11
2009
“In Omar We Trust(ed)”
An article by Former Writers
Omar Minaya was hired prior to the 2005 season to turn around the floundering New York Mets. The team and its management were in chaos. The Mets had completed three consecutive losing seasons with 86, 95, and 91 losses. The low point occurred in 2004 when the Mets traded top prospect Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano.
During his first winter on the job, Omar signed Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran. The Mets were moving in the right direction. The popular motto in New York became “In Omar We Trust”. The Mets improved by 12 games from 2004 to 2005. They finished over .500 for the first time since 2001.
In 2006, Minaya continued his hot streak. He acquired Carlos Delgado, Billy Wagner, Jose Valentin, Moises Alou, Damien Easley, El Duque, John Maine, Duaner Sanchez, Endy Chavez, Paul Lo Duca, Sean Green, Oliver Perez and Darren Oliver. That’s a lot of good moves! Each move turned to gold. All these players were instrumental in contributing to the Mets achievements during the 2006 season.
Omar was on fire, so to speak. The Mets improved by another 14 games and won 97 games in 2006. Even though there was to be no World Series title, the Mets were the best team in baseball .
Minaya deserves the credit for building a championship caliber team so quickly. Let’s remember that before we run him out of town too quickly.
In 2007, we thought the Mets would take the final step and win it all. Lo and behold, late season collapses in ’07 and ’08 shocked the organization and fans. Omar’s aura of invincibility was beginning to tarnish.
No one was prepared for or could have predicted the debacle of 2009. Nothing Minaya did worked. The Oliver Perez signing was a disaster, the Putz trade didn’t work, and the injuries were devastating. A barren farm system made matters worse and brought to light the deep rooted problems of the Mets organization. In addition, Omar’s foot was in his mouth every time he spoke to the media.
Omar Minaya’s mystique has faded so quickly. He’s like a batter who is hitting for average and power and then suddenly he can’t buy a hit. He’s now mired in an awful slump.
Players go through hot and cold streaks. The good ones break out of their slumps. Let’s hope that this winter, Omar breaks out of his slump in a big way, and returns to his 2005/2006 ways. Of course, a few lucky breaks and bounces will help too.
About the Author: Former Writers
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I agree, let’s hope Omar can get on the right track again this year and field a competitive team. I love your title, by the way.
I wrote on Omar today as well, hoping that his moves this offseason involve getting younger players. I have a love-hate relationship with him, but I’d love for it to be closer to the love side than the hate side. Of course, a successful offseason (which will only be considered successful at the end of next season) will help Omar get back on the good side of those who want to run him out of town.
I love the title as well, although I got nervous because I thought it said “In Omar, We Trust Ed” and I was thinking…oh, jeez…now they’re trusting me to fix the team.
ED, ON AN INTEGRAL POSITION BY POSITION BASIS USING OPENNING DAY(’09) ROSTERS OUR AGE ISN’T OUT OF LINE WITH BOTH WS COMPETITORS (DOB):
POS NYM PHL NYY
ACE SANTANA(3/79) HAMELS(12/83) SABATHIA(7/80)
C SCHNEIDER(11/76 RUIZ(1/79) POSADA(8/71)
1B DELGADO(6/72) HOWARD(11/79) TEXEIRIA(11/80)
2B CASTILLO(9/75) UTLEY(12/78) CANO(10/82)
SS REYES(6/83) ROLLINS(11/78) JETER(6/74)
3B WRIGHT(12/82) FELIZ(4/75) A-ROD(7/75)
LF MURPHY(4/85) IBANEZ(6/72) DAMON(11/73)
CF BELTRAN (4/77) VICTORINO(11/80) CABRERA(8/84)
RF CHURCH(1/82) WERTH (5/79) SWISHER(11/80)
CL K-ROD(1/82) LIDGE(12/76) RIVERA(11/69)
OF THESE 10 INTEGRAL POSITIONS THE BREAKDOWN IS:
PLAYERS BORN IN 80s: 4-NYM, 2-PHL, 5-NYY
PLAYERS BORN IN 70s: 6-NYM, 8-PHL, 4-NYY
PLAYERS BORN IN 60s: 0-NYM, 0-PHL, 1-NYY
TAKING APRIL, 1979 (OVER,UNDER AGE 30 ON OPENNING DAY ’09):
METS: 4 UNDER, 6 OVER
PHLS: 2 UNDER, 8 OVER
NYYS: 3 UNDER, 7 OVER
IN CONCLUSION THE AGE FACTOR OF OUR MOST IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTORS IS, IN MY OPINION, INCONSEQUENTIAL & A NON COMPETIVE FACTOR.
