The 2010 team was a good team, and if it weren’t for injuries, they would have finished well above .500. The Mets were not a bad team. Your just foucusing on a backup who only played in 7 games, and not the WHOLE team, which was not bad at all.

Beltran’s condition was well known for 9 months before opening day, Omar didn’t prepare ahead of time he just went out looking for whoever he could get after Beltran had surgery in January. when Omar arrived he inherited CFer’s in Pagan, Gomez, Milledge and Cameron.

Reyes injury was guaranteed to be fully healed from 2009 and so was was Cora’s? No reason to have anyone else competent enough to at least defend SS. No better choice was necessary? Valdez wasn’t a better choice?

This was year 5 for a team expecting to compete that had been ravished by injury the prior year and GMJ, Jacobs and Cora were the best we could do?

Alright good job if you say so.

Anyway, the weak point of the 2010 team was the lineup, the pitching was surprisingly good. So if we had Reyes and Beltran fully healthy that year that team would finished well above .500 – No doubt. That was not a bad team, your just complaining about a couple of MINOR LEAGUE signings, that cost nothing, and they were probably worth a shot. And they are guys who every team has, and the only reason why they started for us(and it was only for about a few games anyway) was because of injuries to our best players.

While team wise, I think Alderson got a more talented team and better farm (not saying it’s good) Sandy has very little flexibility. I’d think everyone would say that Omar had the better situation and that’s the one they’d rather have. (Although, I think that now, Wilpon is truly letting the GM run the show and now they have the ability to draft any one possible and not worry about the slotting BS)

I really think Omar did a pretty good job, especially to start. He ended up playing “Dutch Boy” trying to plug holes after they started leaking and didn’t actually fix the problems before they happened. Some of it was because of bad moves, or more specifically, a lot of moves that turned out bad. Every GM gambles, either on moves the make or don’t make…Omar made some very good non-signs, and some pretty risky moves that failed. A lot were good risks that bombed out.

I just really think that trying to compare the two GM’s and situations are a waste of time. I also think that it’ll take a couple of years before any GM’s influence is truly seen and maybe even longer for Sandy because until the money problem is fixed, the team isn’t going anywhere. My real hope is that Sandy leaves the team with better depth that what Phillips left behind. That way, when the Mets are ready to compete again, they have a system of players in place to support a long run.

Reyes looked like a beast in January and no one could have foreseen the the illness that he had and the fact that he had to do nothing for a whole month in order to get right but here in year 5 of the plan the best we could do was Cora?

Beltran’s injury was more like a condition that was being monitored over the off season and while Omar did a good job in getting Pagan back, GMJ was the guy he was counting on to play CF. That was the best he could have done after 5 years?

Murphy was no guarantee at 1B and Jacobs was the best bookmark till we got to Ike? hey better than that then blowing a prospect for a minimal upgrade but again this was year 5. not to say that it would be reasonable for Minaya to have a few Major league ready prospects for every position by that time but his strength was in young player evaluation. He could have and I’m sure he would tell you this himself, that he should have spent a lot more time and effort on trading some of his inherited prospects or Major Leaguers for a number of higher end kids in A+ or AA and had some real solutions to step in if necessary. I mean he did have question marks at those 3 positions and I think everyone is selling Minaya short to think that he couldn’t have swung a few trades like for Benson at the deadline in 2005 for instance to pick up a couple of intriguing prospects to back up and eventually take over for some of the guys he brought in here.

Those guys would have been fine in year 1 but year 5? C’mon.

And it’s hypocritical that you bash Jacobs and Cattalotto signings but defend Hu and Emaus last year by saying “well they didn’t cost much”, well you know what? Jacobs and Cattalotto didn’t cost much either – They signed minor league contracts, and they only saw playing time because our starters were injured.

getting back to my main point, if the 2010 team was fully healthy, they would be pretty good. Their lineup would have been: Reyes, Pagan, Beltran, Wright, Davis, Bay, Castillo, and Barajas – The rotation would have been: Santana, Dickey, Pelf, Niese, and Takahashi, and the Closer would be K-Rod – That’s not a bad team at all. A fully healthy Reyes and Beltran would have made a HUGE difference in our lineup, and the pitching staff was solid that year, so if we were healthy, I think that team would have been much better than you think.

Why anyone compares the two GM’s situations is beyond me.One was brought in to add to the 2 young stars emerging,the other was brought in to subtract from the under performing,over paid nucleous.

All the GM’s the Wilpon’s have hired eventually wind up falling victim to this disease except for Mcilvaine who got canned after 3 1/2 years for wanting to spend on the draft and actually building a team that would be around for a while like he did as amateur Scouting director under Frank Cashen.

The really infuriating thing is that Omar is SO much more talented than Harazin, Phillips or Duquette. He had the ability to make intelligent choices that weren’t all or nothing type decisions. He also had the ability to get the right big star and plenty of money to work with. He didn’t have to follow Steve Phillips plan.

If Omar had combed other teams farm systems and used the assets he inherited he would have produced a team with quality and depth that would have lasted until his drafts and IFA’s were Major league ready and he would have had a lot more prospects in the system and a lot more money to work with.

Eventually every need had to be filled at the last minute and no one can get the best value or get the best guy that way.

Younger and more athletic became older and more arthritic and while he did produce an average number of quality prospects in comparison to other teams, much more than that was required when he arrived here and right as the steroid era ended.

Lost opportunity because we had a guy who didn’t have to go about filling every need the lazy and media favored way but eventually that’s exactly the way he went and it simply cannot be a coincidence that every GM the Wilpon hires does this. It’s done because of business reasons, not baseball reasons. It produces an avalanche of favorable publicity that starts paying for itself before the first check gets written where as the draft bonus produces next to no buzz that translates into dollars until after the kid is up here for 3 months or so 5 years down the road.

When he was hired, he had owners who were willing, ready and able to spend money to improve the club. He was hired with a lot of roster flexibility for any new GM to make their mark. He was hired with TWO young superstars waiting to make a name for themselves in the National League.

I think he took over a great opportunity to be honest. I think Omar did a lot of good, but the bad he did was gambling the future on the present and if they had won a WS the gamble would have paid off.

They didn’t, and here we are.