randolph firing unfolded.
- Going into a profanity-filled rage at Citi Field in front of dozens of witnesses, scouts, fans, children, etc.
- Challenging a clubhouse full of prospects to a fight and calling one of them a part of the female anatomy.
Omar, you expect us to believe that you were oblivious to all of these egregious offenses?
The way you stood up there repeating ”I will investigate” over and over again, was no different than Vinny “The Chin” Gigante pleading the fifth.
You expect us to believe you are going to conduct a full and impartial investigation of one of your best friends?
That’s like asking Dick Cheney to investigate George Bush.
Please don’t take us for fools…
Forget the three disappointing seasons in a row, forget all the bad trades, forget all the bad contracts, forget that our minor leagues teams combined are over 50 games below .500, forget how you sat on your hands when the Mets needed help at the trade deadlines, forget how you overlooked some weaknesses this offseason, forget how your faulty player evaluation skills led you to believe that Dan Murphy was a great leftfielder and that Mike Pelfrey was a number two starter, FORGET ALL THOSE THINGS.
I think you should be fired because I don’t believe you were being truthful and honest with us yesterday.
I don’t trust you anymore.
*Mets Merized Online Needs Your Help*
A couple of nights ago when talking with Keith and Gary on TV, Omar said the Mets have a good farm system. Huh?
That was just a bowl of Pablum (bland infant cereal for those who don’t know the term) . There was not going to be anything of substance or revealing (other than to reveal how shallow Omar actually is) in that interview.
He also said the Mets have the best medical staff in baseball!
The Omar statement yesterday was very disturbing. Here is a revealing quote from Adam Rubin’s article: “As for having to deal with the turmoil, Minaya said: ‘Put it this way: You never like to have these reports out there. But, when you have a big department, these things happen and what you need to do once the reports are out is make sure that you kind of look at them.’ ”
Notice what he said. First: “once the reports are out”. So if the reports do NOT come out you do nothing! Second: ‘you kind of look at them”. You “KIND OF LOOK AT THEM”.
I think that says it all. If he could supress or cover it up, he would. And his investigation will be a farce since he will “kind of” look at it. Guess he will be mostly looking the other way.
I just hope the Wilpons have some brains and figure this thing out for what it is and both culprits go out the door. It will be intersting to see what kind of whitewash job the Mets pull of on this sorry episode.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/2009/07/22/2009-07-22_mets_tony.html#ixzz0M5FgYeMT
Nicely said Joe D. The Mets need a fresh new start in management and the actions of Tony B. is the beginning of a downfall for Omar.
I lost track of the amount of times he said investigate. He failed to answer questions straight up. But of course, hiding the truth and giving half of the truth is what we’ve come to expect from the Mets organization.
His press conference yesterday was shameful. How could he just stand there and refuse to answer any reporters questions? It’s not like Bernazard was under indictment or something. No judge ordered a gag order. Why couldn’t he be straight with us? Is protecting Tony Bernazard more improtant than preserving his integrity?
What do you expect the guy to say? My bosses got swindled and won’t give me any money to help improve this team. Before Omar, our team outright sucked even though all the players were healthy. He overpaid for Pedro because he had to but I’m willing to bet that no Pedro, no Beltran. It is soooooo obvious that the $ dried up. Oliver was the last signing because that was in the process already and they were trying to save face. If there was no Bernie Madoff then there would have been at least an Abreu on this team. Hudson I’m not too sure about because Castillo is Johan good friend. I’m also convinced that the contract he received included a finder’s fee for convincing Johan to come on board. Is Omar perfect? No but how about giving him credit for passing on Zito when all these fanboys were begging for him. Everyone is still in denial, but let me give you all a reality check. Omar will not be fired because he will expose the Wilpon’s as being broke. Forget Halladay and Holliday. There will be nothing under the tree this Christmas for us Mets fans. Before you start telling me how money is coming off the books, I will bet you that next year’s payroll will be LOWER than this year. Where is the outrage against the Wilpon’s? How stupid can you be to invest so much $ without doing your due diligence? Sell the team to a real Mets fan and go follow Joe Torre to Dodger Stadium. He’s got a big glass of wheatgrass waiting for you.
We have to give Omar credit for not signing Zito? Why? So lets give credit to the other 28 GM’s who didnt sign Zito too. You make no sense when you throw a line like that into your argument. My advice to you is never to repeat that again.
