Memories of Omar Minaya

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

* Hilariously awful behind a lectern. And only worse once he got comfortable!

* "Show me talent, and I'll show you on-base percentage."

[Benjamin Grimm]

Wait... who's Omar?

[G-Fafif]

Inventor of the Adam Rubin Lobby.

Was very good at taking victory lap: everywhere I went, like the bagel store, people told me to get relievers and I got K-Rod and J.J. Putz.

Grew up near Shea but wasn't really a Mets fan.

[metirish]

The energy of his hiring , the 2006 season, the cover of SI with the players......his sideline gig with Rosetta Stone .

[Guest Edgy DC]

Loved a good bullpen arm.

Seemed to thrive on scouting amateur talent and was perhaps less comfortable in the big chair. In fact, that could also explain some of his mistakes --- viewing established major leaguers (Perez, Burgos, Francoeur) through the lens of a talent scout, and seeing what they could become, instead of what they had become.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

Brought pride back after the Art Howe disasters.

Getting Pedro and then Beltran. Had that one terrible off-season, but made some very good trades.

Was nice to me when I met his at spring training game. Signed my Mets history book and everything.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Played the Johan Santana trade market very nicely. Sure, there was some luck involved, but swinging that deal defied some pretty steep odds.

[HahnSolo]

The meeting with the press in Washington right around the time of the Bernazard firing.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: * Hilariously awful behind a lectern. And only worse once he got comfortable!

Explosively, hilariously awful. Like diarrhea, not like fireworks.

"We have a plan, and our plan... I like our plan."

[bmfc1]

September 17, 2007. I'm standing behind the Mets dugout at RFK waiting for the game to begin. I'm worried about the Mets starter, Brian Lawrence, and wondering how the Mets could have such a lousy pitcher starting such a big game. Omar walks by, a little grin on his face, and I'm thinking "it's his fault."

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WAS/WAS200709170.shtml

[Gwreck]

Dr. Joseph and Jeffrey Dello Russo.

Everybody remembers the big deals.

The little stuff that bothered me:

Giving out contracts/picking up options for 1 year too many:
Julio Franco
Marlon Anderson
Orlando Hernandez
Moises Alou
Damion Easley
Alex Cora

Failing to re-sign Chad Bradford but giving the same 3-year deal to Scott Schoeneweis.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Gwreck wrote: Everybody remembers the big deals. The little stuff that bothered me: Giving out contracts/picking up options for 1 year too many: Julio Franco Marlon Anderson Orlando Hernandez Moises Alou Damion Easley Alex Cora

Weirdly, he got much better at these, and not a little worse at the bigger stuff, as the tenure wore on. And really, the bigger stuff is just this stuff writ large-- bad valuation leading to bad player choices, followed by overbuying those guys.

[Guest Edgy DC]

September 17, 2007. I'm standing behind the Mets dugout at RFK waiting for the game to begin. I'm worried about the Mets starter, Brian Lawrence, and wondering how the Mets could have such a lousy pitcher starting such a big game. Omar walks by, a little grin on his face, and I'm thinking "it's his fault." http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WAS/WAS200709170.shtml

I had forgotten about Aaron Sele.

[smg58]

He definitely had his ups and downs. I think people forget that he did everything right in the 05-06 offseason. People also tend to get on his case for not doing enough big things, but the little things in the 06-07 offseason were what set the team back. That year, and his willingness to badly overpay to hold on to easily replaceable parts, did him in.

[Willets Point]

I always thought he was good at big things - signing Martinez & Beltran, trading for Santana, et al - but poor at getting the supporting cast for the big stars (often erring to players with impressive track records who were on the verge of precipitous decline or already declining).

[Ceetar]

Willets Point wrote: I always thought he was good at big things - signing Martinez & Beltran, trading for Santana, et al - but poor at getting the supporting cast for the big stars (often erring to players with impressive track records who were on the verge of precipitous decline or already declining).

I agree with this. I always felt he was one extra reliever away from a good pen, or always chose the 'safe/boring/crappy' bench guys when something creative would've worked better.

I'd say teh turning point to me was when he rewarded the cheating bum Mota, who was one of the biggest culprits in '06, and gave the long contract to Schoe. Also how he refused to even call up a Buffalo reliever in '07 when Willie was wearing out the sucky guys that were sucking. (If I recall Colazzo and Muniz were both pitching well down there)

[Guest Edgy DC]

He had a good pen, pretty much his whole tenure. What he didn't have is the manager to manage it well, or frequently, the offense to take the heat off of it.

