Category: Management

Mets Finally Make Citi Field Their Own

Shea Stadium / Citi Field
Image by epc via Flickr

Demolishing Shea Stadium and building Citi Field was certainly unwelcome for some Mets fans. It marked a changing of the guard for the franchise and maybe even a sense for some of us that we would be left behind in history as fans of the “old” Mets that played at the “old” stadium. But I have to admit that before this season, I was really looking forward to going to Citi Field.

The surprise set in when we realized that Citi Field wasn’t really about the Mets, it was all about the Brooklyn Dodgers and Jackie Robinson. Sure, Robinson is an individual worthy of all the recognition that he gets, and more than we know. But there was something glaring missing from the new stadium… The Mets history!!! In building this new $800 million project, the Mets forgot that the Mets were going to be playing there and that they’ve had some history of their own. Continue reading “Mets Finally Make Citi Field Their Own”

Mets Have Plan To Replace Omar Minaya

NEW YORK - APRIL 08: General manager Omar Min...
Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Here’s an interesting story from Adam Rubin of the Daily News. Basically, he writes that the Mets have a plan to replace GM Omar Minaya with assistant GM John Ricco. Rubin goes on to write that the Mets haven’t decided to execute that plan… yet.

Beyond the story itself, you have to look at the reporter that wrote it. Rubin is the one that broke the story of Tony Bernazard’s bizarre behavior. Then Rubin was blistered by Minaya at his press conference announcing Bernazard’s firing. And then Minaya apologized for killing Rubin in public.

Now that we’re caught up on the whole drama, it gets even more interesting that Rubin writes about the Mets plan to replace Minaya with three years left on his contract. Jayson Stark was on ESPN Radio this morning and said that he believes that the Mets need to think about whether they want Minaya as the face of the franchise after his very public meltdown.

Personally, I have a hard time believing that the Mets would eat three years of a contract for anyone other than a player. You just don’t do that for front office people. I don’t have a problem with replacing Minaya. Having a GM that’s responsible for one of the worst trades in MLB history has always bothered me. Think about it. In 140 years of baseball, Minaya made one of the dumbest player moves ever. How can you trust him to control the future of the Mets?

Enhanced by Zemantahttp://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js

Mets In The News Aug. 9, 2009

Billy Beane's Parking Spot
Image by pursuethepassion via Flickr

The Mets are playing to avoid a sweep in San Diego this afternoon and the piling on continues. Kevin Kernan of the New York Post writes that the team should fire GM Omar Minaya and hire Billy Beane. Beane was the Mets first round draft choice in the 1980 draft and played 13 games in the outfield for the Mets in 1984-1985. I find it extremely difficult to believe that the Wilpons would fire Minaya and keep him on the payroll for three more years. He just signed an extension before this season. I don’t see it happening for financial reasons more than anything.

The New York Post Mets Blog notes that Billy Wagner threw another scoreless inning during a rehab game in Florida yesterday. The target date for him to come back to the Mets is Aug. 21. Wagner is scheduled to pitch back to back games for the first time on Monday and Tuesday. I have a hard time seeing Wagner pitching anything but the ninth inning. The Mets don’t want him back. They’ve already told him that they’re not picking up his contract option for 2010. Let him pitch a game or two in the bigs and then see if he has any trade value before the Aug. 31 waiver deadline.

Enhanced by Zemantahttp://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js

Mets Wilpon Apologizes For Minaya’s Outburst

Minaya1Mets COO Jeff Wilpon met with the media before last night’s game against the Rockies to express the organization’s dissatisfaction with Omar Minaya’s meltdown during Monday’s press conference. Mets fans are well aware by now that Minaya implied that Daily News reporter Adam Rubin wrote damaging reports about Tony Bernazard because Rubin wanted a position in player development with the Mets.

Wilpon said that Minaya apologized to Mets ownership for making a “very, very large mistake”. He went on to say that Minaya is well aware that he put the team in a bad spot with his comments about Rubin.