Lets give the biggest credit of all to the Oakland A’s who got two first round draft picks for not signing him. Maybe we should get him to run the Mets!
I would let Omar Minaya go if I could get Billy Beane. After all, he is better suited to run the 2010 Mets and their $80 million dollar payroll.
Its as ridiculous as blaming the GM for half his team being on the DL and saying that our minor leaguers are garbage when we traded them for Johan Santana, one of the best pitchers in the game.
I agree with some of your comments. Omar does deserve credit, because all of the annointed experts on the web were convinced that it was an obvious, must-do signing, and Omar resisted that fan pressure. Abreu, however, you can’t blame on Madoff. The guy cost $5 million. Dunn didn’t sign for much more. That wasn’t a money issue – for the price we paid for Perez, we could have had Wolf and Abreu, or Dunn. You’re right, though, the money is likely an issue, and some blame must be shared by the Wilpons.
However, Minaya’s job of evaluating talent, as people before me have covered, is a disaster. Pelfrey was never gonna be a #2 starter this year, Murphy wasn’t gonna handle a full-time job in left, a Church/Tatis platoon was not gonna produce (mostly because Tatis wasn’t gonna reproduce last year), and using Parnell was a giant mistake because he doesn’t have any secondary pitches yet. The man should be fired. We need a real GM.
Ben, what I’m saying is that the $ IS the only issue. Oliver Perez was already in the process of being signed when the Madoff scandal hit. For the Mets to back out in the middle of the process would have exposed them completely. They went ahead with the signing and then completely shut off the faucet except for the $400K given to Sheffield. Coincidence? I think not! Then came the excuses. Abreu threw out a lifeline in hopes of playing with his countrymen Johan and K-Rod and heard crickets. All of a sudden Manny was not an option at all. Then came more “talking points.” Pelfrey is a #2 and Daniel Murphy is a bonafide starter? Don’t tell me that no one else can see through that BS. Blaming the GM in this case doesn’t point to the real cause of the problem, ownership.
Basically what I am saying in a nutshell is that if there wasn’t a Madoff scandal, we would have had Perez, Dunn, Abreu and Wolf.
I agree with you about the payroll. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to have all of our AAAA prospects playing in Citi next year under the guise of a “rebuild from within” strategy. Translation of “rebuild from within”: The Madoff affair has drained any of the Wilpon’s capital they might have spent on getting REAL major leaguers, so we get to watch a few years of mostly minor-leaguers with a couple of superstars mixed in (at least until their contracts are up). Oh, how I hope Im wrong…please let me be wrong…..
Well, Bernazard was right about Delgado hitting after Willie…just saying.
Seriously, Bernazard’s acts have been a disgrace, and the organization showed that they would not deal with this behavior in releasing Burgos. Granted, Burgos’s crimes were more serious than Tony’s, but this is ridiculous that he does this repeatedly.
This would he hilarious if it were a sitcom, but it’s not.
I’ll admit, I thought Murphy would be a capable player. Obviously not a .300 hitter with 20 HR, but I thought he would be serviceable. I would have liked to see us trade for Jermaine Dye in the offseason, when the White Sox were trying to salary dump him for small prospects, but that’s hindsight. We should have started Murph in AAA this year, but that’s hindsight.
Pelfrey is inconsistent, but he could make a #3. Pelfrey-Ollie-Maine would be a good 3-4-5. I don’t know what we could do about a #2.
Another unbelievable point was how when he was on with Keith & Ron, he defended the medical staff. Even if he had forgotten Beltran, Reyes, Delgado, Putz, etc., Sheffield is still in limbo right now. The medical staff has killed the team the most, with their mishandling of injuries. And he called them the best we have?
Dude you forgot the best part! When he was talking about getting Francoeur for defense and on cue he loses the ball in the lights.
for as much as omar did, there needs to be a change. we have no real farm team and no one is really working on it….
Omar did a good job at the beginning but its about time for him to move on and the mets to get some new fresh faces into the business end of this. regardless, i think jerry manuel is not at all to blame. its not his fault he has a AAA team, at best, on the field with him. then you have guys like Tony B, that are making fools of themselves and its getting stupid. the mets front office is a joke right now and the players and the coaches dont deserve this.
