And I found this about Cruz:

“The son of two schoolteachers in Monte Cristo, Dominican Republic, Cruz was signed at 18 by the Mets’ international scouting team of Omar Minaya and Eddy Toledo (who also signed Jose Reyes, the Mets’ shortstop).

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/sports/baseball/late-sudden-unsurprising-the-emergence-of-nelson-cruz.html

I’m not the only one saying he was invloved with signing Nelson Cruz.

And when your the director of international scouting for a team you should get credit for the IFA’s that were signed. I have a hard time believing someone in that postion was not invloved with those signigns.

Same thing with Cruz and Reyes, he was involved with the scouting or signing of those players.

Sure the guys who scouted the players for us deserved credit. But they all worked for Minaya, and all those players were signed under his administration.

Hi Jessep,

You are 100 percent correct with that and perhaps this gets to the root of the matter, at least for me.

Try and see it for a moment from my perspective. Many of my friends were disgusted with the way Omar had handled the team, especially with the large budget he was given. When Sandy was hired, they were then telling me how great a move this would be, citing Sandy’s eye for talent, how he built those clubs in Oakland by going outside the box, using saber metric analysis and proving that one did not need to spend ridiculous sums of cash to put together a winning team.

When Sandy made his signings back in the winter of 2010 truly felt the Mets were buying on the cheap simply to fill roster spaces because the Wilpons were in serious financial trouble which could result in having to sell the team. Now, I know you and others are aware that I feel Sandy is more astute in financial reorganization and legal matters and relies more on those he has hired to recommend player personnel matters than Omar but keep in mind that at that time I didn’t think so.

So when Sandy made his signings back in the winter of 2010 I sensed the Mets were buying on the cheap simply to fill roster spaces during the time the Wilpons were in serious trouble and could lose ownership. But others contested that we were going to be surprised by the likes of Capuano, Young, Carasco, Boyer, Buccholz, Emus, Polino, etc., citing that with his use of computer analysis Sandy was again spotting undervalued players (in both terms of talent, specific ability that would fit into the team and money) that other clubs did not appreciate. They certainly saw those moves in a much better light than I did.

Well, as we know other than for Byrdak, those other players were utter failures (if Capuano did not receive the seventh best run support in the national league he would not have had anything close to that 12-13 record). So then the consensus was that since Sandy didn’t spend much on these players, we didn’t get burned by them in the process. At the same time, the focus shifted on rebuilding for the future instead of putting all our dice on the table to win now. I contested then (as I do now) that teams could do both.

Their lip-flops turned me off to the current front office. Had they not insisted that the moves made that winter were sound because Sandy and his people had made them I might not feel so strongly about the front office that I do today. I truly believe Sandy and his people of course with the Wilpons want very much to win. To think otherwise would be foolish. However, I also believe the same holds true for Billy Beane, Sandy’s protege with Oakland. Yet, like with Beane on the west coast, the Mets too are operating like a small market team with financial liabilities. Beane is now in his sixth year of rebuilding for the future in Oakland. This is because he almost always has sent most of his young talent packing when they neared eligibility for arbitration.

That’s what I see the Mets doing now. Rebuilding is a smoke screen for not having the money. Now, that is not Sandy’s fault. But I would be less turned off to the front office if some would at least acknowledge that as a factor in their assessments rather than to ignore it. A friend of mine recently wrote to me:

“Joe, it’s not that Sandy won’t EVER spend money, it’s that it has to make
sense. You’ve complained about them not signing Feliciano at $8 million,
not signing Takahashi at $8 million, and trading K-Rod and the $17 million
he would have been due. That’s money that they saved that they now have to
give to players where it makes more sense. Dickey falls into that category.

Look at it as the second phase of the plan. He let guys go and avoided igning guys (which was unpopular) to clear money. He’s done that, and now he’s got a player worthy of an investment.”

What I mentioned to him was that the money saved was not being “cleared” for others but rather was used to reduce the payroll to help offset operating expenses and that for the immediate future it never will. Sandy still projects keeping the payroll under $100 million for at least a few more seasons. That is not “clearing money” as my friend suggested. After next season Wright is going to command a big contract along with R.A. And in another two years Davis, Murphy, Gee and others will begin becoming eligible for arbitration. Even with the kids coming up from the farm system, that doesn’t leave much room for anybody else.

The bottom line is that he still doesn’t acknowledge the real possibility that there might be other reasons for the direction the Mets are heading toward not related to a baseball strategy similar to the situation Beane is being forced to work under in Oakland. So that is where my head is at and hope you can understand why me and others might feel the way that we do, even if we still disagree. Perhaps if those who have faith in Sandy would curb their enthusiasm a bit then those like me could meet them in a middle ground.

Joey D.

And nobody is sitting here saying that Omar has a great eye for talent solely because he acquired Dickey. People say Omar has a great eye for talent not JUST because of Dickey, but because of what he did in his career as a scout and GM. As as scout with Texas, he helped sign or scout guys like Sammy Sosa, Jaun Gonzalez, and Ivan Rodriguez. And with the Mets as assistant GM, guys like Jose Reyes and Nelson Cruz. So, that’s the main reason why Omar has a reputation for having a great eye for talent.

