After two different tenures with the Mets, six as GM and six as an assistant GM, Omar Minaya is probably one of the longest tenured employees in the Mets front office after Jay Horwitz.
When Minaya was finally relieved of his duties at the end of last season, he was told that he could stay on with the organization in a different capacity.
Yesterday, Alderson spoke a little bit about the situation with Omar and said that he has offered his predecessor a role with the Mets, but still has not heard back from him. Alderson gave no description of what that role was.
He indicated that the two of them shared dinner earlier this month and that the ball was now in Minaya’s court.
“Look at it from Omar’s perspective,” Alderson said. “Coming back to the organization would involve a certain adjustment from his standpoint, psychologically, emotionally. He’s got a lot invested here with the position he had over all of those years. Coming back and interacting with many of the same people in a different capacity is a change. I think anybody would need some time adjust to that.”
I look at Omar Minaya as a sympathetic figure these days. He gave it his best shot and started out with a great vision and promising results, but somewhere down the road he lost his way and veered terribly off course.
Still, if the Mets do make some noise this season as Alderson expects they will, Minaya should still share in a big part of any glory. Aside from the $8 million dollars of the projected $140 million dollar payroll the new regime spent, the vast majority of the Mets resources still hail from Omar Minaya, and in many ways this is still the same team we ended last season with.
I’m actually glad Minaya is sticking around in some capacity. The last good memories this team I had were in 2006 and he was a big reason for that. Before that I have to go all the way back to 2000 – -many forget that he was a significant part of that too as Steve Phillips’ assistant.
I know it’s very fashionable to knock Omar Minaya these days, but if he didn’t truly love the Mets, he could have said sayonara a long time ago and just collected all the money that is still owed to him. He didn’t. Instead he’s agonizing over making a tough decision to stay on in a subordinate position, something that most of us probably would have walked away from. He is truly in a tough spot.