At this point the mets are doing the best they can but if all omar can do for this team is bring cory sullivan in, then we have some problems. he needs to try to make an effort. guys got hurt, your big guys at that, but you cant wait forever to decide what you want to do. the medical staff sucks and its a joke. PERIOD!!!!!!
I just don’t understand why omar even had that press conference yesterday. Does he think we are all morons and as long as he has some sort of chat that it fixes everything. He didn’t answer ONE question, he repeated the same freaking thing over and over again. I never even get the feeling that Omar knows whats even going on with the team. He never knows players names, or stats and he doesn’t know our place in the standings. I have never liked omar, he reminds me of a used car salesman or a slick talking politician and i can’t stand it. Injuries or not Omar has had a big hand in the way this club has fallen…
FIRE OMAR MINAYA!!!!!!!!!!!
FIRE BERNAZARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PERIOD GET IT DONE THEYVE DONE NOTHING FOR US WERE WORSE OFF NOW THEN WHEN THEY STARTED
PETER, YOU’VE ACCOMPLISHED NOTHING OTHER THAN FIRING THE SECOND MOST SUCCESSFUL GM IN FRANCHISE HISTORY. YOU’RE RIGHT AT LEAST ONE HEAD NEEDS TO ROLL, THE CORRECT VICTIM FOR THE GUILLITINE IS JEFF WILPON.
TONY THE BUZZRD’S PATRON.
HERE’S SOME OF JEFF’S HANDIWORK YOU’LL LEAVE UNCHECKED:
*CREATION OF VET PLAYER’S INNER CIRCLE
* HIRING SEPERATE PITCHING GM (CAUSING KAZMIR,BELL,LINDSTRUM,OWENS TRADES)
*ORDERED TRADES FOR BENSON & ZAMBRANO
*ORDERED MIDNIGHT MASSACRE OF WILLIE FIASCO
*FORMED “SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP” WITH TONY B.
*TURNED SNY PROGRAMMING ANTI-MET FOR OWN AIMS AT OMAR, HIS OVER PROTECTIVE FATHER’S APPOINTED GUARDIAN OVER HIM(JEFF)
IF YOU WANT TO DESTROY THE BEAST KILLING OUR METS U BETTER CUT OFF IT’S HEAD.
WHILE BOTH FRED & JEFF COMBINED ARE NOT THE OPTIMUM PAIR FROM ANY MET FANS’ PERSPECTIVE, JEFF BY FAR IS THE MOST DESTRUCTIVE ESP WITH HIS ABUNDANT INSECURITY ISSUES. LIKELY SECOND SON WITH HIS FATHER’S ‘HERO’ BEING SON #1 RUNNING STERLING’S TOKYO COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE ENTERPRISE.
MOST LIKELY HE WAS DOTING MOM’S FAVORITE, WHOSE BEEN RELUGATED TO RUN THE FATRHER’S SECOND MOST IMPORTANT ENTERPRISE. IF HE WERE A STEINBRENNER HE’D BE IN CHARGE OF STALL MUCKING ON THE HORSE FARM.
As I’ve said before, how do you fire the owners??
The New York team on the other side of town would not tolerate this and would have been re-armed when they were only a couple of games back in time for the Phillies series. Why don’t the Mets learn from the Yankees? After all (with the exception of last year), They always seem to make it to the post-season.
this is just way to much Drama for me. This season feels like a crazy episode of Desperate Baseball players. Omar should go, his idot Tony should go for sure. and we should just not play the rest of the season and put us fans out of our misery.
I will admit that you cant blame the injury problems on Minaya and Manuel. But the medical staff did mis handle them. However you can blame Minaya for a lack of depth on the team and a painfully abysmal farm system. Even if there was a move he could make right now he wouldnt have the pieces to get it done. At this point I am pretty convinced that the Mets wont be in the playoffs.
You’re right Bryan! In order to have a better stocked farm system, we NEVER should have traded our minor leaguers for that garbage pitcher who wears the Heinz ketchup number. (rolls eyes)
Again, for me, it starts on the top. Wilpons have to go. Firing Omar will do nothing in my opinion, in the end. The Wilpons made this. They wanted to end like this. Get the Wilpons out.