Your right by saying that nobody could have know how good R.A would be, but you have to give credit to the guy that signed him for giving him a chance when nobody else wanted to.

Maniac left out that he wanted to sign him after 07 after seeing how good he did in the minors that year for the Brewers(he was 13-6 with a 3.72 ERA). And was impressed how he pitched against the Mets with the Mariners the following year – So it was not a total shot in the dark. Omar saw that he had potential, and he liked him, so he should absolutely get credit for bringing him here.

It was a good move. Any minor league deal you sign that turns into a regular quality player is a good move.

But they are shots in the dark. Getting it right doesn’t make Sandy Alderson a genius and it doesn’t make Omar a genius.

RA Dickey was not the pitcher he has become in 2012 when Minaya signed him. He throws the most unpredictable pitch in the entire sport and he has had to continue to work on it.

Dickey wasn’t a knuckler talent found by Minaya. Minaya found a guy with a solid work ethic that he liked and Dickey turned himself into the cy young contender we see today.

Again, you claim I am all about guys like Sandy, JP, Depo etc. I’m not sitting here saying JP has some amazing eye for talent solely because he acquired Jose Bautista before he became the power hitter we know today. Are you? Are you going to reply to this and say JP Ricciardi deserves praise for Bautista?

If so, I’d like to see if you can say something positive about him.

Dickey is who deserves thanks for Dickey. Everybody else was just a small piece of the puzzle to buy him time to get to where he is. Nobody knew or could predict how good he’d be.

“I almost signed him before he went to Seattle and Minnesota”

So he says he wanted RA Dickey before November 2007. RA Dickey barely had his knuckler even working by then.

So I’m loving the fact Omar says he liked Dickey back then because it PROVES he didn’t sign him because he knew he’d be this 2012 version. He wanted him because he liked him.

RA Dickey wasn’t half the pitcher in 2007 that he is today.

I’m not sure how you think that proves he didn’t get lucky with RA?

I was just as dumbfounded by that interview as you were. All of us were wrong underestimating Omar on this one. He always saw something in R.A. even before he developed his knuckler. And as we see, it went beyond talent but with him assessing Dickey as a smart and gutsy individual.

What Omar saw in R.A. were characteristics that could not be measured via computer analysis but only through traditional baseball knowledge. Same held true with a washed up Fernando Tatis who did a fine job when nobody else wanted him (three times released and re-signed by the Mets). These might be the only two “under valued” players overlooked by others clubs that Omar ever signed which yielded really good results for more than a month or so but we haven’t seen any player come close to them in performance despite the many low risk signings made over the past two winters and that includes Chris Capuano who pitched to an ERA more than 5.00 the last two-thirds of the season and hardly ever made it through the sixth inning.

Minaya says he has always loved and followed Dickey for his entire career going back to when he was with the Rangers.

I almost signed him before he went to Seattle and Minnesota. Omar said he always thought Dickey was special and had a lot of guts.

When we signed him for the Mets and he got shelled in that first spring training start, he still wanted him to stay on and convinced him to bolster the Triple-A rotation and keep working.

Omar also said, to be honest I also thought Dickey was so smart and likable that I thought he would be a coach for us one day. I’ve been a Dickey fan from day one.

So it wasn’t a lucky lottery pick as some suggested. Nice job Omar. Thanks Omar.

BenBadler (Newspaper / Magazine) Freddy Galvis suspended 50 games for the anabolic steroid Clostebol.

http://twitter.com/BenBadler/statuses/215190091482677249

Please recognize that due to your respect and confidence in Sandy there have been points about our disagreements that I have clearly stated but are being mis-interpetrated. Perhaps saying

“Same old conspiracy theory. Load of garbage..”

and only partially quoting what I said was why Metsi felt he had to clarify the point I was making. I know I felt I had to.

It’s the Wilpons combined past, present and future financial circumstances being on such shaky footing which could prevent even the re-signing of R.A. – not Sandy’s philosophy regarding the roster in terms of both fiscal restraint and years of commitment (BTW – Metsi and I have our own disagreement on how much these other holdings do or do not affect the finanical stability of the franchise).

Well, that’s an issue I have no knowledge about and would rather not comment on.

Joe “Y”

Dickey is making history. Two more 1 hitters and he matches Seaver’s career total with the Mets. Alex stop spewing and enjoy a great moment in baseball.

We didn’t start the Sandy vs Omar conversations we merely responded to your use of maligning Omar as doing everything very badly (including the build of our Minor Leagues) as compared to Sandy who has not made a bad move yet as far as your concerned by signing nothing but role players found at KMart!

You started the comparison and now that you seemingly lost the Minor League Omar destroyed myth to use in your comparisons all of a sudeen the conversation is not worth having anymore! And anyone who starts it or makes comparisons of Omar vs Sandy are being unfair and bad where before they were smart and savy!

Please your fooling no one here!