Rubin has received a voice mail from Wilpon apologizing on behalf of the Mets team and he hopes that Rubin will accept a call from Minaya to apologize.

Clearly, the simple firing of Bernazard has turned into a complete disaster for this PR-challenged team. I always thought of Minaya as fairly media savvy despite his lack of command of the English language. But this episode has exposed Minaya as easily shaken and a poor communicator.

All of this has left the Mets, and us fans, as the laughing stock of the league. Definitely take a look at Ray Ratto’s column for CBS Sports. He describes the Mets dysfunction in the front office and goes on the say that fans of the Royals, Nationals, and Pirates are thinking that it could be worse. They could be Mets fans.

Listen to Jeff Wilpon’s meeting with the media here:

Enhanced by Zemantahttp://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js

Omar Minaya Apologizes For Trashing Adam Rubin

bag head
Flickr photo courtesy of abbynormy

After Mets GM Omar Minaya attempted to discredit NY Daily News reporter Adam Rubin at a press conference today, he thought better of it and issued an apology. Interestingly, COO Jeff Wilpon was by his side looking like an adult forcing a child to apologize for bad behavior.

You can see the original press conference here. Oh, by the way, the press conference was to announce that the Mets fired VP Player Development Tony Bernazard.

Rubin quickly became the focus of the press conference to everyone’s surprise. This just goes to show that the Mets can make a bad situation even worse. You can see Rubin’s response to Minaya’s accusations here.

It’s been a bizzare day, even by Mets standards. This kind of bad PR just can’t be doing Minaya any good right now. Unbelievable… Does the embarrassment ever end?

Enhanced by Zemantahttp://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js

Mets Fire Bernazard; Rubin’s Motives Questioned

Omar Minaya

The Mets finally fired VP of Player Development Tony Bernazard after several stories of misdeeds came out like this. It’s not a big surprise considering the transgressions that we’ve heard of. Minaya said that Mets human resources was looking into complaints about Bernazard prior to the NY Daily News publishing damning stories about him. Minaya said that inter-personal communication problems by Bernazard were the reason for the firing.

The bombshell came when Omar Minaya implied that the journalist that broke the stories about Bernazard, Adam Rubin, had an ulterior motive for writing his stories. Minaya said that Rubin has spoken to him and other people in the Mets organization about getting a job with them in player development.

Minaya said that he “scuffled” (whatever that means) when he read that Rubin was the person writing the stories. SNY showed Rubin on camera during the press conference, who appeared to be shocked by this public revelation.If this is true, it seems to be very unprofessional of Rubin. I can’t wait to read what Rubin has to say about this.

Instead of Bernazard, Rubin became the focus of this press conference. Amazing! It was another great moment in this season’s Mets soap opera.

Enhanced by Zemantahttp://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js

Mets VP Bernazard Challenges Prospects To Fight

Flickr photo courtesy of Mykl Roventine
Flickr photo courtesy of Mykl Roventine

Mets VP of Player Development Tony Bernazard has long been rumored to be the guy that went behind Willie Randolph’s back last season when he was fired. But now Adam Rubin of the Daily News reports that Bernazard screamed at the Double-A Binghamton team, then ripped his shirt off and challenged them to fight. You read that right… To a fight!

Bernazard is a 52 year-old man challenging a team mostly made up of kids in their late teens and early 20’s to fight. Sure, the B-Mets are a terrible team with a 37-58 record in last place in the Eastern League. The incident is said to have occurred just before the All-Star break.

When Mets GM Omar Minaya was asked about it, he said that Bernazard spoke to the team in a stern voice and that he was upset about underage drinking on the team among other issues.

Rubin goes on to recount a story that Bernazard blasted the Mets manager of baseball operations at Citi Field recently. Apparently, he wanted a seat that was occupied by a D-Backs scout. The employee told him to wait until the half-inning to make the seat change and that set Bernazard off.

We never hear much from Bernazard himself. Although he did interview, unsuccessfully, for the Seattle Mariners GM job during the off-season. But the more we hear about him, the more there is not to like.

Enhanced by Zemantahttp://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js