Kevin Kernan of the New York Post caught up with Former GM Omar Minaya, who now works for the Players Association, and was at Citi Field on Monday.
Under his watch, the Mets signed Steven Matz, Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Jeurys Familia, Wilmer Flores, Lucas Duda, Juan Lagares and other key players.
“Matz has always had real good arm speed. He’s easy,” Minaya told The Post. “When we drafted him in the second round, 72nd overall in 2009, we never thought he was going to be there. We thought he was a late first-rounder. He had late first-round stuff and when he fell to us, we were like ‘Wow.’ ’’
As for the success of players drafted during his tenure Minaya had this to say:
“I don’t think of them as my guys. I think of them as the organization’s guys and I think Sandy and Paul and J.P. have done a great job of developing these players. It’s an organizational victory.’’
Classy as always, the same can’t be said of Joel Sherman who wrote recently that it’s “myopic ignorance” to hail Sandy Alderson for this exciting team and it’s core players.
“The parting gift came in 2010 – Minaya’s final draft – when the Mets selected Matt Harvey in the first round.”
“Or, you can argue, the parting gift was leaving Carlos Beltran and R.A. Dickey behind so Alderson could trade for Zack Wheeler, Travis d’Arnaud and Noah Syndergaard. In other words, even what have been hailed as Alderson’s best moves, so far, have Minaya’s legacy as part of them.”
At the time, a fired up Sandy Alderson responded, “I don’t attempt to take credit. My job is to manage and direct an organization. We still have a lot of people who were here with Omar before.”
Anyway, the key takeaway here is that “development” plays a significant part in the overall process. Obviously both Minaya and Alderson understand that while Sherman doesn’t.
Interesting fact: There were 21 players on Opening Day Rosters who were drafted or signed as international free agents by the Mets during Minaya’s 2005-10 tenure. Only the Braves (25) and Cardinals (22) had more.
