Hello, I Must Be Going...

Hello, They Must Be Going…Part One

Wow- my first post for a writer whose work I’ve respected for a long time- one Mack Ade. Thanks, Mack, for allowing me to join your staff and I hope to be able to post at least once a week from here on. For those who don’t know me, I’m the former editor/writer of Mets Trades and Shea Nation, and have written for (and will again) Ed Ryan’s Mets Fever.

Today (Monday) was a heck of a day for Mets’ fans. As much as many fans wanted both Omar & Jerry fired (full disclosure- I was one of those fans), let’s not discount the many ways that Omar helped the organization grow. Additionally, let’s not forget that both Omar & Jerry are baseball “lifers” and will be (deservedly) back in the game before too long, Omar possibly as a scout with the Mets, Jerry probably as either a minor league manager (to start) or as a major league coach.

Omar’s biggest flaw wasn’t lack of ability to scout talent; it’s simply the fact that he was in over his head in structuring/running the day-to-day organization, a job that requires an abnormal amount of office-work, something Omar (admittedly) is not a lover of. I’ve found, over the years, that great administrators aren’t made, they’re born, and the same can be said of “creative types.” Omar definitely falls into the latter category, and tying him to an office and the accompanying admin responsibilities was/is a mistake. Put Omar into the middle of a baseball game, at any level, and he’s right in his element- evaluating talent, deciphering prospects from suspects. An example of this can be seen in how Omar fills out a roster.

We revel in the “small finds” that Omar comes across, the Angel Pagan’s, RA Dickey’s and Fernando Tatis’s of the world- well, until Tatis comes back to earth and is no longer useful. We love the “big signings” he makes – Pedro Martinez, Carlos Beltran, Jason Bay, Francisco Rodriguez – until the get hurt, get hurt, get hurt and beat up their father-in-law-to be, respectively.

We are stunned by the huge trades he makes- Santana for Mulvey/Gomez/Guerra/Humber, then become stunned again when Santana is also injured and the chances of acquiring another $20+ million per year, front-of-the-rotation starter grows next to impossible.

We rally around the “cheap” signings (Dickey & Pagan, again, as well as Takahashi) yet are repelled by the large, unexplainable (and ultimately, job-costing) deals given to the likes of Castillo, Perez and Bay.

We’re excited about the future in the form of Ike Davis, Ruben Tejada, Mike Pelfrey, Jon Niese, Josh Thole, Lukas Duda & Bobby Parnell yet are crushed when F-Mart, Eddie Kunz, Joe Smith, Brant Rustich & Brad Holt regress, or simply amount to far less then they were hyped to be.

In other words, we’re fans, and as a fan, it’s impossible to be confident about a team that begins the season with John Maine, Ollie Perez, Mike Jacobs, Alex Cora, Gary Matthews Jr., Frank Catalanotto and Fernando Tatis on the rostre (not to mention Luis Castillo). Omar’s calling card, if you will, was to invest heavily in “top talent” (a la Pedro, Beltran, Delgado, Bay, etc.) and fill out the rest of the roster with a combo of youth, his prized “finds” and a few big risk/big reward types. And yet, we wonder why Omar just can't seem to put together a single, cohesive roster since the end of the 2006 season.

Simple circumstances seemed to doom Omar- a cab ride by Duaner Sanchez, a worn out hip from Carlos Delgado, a crash into a wall by Jason Bay…and once again, Mets’ fans felt snake-bit.

Unfortunately, the majority of the “big risk/big reward” types simply didn’t pan out, and the Mets’ all-time roster is now littered with the likes of James Baldwin, Scott Erickson, Jose Lima, Miguel Cairo, Julio Franco & Guillermo Mota’s of the world.

Even the contributions of Pedro, Delgado and Beltran will always be clouded by the way their tenures ended – Pedro in injury, then coming back to help the hated Phils…Delgado, the one true power-hitter on the team succumbing to injuries that sadly ended his career (or seem to have)…Beltran being injured in mid-2009 and missing nearly the entire 2010 season, remembered more for the pitch he missed versus the Cards in ’06 instead of the fact that he became, upon his signing, the best all-around player the Mets have ever had, in any shape or form.

The acquisition of Santana, the coup of the 2008 off-season, is currently under great scrutiny- if he comes back by mid-2011, at least to 90% of his capability, fans hope there’s a chance for contention; without Santana, not only is there little to no chance of “meaningful baseball” past September, but even THAT trade will be looked at as a failure.

All of this has become symptomatic of being a Mets fan- after all, we’ve only played in four World Series in nearly 50 years, and have only won 2 of those series. Even the upstart Florida Marlins have won 2 World Series, and they’ve only been around since 1993, or 31 years less than the Mets. However, unlike Marlins’ fans, Mets fans are loyal, to an extreme rarely seen this side of Northern Chicago- to a fault! Tug McGraw may have coined “You Gotta Believe” but long after his departure from the team (and, sadly, from the world), it still remains the battle-cry of this organization.

So when we lose a World Series to the hated Yankees, see our beloved manager (Bobby V) fired but the hated GM retained (Steve Phillips), only to be replaced by the too-soon-fired Jim Duquette and the nice-but-over-matched Art Howe, we still believe…until, yet again, we are disappointed once more.

After the 2004 season, another exercise in futility, and one in which Mike Piazza’s star seemingly began to diminish, the Wilpons’ realized that they risked falling further behind a Yankees’ team that, for them, was also a failure, if only temporarily. Into this mess came Omar Minaya, a “homegrown” talent from NYC who had served under Phillips and had the unenviable task of keeping the Montreal Expos alive prior to their move to Washington.

Minaya, upon arrival, was tasked with turning the entire organization upside-down, with seemingly no department immune from scrutiny. This included the medical department (changes were made), on-field management (huge changes were made), scouting and player development (Omar’s favorite departments) and the entire structure of the front office. Sandy Johnson and Tony Bernazard, amongst others, were brought in to serve as Omar’s lieutenants, and seemingly overnight, seeds were planted, watered, received sun and behold- INSTANT ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE!!

Tomorrow: Part Two – Be Careful What You Wish For…