IT’S IMPORTANT TO REALIZE THAT SINCE OUR MINORS HAD BEEN STRIP MINED PRIOR TO ’05 HIRING OF OMAR, MANY OF OUR RESERVES ARE OLDER & IMPACT AVG TYPICALLY SUPPLIED BY COMPILING SITES.
The Mets have shown that they are a mediocre team, top to bottom. At best they are a flawed, inconsistant team that can’t score runs. I wish we could find out how many people the Mets have left on base over the past few years, I guarantee you its near tops in the majors. Its this maddening ability to lose tons of games by a couple of points and inability to dig out of shallow holes when necessary that really gets to fans.
You wrote: Omar Minaya’s mystique has faded so quickly.
Omar never had a mystique, all he ever had was an extra 70 million dollars that Steve Phillips didnt have.
What you thought was a mystique was actually the residue of over $100 million dollars he squandered on bad contracts and acquisitions.
He was not a genius for getting Johan. Any GM would have loved to have the ownership that allowed that deal to happen because of the extension window that was granted by the Twins and the approval of the Wilpons.
Beltran wanted to be a Yankee not a Met. It was the extra year, the extra $25 million, and the no trade clause that made him come to the Mets.
Delgado was a disaster. He hated the Mets and chose the Marlins who signed him for a backloaded contract that paid him 4 million in the first year and $14 million average in years 2-4. Guess whne the Mets got him?
Omar Minaya is by far the least proactive general manager in baseball. His checkbook managing style is useful in filling holes, but he doesnt have the foresight to see upcomming weaknesses on the team. All he does is out fires, he doesnt know how to prevent them.
You said “He was not a genius for getting Johan. Any GM would have loved to have the ownership that allowed that deal to happen because of the extension window that was granted by the Twins and the approval of the Wilpons”
but any GM didn’t do it, and we got him
You said “Beltran wanted to be a Yankee not a Met. It was the extra year, the extra $25 million, and the no trade clause that made him come to the Mets.”
but the Yankees of all teams that go the extra, didn’t and Omar got it done…….
The hatred for Omar is running so deep, now he gets NO credit and we are looking for ways to not give him ANY credit, you can’t have it both ways.
The bottom line is, we have not won since he’s here, so perhaps a change is needed, but he is by far, not the WORST GM out there…..we are looking to blame and he’s the easy target.
Beltran was on the FAN today and paraphrasing what was said, he said “WE, didn’t get it done, its not that we didn’t have the players, we didnt’ do our job”
Speaks volumes – I’m listening………
Kay, what was Beltran supposed to say? Let’s just theorize he feels Omar has done a poor job as GM, is he supposed to say that to the media? If he did how valuable do you think he would be to other GM’s in MLB? He did exactly what a good soldier does, fell on the sword. While I agree with you that he may not be the worse GM, the fact remains he is not good and unfortunately for me he is GM for my team and I could careless about how bad other GM’s.
Obviously he had to say the right thing, but, in part, he is right, while no one is arguing that we need “better” players, why are the players themselves that failed not receiving any part of the blame. These are still major leaguers that should have been better.
I am NOT giving Omar a pass, I’m just thinking that part of what CB said holds some weight.
and alou was signed in 2007 by the way not 2006, Cliff Floyd was still the LF in 2006.
Anthony
oops sorry about the Alou mistake. I hate making mistakes. Thanks for the correction.
and to add to that so was easley
Kay is right. If you kill Omar for making bad moves, he gets the credit for the good moves. He had an awesome streak in ’05 and ’06.
Pedro, Beltran, Delgado, Wagner, Sanchez, LoDuca, plus the others.