[Ceetar]

Edgy DC wrote: He had a good pen, pretty much his whole tenure. What he didn't have is the manager to manage it well, or frequently, the offense to take the heat off of it.

I'm simplfying. "good enough" pen? "Better" pen?

While this is probably the case of every team, I always felt they could've used one more guy.

(and with the possible exception of Manuel, who may have kept post-interim by others, he hired that manager/offense)

[Guest Edgy DC]

It is the case with every team. The Mets pen was fine. One more guy or four mour guys wouldn't have helped.

The Mets had one the top third most successful bullpens in baseball this season while Jerry continually lamented it. They also lost their closer and probably got better after.

[metirish]

I think Omar did plenty of the small fill in trades/signings too, as noted elsewhere he tended to keep them for that extra season. It just never all came together.

[metsmarathon]

Willets Point wrote: I always thought he was good at big things - signing Martinez & Beltran, trading for Santana, et al - but poor at getting the supporting cast for the big stars (often erring to players with impressive track records who were on the verge of precipitous decline or already declining).

i would say that omar was pretty good at reeling in the big fish that he cast after, and was fairly creative in trolling the shallower pools, but did a terrible job of catching the kinds of fish you could put round out a meal with. he'd pay wild salmon prices for canned sardines, all while the sockeyes are runnin' up in alaska.

[metirish]

metsmarathon wrote: Willets Point wrote: I always thought he was good at big things - signing Martinez & Beltran, trading for Santana, et al - but poor at getting the supporting cast for the big stars (often erring to players with impressive track records who were on the verge of precipitous decline or already declining). i would say that omar was pretty good at reeling in the big fish that he cast after, and was fairly creative in trolling the shallower pools, but did a terrible job of catching the kinds of fish you could put round out a meal with. he'd pay wild salmon prices for canned sardines, all while the sockeyes are runnin' up in alaska.

Not sure if you are trying to be funny so if not don't take this as an insult......but I'm dying over here.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

metsmarathon wrote: Willets Point wrote: I always thought he was good at big things - signing Martinez & Beltran, trading for Santana, et al - but poor at getting the supporting cast for the big stars (often erring to players with impressive track records who were on the verge of precipitous decline or already declining). i would say that omar was pretty good at reeling in the big fish that he cast after, and was fairly creative in trolling the shallower pools, but did a terrible job of catching the kinds of fish you could put round out a meal with. he'd pay wild salmon prices for canned sardines, all while the sockeyes are runnin' up in alaska.

All of a sudden, I've got a hankering.

For some steak.

[Centerfield]

Always felt he lacked imagination. Could make the simple signing, and seemed personable enough to reel in the big fish, but showed an inability to anticipate problems or come up with creative solutions.

I've said it before, seemed like a C student.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Yeah, always too tempted to the big easy solution (Francisco Rodriguez = $aves!!) and [crossout:2y6d71rs]not great[/crossout:2y6d71rs] horrible at shifting gears on the fly to the point where he left himself no outs when things didn't break exactly as he hoped.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

Snake-bitten, too. Pedro and Deque going down before the playoffs probably did more damage than anything else. If Goggles doesn't take a taxi in Miami....No one could have predicted the mountain of injuries in 2009. He didn't have the people to back up those folks

[Valadius]

Rebuilt the farm system, completely underrated by the media on that front. Horrendously awful on the free agent front (and Bernazard didn't help) but did well on trades.

[Willets Point]

metsmarathon wrote: i would say that omar was pretty good at reeling in the big fish that he cast after, and was fairly creative in trolling the shallower pools, but did a terrible job of catching the kinds of fish you could put round out a meal with. he'd pay wild salmon prices for canned sardines, all while the sockeyes are runnin' up in alaska.

metsmarathon has become awfully folksy.

[Zvon]

I'm just very disappointed in him is all.
I expected him to be right up there with the best GMs we ever had.
There are still some residual results yet to be from his tenure that might shine him in a kinder light in the future.

[Guest Edgy DC]

He is right up there with the best GMs we've ever had. It's just time for a competitive team to move forward. GM-ing is hard.