You loveable dunderhead
“The No. 1 priority was not long-term. Long-term, we were going to be contracted. And if you were going to be contracted, the No. 1 priority was to be as competitive as you can."
I'm not actually bashing him for this trade, even though afterwards the Expos weren't even moved until 2005 (3 years post trade). I can understand the feeling that if you're being contracted, and have a chance for competition to make a deal like that in what might be your last hurrah.
Here's why I'm posting this:
When has Omar Minaya ever thought in the "long-term"? He signed the following with the Mets:
1) Carlos Beltran (Insanely backloaded deal, 19+mil in his last 3 years)
2) Pedro Martinez (Not as backloaded, but still 2 years paying him almost 15 mil when he was 34 and 35)
3) Billy Wagner (4 year deal from ages 34-37 and 10.5 mil a year!!)
4) Fransisco Rodriguez (12 million in the last 2 years of a 3 year deal)
5) Jason Bay (16 mil this year, 18 mil last year, 16 mil next year, 17 mil vesting option)
Plus trading away several young players (Heath Bell, Matt Lindstrom, Brian Bannister, Carlos Gomez) who have made positive impacts on their new teams while the Mets have gotten Johan Santana (who had to be signed to a long term extension and injured his shoulder) as the only player from those deals that is still with the Mets, who didn't have a farm system under Minaya. Now that they have Alderson there, they aren't trading away their youth and are actually focusing on developing young talent instead of making reactionary trades (Ambiorix Burgois on line 1).
Minaya is one of the reasons the Mets are currently in their financial bind right now. He's made a lot of big investments and got somewhat unlucky with injuries, but he also made some contracts that would have been poor with or without injury. I mean, did anyone really think Pedro or Wagner would be good at the end of their contracts?
I didn't think so.
The first thing I thought when I saw that the Padres brought Omar aboard was that they're paying him to tell them what he'd do, so that they can do the exact opposite.
ReplyDeleteOmar's just not a savvy baseball man, he makes most of the right moves in the short term, but his tenure with the Mets was largely marked by his willingness to sign a bad long term contract because the first 2-3 years of it would be worth about what was being paid.
You can't however lay all the blame on Omar, the Wilpons are just as guilty of approving the deals as he is of putting them together.