I agree with K Maxx. Omar made those aquisitions because he had the money to do so, end of story. NONE of those players signed with the Mets because of Omar’s negotiating skills, or had a relationship with Omar that drove them to sign a contract. They all signed a contract and agreed to play on the Mets because Omar was offering the most money, not hard to win an auction if you outbid all of your competetitors.In addition, he inked all of those deals and then went on a working vacation. Does he deserve credit for “A barren farm system made matters worse and brought to light the deep rooted problems of the Mets organization.”? Because he should have been working on actually building an organization instead of a team, that is a GM’s job. “Minaya deserves the credit for building a championship caliber team so quickly. Let’s remember that before we run him out of town too quickly.”…Let’s remember that a championship caliber team earns that label for doing one thing…WINNING CHAMPIONSHIPS! Which we did not do, just to recap “Omar’s aura of invincibility “.
It’s totally unfair to say that Omar doesn’t deserve credit for signing Beltran just because he offered the most money. 90% of free agents sign with the team that offers the highest $$. NO ONE signs because of a relationship with a GM. He also deserves credit for the Santana trade and the negotiations and how little he gave up to get him.
The art of signing a player is to offer him the highest $$ but only by a small amount more than the next highest offer. That’s why the Beltran and Santana signing went so long.
Also it has nothing to do with having a relationship with a player. You can’t have a relationship with Scott Boras.
Anyway, the point is that Omar seemed to be on the right track after 2006. He continued to make moves but they weren’t working. He has one more year to change his luck or he’s out.
“No one was prepared for or could have predicted the debacle of 2009. Nothing Minaya did worked. The Oliver Perez signing was a disaster, the Putz trade didn’t work, and the injuries were devastating. A barren farm system made matters worse and brought to light the deep rooted problems of the Mets organization. In addition, Omar’s foot was in his mouth every time he spoke to the media.”
You have the Olliver Perez and Putz disasters correct. However, regarding Omar’s performance, it wasn’t the injuries that that are most relevant. What is relevant is that he did nothing to adjust to them. There were planty of good to excellent players that become available following the injuries, but Omar sat on his hands and did nothing to repair the situation. He did nothing to push back to the owner that we needed to make select acquisitions. All he did was offer return dates for injured players, none of which materialized. There were several indications of direct lying to fans about player returns to competition. Mgmt was willing to sit on the excuses of injuries and poverty due to Madoff even though we know now that they prospered from Madoff. Finally, regarding the depleted farm, he did nothing to rebuild it during his 4 yrs in the job. He gives all the apperance of an exec who is comfy in his office and did nothing to provide bottom line performance. In my opinion, one more year for Omar is one year too many. Your article is simply too accepting of Omar and his excuses.
I’m no longer a big fan of Omar. He disappointed me in so many ways. I was hoping he would be fired after the season, but that didn’t happen. Regardless of my personal feelings about Omar, he’s still our GM and I feel it’s only right to support him and wish for him to succeed. I’ve been proven wrong before and would like nothing better than seeing Omar bring home a winner in 2010 and make me eat my words.
Bloops and lucky bounces are necessary to have a good batting average. It’s no different in building a team. It’s easy to say we should have signed this guy or that guy after he had his breakout season.
Omar always says to “think outside the box”. He doesn’t necessarily do it but to me that phrase means finding the the new guys who will break out.
Jason Marquis had a great season. So did Joel Piniero. Now they will command high salaries. They are not necessarily the answers. Omar needs to pick the next lot of surprises.
That’s one reason you let Murphy play 1st base. I feel he is capable of that breakout season. Now he’s got little trade value. Another team could steal him. Give him a shot in New York. If he succeeds you can trade him and let Ike Davis play. Or the other way around.
>>>>>Omar always says to “think outside the box”. He doesn’t necessarily do it but to me that phrase means finding the the new guys who will break out.
Jason Marquis had a great season. So did Joel Piniero. Now they will command high salaries. They are not necessarily the answers. Omar needs to pick the next lot of surprises.<<<<<
Absolutely true Danny. I’m a little leery of some of the names we are now hearing because they all seem like guys the Mets could have had last off season and passed on.
Dont sign players because you missed the boat on them last year, not only is it a dumb move but now you have to pay them twice what they wanted last year and give them more than just one year.