Omar's... um... Greatest Hits

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

To me Omar's worst moment was in '08, when the managerial seams split and he did nothing to improve the team at the trade deadline tother than cross fingers on a few rejects while the bullpen crumbled and the team coughed up another lead.[/quote:19n8vqsh]

Between this and our breakdown of wintry '06-'07, it just hit me-- there have been a LOT more Omar facepalm-inducing moments than even the most hard-bitten Minaya-hater can come up with by his lonesome.

Why not take those remembrances outside of the optimistic present-- where Omar's acquitted himself pretty well for a presumed-Dead-Man-Walking, and we continue to root for measured progress-- and exorcise the demons in a topic of their own?

So, yeah... Omar's worst moment(s), in your opinion? I'll start.

3) Bernazard firing: The public-relations equivalent of the Castillo drop.

2) Midseason '08: Rome burns again. Omar fires Willie too late, and fiddles with himself at the deadline.

1) Winter '06-'07: A sneaky-bad one. While it was happening, it seemed like a few of these were mildly bad on their face... but the sum total of all those moves? It's kind of staggering. (MY favorite part of Edge's list in the other thread-- perhaps to be reposted here?-- is that at least three of us have come up with other bad-to-terrible moves in about 30 minutes since he ran through his compendium. I'm sure there are others in there, too... it's like a wizard's bag of FAIL.)

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I can't get through complaining about Omar without mentioning

1. Wagner
2. Rodriguez

Not that these guys were/are necessarily bad or even worse than the theoretical replacements; just that it showed so little imagination when it came to tackling the bullpen and most likely make $$ that would be better spent on outfielders who could hit, or a real catcher or development or something. It just bothers me in a matter of taste.

[smg58]

It's tough to isolate one or two things with Omar, because the big deals he's generally handled/avoided properly. Does anybody wish, at this point, that the Mets had outbid the Cubs for Soriano or the Giants for Zito, or that we had landed Manny last year? He's been brutal filling out the back of the roster, though, and at times he's badly overpaid to hold on to replaceable parts.

1. 3 years and $36M for Ollie Perez.
2. 4 years and $25M for Luis Castillo.

I could take any of the 06-07 offseason moves that ultimately derailed two playoff drives. Heath Bell proved to be the biggest backfire, but for facepalm-inducing moments I'm going for this one:

3. Allowing Darren Oliver to make less money from the Angels over the past three seasons (in two separate contracts) than Scott Schoeneweis, who was vastly inferior at the time and did nothing to elevate his status.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

As much fun as 2005 was, you could make a very strong argument-- I don't have the heart-- that the Petey signing could slot in between Ollie and Castillo on that FA-signing list.

Also:

-- Should delayed-DL placement/playing shorthanded for the equivalent of something like 40-50 days over the last 4 years count as one big one, or a bunch of little ones?

-- Jesus Flores being left unprotected for the Rule V is a hidden "gem" (with extra points for not having anything to do with money or missteps in player-evaluation).

[smg58]

As much fun as 2005 was, you could make a very strong argument-- I don't have the heart-- that the Petey signing could slot in between Ollie and Castillo on that FA-signing list.

[duan]

i'm willing to give Omar a partial pass on the DL thing, people do it all the time (and other people are far too frisky at putting a guy on the 15 day to end up losing him for 13 days unnecessarily) and to some degree to me it speaks of the problem in the GM/Field Manager structure rather then of the actual GM.

Jesus was bad.

I'm ok with Luis Castillo signing believe it or not - it was probably a year too many and a million a year too much, but if he gives us 3 years of last year to go with the previous debacle we'll have got our value. We were paying a premium for perceived consistency and if you look at Castillo, he's generally been a good 2bman, while occassionally having a crap year.

Ollie was a bad bad deal but it doesn't look a lot worse then the one Atlanta handed Derek Lowe right now does it?

Looking the the free agent pitcher class that year in general it was pretty horrible below CC. In fairness to Marty Noble he argued Randy Wolf loudly and early - and I'm pretty sure lunchbucket agreed with him, don't know about the rest of us.

I

[Guest Edgy DC]

I'm not writing Ollie's contract off. Not after a partial season and a in injury. It's amazing how willing the columnists are to hang him for that when they've clamoured for the likes of Lowe, Barry Zito, and Carlos Silva. Enough already, the job is fraught with peril.

[duan]

it'll be HARD for him to be worth 18 million a season for 2 years, and seeing as he was actually worthless last year our damage is unlikely to be low. I think the problem with Perez is that he's so potentially brilliant that you can't help but WANT TO BE THE ONE THAT GETS THE GOOD ONE and forget how bad he is when he's bad.

Could be wrong, but I don't get the impression that he's the sharpest tool in the box, I some how think that and the inconsistency are in some way related.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I'm not looking for him to get three years of value out of the next two. I'd be happy with one year out of the next one.

Virtually all pitchers are inconsistent and enigmatic. It's just that the ones our team has --- and the ones our team pays well --- drive us crazy.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Ollie's problem was allowing himself to get out of shape over the offseason, which may have contributed to his health issues.

But having dealt with tendonitis for most of 2009 myself, I can testify what a bitch it is: Slow to heal, and only compromises you physically enough to prevent peak performance -- not performing itself. I think with good medical care and a better attitude, he can be/ought to be good again.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I hope so. Anything less is unacceptable and will INFURIATE me.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

I hope so. Anything less is unacceptable and will INFURIATE me.[/quote:2ma4vx2p]

Hee.