Not to mention the guy can’t put two sentences together. How does he even negotiate with other GMs and with agents…in sign language? I mean for a guy who meanders like crazy in interviews and when he’s on the air, yesterday was a new high in inarticulateness.
[...] from a clean slate? Not that it matters, but I would have to believe that the majority of fans are loudly hoping for this move. Especially when the GM makes absurdly wishful comments like this one. Well, at least one member [...]
Are you really upset Joe D? Let it out, not good to keep it all in, not healthy. I am ready to start all over again as you state in your piece. With just a few additions the current team, with those injured, can be successful for few years. The farms system just needs to let the players develop and not rush to next level. Stop trading you future for temp fixes.
Wow, comparing Pelfrey to Ollie is a low blow Joe, even for you. I know that you are “upset” with this years product and mgmt but Pelfrey is not Ollie. Pelfrey has shown more in the last two years in spite of his recent 5th inning problems than Ollie. I didn’t hear you complaining about Pelfrey last year. This is his 2nd “full” year and I believe that he will become a fixture in Met rotation in future, maybe not a #2 but a consistent pitcher when he learns and pitches more. His problem is the team sucks so you have to criticize everyone. Omar did bring back respectablity to mets but injuries are not predictable so how can that be anyone’s fault? Players also have to say they won’t play if hurt to minimize their time away from team.
I don’t mean to butt in, but I feel I must. I don’t know about Joe, but I am terribly disappointed with Pelfrey and I would like to explain why.
Last season, I felt as though Mike Pelfrey exceeded my expectations. He was a number five pitcher who basically performed like a number 3 pitcher. After a poor showing in a limited appearance in 2007, he pitched to a 3.72 ERA and gave us 200 innings in his first full season. Unlike hitters who are more prone to a sophomore drop-off, pitchers usually continue to improve or stay at the same level.
Pelfrey has an ERA of 4.99 which ranks him in the bottom five of pitchers with 100 or more innings pitched. He has been wildly inconsistent. He is throwing more pitches per inning pitched which is the one area a good pitcher will show improvement in his second year.
He has also shown a decline in strikeout rate and velocity which is a little troubling and makes one wonder if there is any troth to the Verducci effect. Righthanders are hitting .289 against him. (.245 LY)His 1.50 WHIP is also a concern.
He went from a moderate pitchers park to an extreme pitchers park and yet his numbers all took a turn for the worse. He also benefited from a bullpen that allowed practically none of his inherited runners to score.
His hits per nine innings pitched went up by 1.00.
There is not one positive indicator for Pelfrey this season.
He has not pitched 8 innings or more once this season. Last season he had two complete games and two other games in which he pitched 8 innings. They accounted for 4 of his 13 wins.
He has the makings of a career bottom of the rotation starter. He cannot control his number one pitch, his sinker. His other pitches are below average.
He may be a number two pitcher for the Pirates or Royals, but for a team like the Mets, he should be residing in the number 4 spot at best.
Hi Sarge, thanks for the comment and question, sorry for the tardy reply, I was out of commission yesterday.
I am very upset, like most Mets fans are. I like Pelfrey, he’s a good Steve Trachsel type starter. I just don’t like to read these unrealistic expectations about him. He’s simply not a top of the rotation guy like the Mets would have you believe.
We need Roy Halladay. As I mentioned in another post, we have wasted five out of that seven year deal we gave Beltran. Here we are putzing around with bottom of the rotation guys who the Mets would have you believe are top of the rotation guys.
They are on the verge of pulling the same scam with Niese who was never even a top 50 prospect in his Mets tenure.
The Mets want to pretend Pelf is huge because they screwed up big! Tony B and Omar dropped the ball! They played Selig’s slot game and passed on Ellsbury, J. Bruce, McCutchen, Rasmus, Maybin, Mayberry and took Pelf because he was singable. Pelf was a deep reach. The picks leading up to Pelf were Upton, R. Zimmerman, Braun, Romero and Tulowitski.
The Mets want to convince themselves that they shared in what many scouts called the deepest draft of first round mega prospects in this decade.
The Mets drafted nine and instead of taking one of the big bonus babies, they had a top ten pick but chose a second round talent. But in the end, you are what you are. And Pelfrey is bottom of the rotation guy who will have one or two 17 win seasons in his prime.
Lets go mets Calm down Joe, you love the Mets like we all do and this is the season from hell.