Tag: Omar Minaya

Highest Payroll in National League Should Be Good For Fourth Place

David Daniels writes that the Mets, despite the highest payroll in the National League, will continue to underachieve in 2010.

Courtesy of permanantly scatterbrained FlickrEditor’s Note: This is a guest post by long-time Mets fan David Daniels. David is a Long Island native that gives his take on the state of the Mets in 2010. You can read David’s work at his site on Long Island life and tech.

Baseball’s back! Let the season begin, but before it does here is where I think this Mets team will stand at the end of the year. Stock up on your Rolaids and Tums because we’re in for another wild ride and when the dust clears this team will be in 4th place and possibly fighting for the basement of this division.

Why? This team has entirely too many issues so I’m going to start at the top:

Management – A clown of a GM, two straight collapses, a ballpark dedicated to another team, a manager fired in the middle of the night, a beat writer blamed for the team’s troubles, not to mention the Madoff mess where the Wilpons may, or may not have, lost significant money – Mets Management has one debacle after another to their credit and, yes, we will get more of the same this year. I just don’t trust this management team with making any decision bigger that deciding if “Frankie should go back to glasses.”

From managing the media, to managing injuries to managing the farm system, the Mets have failed miserably at all three. The newest instances with Reyes’ and Beltran’s most recent injuries just reaffirms that management and the medical staff are still not on the same page. Expect more bad decisions by management regarding injuries. I just hope they don’t ruin any careers.

Having solid management from top to bottom is the foundation of a successful franchise. Another losing season and Omar’s gotta go. We’re stuck with the Wilpons because I really don’t think they will ever sell the team. The Mets need a new blueprint for success. Paying top dollar for free agents and plugging all your holes with retread players is a formula that Omar has proven does not work. Let’s cut our losses early this year. No waiting till 2012 when Omar’s contract expires. The Wilpons should have a replacement for him ready to go by the July trading deadline or there will be many empty seats after July. Except me. I enjoy buying $.99 seats on Stubhub. Really!

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Poll Results: Mets 2010 Worst Contract

Oliver Perez 18 votes 58%
Omar Minaya 7 votes 23%
Carlos Beltran 3 votes 10%
Entire Team 1 vote 3%
Jerry Manuel 1 vote 3%
Luis Castillo 1 vote 3%

 

It’s not a huge surprise that Perez ran away with this poll. The faux knee injury last year and his “rehab” stint in the minors was a terrible omen for the rest of his 3-year/$36 million contract.

I have to say that I thought that Castillo would garner more votes. And Beltran is looking like he may be a waste of $18.5 million this year if he doesn’t come back healthy enough to make an impact this year.

You can see the original poll post and let me know in the comments here if you didn’t get a chance to vote. Who do you think is the biggest waste of money for the Mets this year?

Mets Links: Beltran, Minaya, Stearns, SpongeTech

Mets vs. Rockies

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I was just talking to someone the other day about how early January can be kind of slow for happenings with the Mets. I thought the biggest news might be the team signing a free agent pitcher or Bengie Molina. Then that old Mets dysfunction reared its ugly head again late this week when Carlos Beltran had unauthorized knee surgery.

There have been a few other lesser stories going on as well this week. Here are the links:

  • NY Times– Omar Minaya says that the Mets don’t have a problem with Beltran and he’s smoothed over the issues with him. Yeah, sure.
  • NY Post– The Mets are suing SpongeTech for bouncing checks and failing to make payments since October on their advertising contract for Citi Field
  • NY Post– A good article about John Stearns and what he’s up to now

Mets Links: David Wright, Jay Marshall, John Smoltz

Mets vs. Marlins

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It’s 27 degrees and windy outside right now. I’m watching the NFL playoffs, but I’m thinking of warmer times when baseball is the sport of the season. With that, I’ve got some more links for you on this Sunday afternoon. Here are the links:

  • Jay Marshall claimed off waivers– I like this move. Marshall is a sidearming southpaw that has had great success in the minors, even at Triple-A level. But had no success at the big league level. He’s 26 years-old and it’s worth a shot to see if he can figure things out. This is a nice, low-risk move.
  • David Wright expects to bounce back in 2010– Mark Hale of the Post got an interview with Wright. Of course, he says all of the right things. He doesn’t blame Citi Field or the depleted lineup for his lack of production. Wright is media-savvy enough to make his 2009 10 HR, 140 K season all about himself.
  • Mets considering John Smoltz– Smoltz looked totally washed up to me last season. His 8.32 ERA with the Red Sox was atrocious. There are many options better than Smoltz at this point. The only way that I’d consider Smoltz a viable candidate is if he would take a minor league contract, and I don’t think there’s any way he would do that.
  • The Mets are actively scouting in Dominican Republic– Always Amazin’ has a link to a Peter Gammons-led discussion with Theo Epstein and Omar Minaya about the two teams being very active in the Dominican.

Mets And MLB Winter Meetings 2009

Jason Bay at a game between Orioles and the Re...

Image via Wikipedia

We haven’t seen much from the New York Mets yet this offseason but it’s still early. None of the big free agents that the Mets should be interested in have come off the board yet anyway. It’s been in the news since yesterday that Chone Figgins signed a 4-year/$36M deal with the Mariners. As far as I’m concerned, that’s fine with me. I like Figgins but don’t see where he would fit in with the Mets roster. Maybe left field. But that’s a stretch for a guy with a long term contract at $9M/year.

At least the Mets are set at catcher. That was easy. Chris Coste will be the third string guy staying in shape at Triple-A Buffalo. And Henry Blanco should back up Omir Santos. Yahoo Sports wrote that the Mets are still in the market for a starter at catcher like Bengie Molina, Yorvit Torrealba, or Rod Barajas. But I think the Mets have bigger fish to fry than another catcher.

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NY Times: Mets Should Trade For Halladay And Wells

Vernon Wells

Image by Keith Allison via Flickr

A couple of writers that I’ve never heard of at the NY Times are touting the idea of the Mets trading for Roy Halladay and Vernon Wells. I hope that Elena Gustines and Jay Schreiber are only temporarily filling in for Ben Shipgel on the Bats blog there. We need the voice of reason back.

The writers touch on the idea of multiple needs on the Mets (and forgot to mention the Mets need a first baseman that can hit). They also only touch on the fact that trading for Halladay and Wells adds $36 million to the Mets payroll next year, which is the total amount that the Mets are likely to add based on the salaries that are coming off the books.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind the idea of bringing in Halladay and Wells. The problem that Gustines and Schreiber don’t address is how complicated it’s going to be to reconfigure the roster to address the existing shortcomings at catcher and first base within the $140 million payroll.

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Voice Of The Fan: Mets Ownership

FLUSHING, NY - FEBRUARY 12: New York Mets owne...

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Since the 2009 season was a complete bust for the Mets and there hasn’t been much to get excited about since May, I decided to try something new during this downtime for Mets fans. I’m going to run some posts that highlight opinions from other Mets fan like me. I may ask other Mets fans that have blogs of their own but I decided to start by asking some of the fans that frequently leave comments here.

Everyone is welcome to leave comments on this site but I wanted to put the spotlight on some of the fans that really make this site fun for me to write. If you feel that you’re up to the task of being in the spotlight, contact me and we’ll work something out. I wanted to start with Robin Schwartz, whom you know as RobinTheBoyWonderingWTF in the comments here.

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