Even if you wanted to make the Ollie deal-- and, in mid-winter 2008-09, I'm not sure I sign him-- it seems like he was being paid for what he MIGHT put up, rather than for what his track record (checkered, with performance spikes in 2004 and 2007) might dictate. If you just scratched the surface of his 2007 and 2008 numbers, you could find PLENTY of evidence that his ERAs were highly luck-dependent (unsustainably-high strand rates, climbing walk rates, etc.). If you're signing him there, you HOPE he pitches like a 12-million-dollar pitcher... you don't pay him like one until he's earned it (and is likely to continue doing so). The way it's turned it out seems to have been disturbingly predictable.

[patchyfogg]

Wasn't Flores left unprotected in order to protect the 800-year-old Julio Franco?

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Among many uncoveted others, yes. At the time, the team was starting a 36-year-old catcher, and backing him up with a bunch of other thirtysomethings.

Do you put exercising Moises' 2008 option anywhere on this continuum, or is that unfair?

And what about the Keppinger trade?

[Guest Edgy DC]

As long as you give him credit for choices that weren't so impressive on face value, but have worked out, it's fine to demerit him for choices that seemed correct enough at face value, but didn't work out.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

As long as you give him credit for choices that weren't so impressive on face value, but have worked out, it's fine to demerit him for choices that seemed correct enough at face value, but didn't work out.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Then there's no need to pause as you fairly demerit him.

[duan]

Among many uncoveted others, yes. At the time, the team was starting a 36-year-old catcher, and backing him up with a bunch of other thirtysomethings.

Do you put exercising Moises' 2008 option anywhere on this continuum, or is that unfair?

And what about the Keppinger trade?[/quote:1un9l3y2]

exercising Moises' option was a balanced risk - I'm totally ok with it.

Jeff Keppinger had a good 234 at bats.
in 2008 & 2009 he was circa replacement level.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Among many uncoveted others, yes. At the time, the team was starting a 36-year-old catcher, and backing him up with a bunch of other thirtysomethings.

Do you put exercising Moises' 2008 option anywhere on this continuum, or is that unfair?

And what about the Keppinger trade?[/quote:3n9jze10]

exercising Moises' option was a balanced risk - I'm totally ok with it.

Jeff Keppinger had a good 234 at bats.
in 2008 & 2009 he was circa replacement level.[/quote:3n9jze10]

He still plays a decent middle-infield, walks more than he strikes out, and brings more power to the table (.390 slg, but still) than most MI. I think I'd rather have him on the bench than another guy the team currently has signed for 1-2 years (dependent on whether he's a vest man).

Which brings me to another one in the Cora signing, Part II. We'll see how it works out, but, as I've said ad nauseum, it seems a terrible-at-worst/quizzical-at-best signing on its face.

[duan]

2008 OPS: .657
2009 OPS: .707

last season he mainly played 3rd, and in 08 when played SS for most of a season he was 11 runs below average by baseball prospectus' metrics and 14 runs below average by fangraphs.

He's the kinda guy that if he gets hot for you it's great but for fucks sake don't think he's any better then a dozen or so dudes that are going to pass through waivers.

[duan]

don't get me wrong, btw, I'm not saying he's a terrible player, or that Alex Cora is a million miles better then him, BUT just that acquiring Reuben Gotay for him was a plausible decision.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

I'd say that one was less "bad" than "apparently pointless."

[Guest Edgy DC]

Many deals don't work out are highly plausible. Many that do are less so. But I thought we were going for a bottom line of how they actually played out, rather than their credibility at the time.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

I guess I could go either way... but result CAN'T be everything, right? It's way too luck-dependent, and I give him a lot less "credit" for a move's badness if it's reasonable-to-good in concept and works out going pear-shaped in a hurry. I mean, if Keith Hernandez dies in a freak-accident car crash just after 1983, the trade doesn't look as good, does it?

[Guest Edgy DC]

Why not? We're looking at five years worth of data. If the luck doesn't even out --- much like lineouts and dinky singles --- after five years, it's never going to. Else we're just stuck with more opinions, compelling as they may be.

[batmagadanleadoff]

The luck won't necessarily even out over five years time because it's the number of trades/moves that make up the sample size, not the amount of time over which they occur.

OE -- On the other hand, if the sample size is too small for whatever luck there is to even out, then one can also say that Minaya's record is too small to be accurately judged. What say we stipulate to ignore the luck factor other than for unanticipated injuries for the purposes of this thread? After all, there's always an element of the unknown in these trades/moves - the GM is essentially trying to predict the future.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I say we work with results results results.

How do we otherwise decide what's luck, what's foresight? Luck, says the man who pretty much invented general managing, is the residue of design.

[batmagadanleadoff]

I say we work with results results results.

How do we otherwise decide what's luck, what's foresight? Luck, says the man who pretty much invented general managing, is the residue of design.[/quote:1ekiqkyt]

I agree(d). See my edit.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

I suppose you're right-- if he traded Beltran for a pile of magic beans, and that bean plant grew several Beltran-like, ML-ready beanmen just starting their arb clocks, we'd probably consider that a big net positive, y'know? (Did I mention I had hash brownies for lunch? Also, have you ever wondered what your tongue tastes like?)

I'd still probably give extra "credit" to those moves which seemed pointless-to-insane at the time.

[batmagadanleadoff]

I'd still probably give extra "credit" to those moves which seemed pointless-to-insane at the time.[/quote:3c0hxmys]

I'm assuming that you meant "negative extra credit" when you wrote "extra credit". And based on my assumption, if those seemingly pointlessly acquired players then developed good value, you might be discounting that Minaya knew or saw something that you didn't.