You’re not going to like this …
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- December
- 3
We just finished with Omar Minaya, and essentially he braced us for nothing. As in no trades. As in no substantial additions.
I asked him based on how last season ended whether he felt any pressure to make a trade. His response: “You get in trouble when you feel you have to make a trade. You make a trade only if it makes sense. I don’t feel like we have to make a trade.’’
Minaya said he believes the team he has today is better than the one he broke camp with last spring.
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on Monday, December 3rd, 2007 at 7:40 pm by John Delcos.
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Maybe we can get JS as our next GM.
Great Philosophy. I wish Minaya had followed it last Friday.
NEW YORK, JANUARY 3, 2008 (AP)—The New York Mets today introduced their two newest acquisitions, free-agent pitchers Livian Hernandez and Bartolo Colon.
does this mean he said they won’t make a trade? John can u please get the whole text from the interview with him (you can leave out the 15 “joo know what im sayins)If he feels like he does not need to make a trade he is a lunatic! He hasn’t even addressed the bullpen. I havn’t even heard the mets linked to any RP!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (wait dotel and chawcon but w/e)last year I remember the same crap from him saying if glavine didn’t come back they would’ve needed to make a deal. well hey Omar glavine is not coming back! JD is it possible to fire back at him saying the fan base greatly feels a trade needs to happen to erase the debacle of 07? I’m so glad the wilpons declined giving him an extension he must go before the spring if he can not acquire a frontline SP. and willie must go by mid may if the team is playing poorly! BTW JD love the blog and happy it’s finally up and running again!
I would be pleased with no deals if it would have been before last week. If your kids can’t fetch you top notch ball players, let them develop and see what happens with next years’ FA class. I’d much rather have Pelfrey/Humber/Mulvey in the rotation than Livan, Silva, Colon. And I’d much rather watch Gomez and F-Mart develop in Queens than watch a mediocre player like Church or watch 41 year olds get hurt every time they breathe.
So I hope he isn’t lying like he was when he said he was getting an ace.
As for the team being better than last year’s opening day team, if he said it was worse, his honesty would not do him well before the NY press, would it?
JD:
How come this site is down so much while your paper’s Yankee site does not go down. We are second team in every regard. Even newpaper servers favor the Yankees!
I hate to even bring this up because the past is the past, etc. but seeing the price a front line starter costs today really puts the Kazmir trade in a new light.
on one hand I’m glad there is not a panic.
But this really shows that Omar has not done a good job w/the farm system. Which I believe w/revenue sharing will be increasingly important as smaller mrkt teams can hold onto their players, at least thru arb yrs.
on the other, w/o any additions, I can’t see how the Mets are much better than the .500 team that played the last 4 mos of 07. Especially, w/one less possible pitcher who can throw 200inn (Glavine).
-No SP added, No RP added, Lost a 200inn SP
That = .500 BB
Too earlier to say for sure, but the team as of now will only be a 90 win team if:
-Pedro & ElDuque can start 25 games & win 12 ea
-Maine and OP can throw 200+ inn & win 15-17 ea
-Pelfrey (or some inn eater guy brought in) can win 8-10 gms and picthes 150+inn
This means 62-68 wins from your SPs. You need about 65 or so to get 90 wins (look it up).
-Sanchez comes back to about his pre-AS 06
-Show pitches like he did the last mo or so
-Smith can pitch like he did in Apr/May
-Delgado has a 30/100
-Castillo is healthy enough to play 140 gms
-Alou plays 100 games, especially in Sept
-Church gets 400+AB which means he has 15HR/40D/70RBI
-assume DW, CB, JR have yrs b/w 06 & 07 levels
Alot of ifs and maybes…
too many to feel like 90 wins is a given (assumption to make playoffs)
i agree 100% with mel’s comment. this site is always down yet the yankees lohud blog never seems to have any problems. i dont understand it
Pete’s Yankee blog had so much traffic from Yankee fans (and trolls no doubt) that they had to move to a new & improved server in order to handle it. I mean look at almost any one of Pete’s posts – he gets several hundred to several thousand comments for each one!!!
Good job Scoop. Lots of if and there are more….
Alou doesn;t play his age
Delgado doesn’t continue to deteriorate
Wagner doesn’t lose two more miles an hour off his fastball.
Omar doesn’t being in his yearly collection of Lima/Gonzalez’/Lawrence’s/ChanHoPark’s too lose 5-10 or more games a year.
But on the other hand, the Wilpons have a new patch to sell!
I agree with Omar. The team probably is better, and certainly not as bad as some fans would like to believe.
And most important, he shouldn’t make a trade if it doesn’t help the team. That includes not making a trade just so he can say he did, and definitely not making one because the fans want him to!
I’m sure he plans to do something. And having watched him in action, even if he had a done deal for Bedard in his pocket, he would have given the same speech!
If the trade for a big name, which IMO isn’t happening anywhere (Santana probably will go, but I cold easily see Haren and Bedard staying put) isn’t there, of course he will work smaller/different angle deals.
Expect at least 1 new face in the rotation. SIlva is ugh, but livable. Livan is trash. COlon? Who the heck know.
Pedro, Ollie, Perez and Duque? Not bad, and Omar certainly could live with that if notheing better comes along. It is still better than most teams in the league.
If Pelfrey blossoms, they are solid. More likely, they get a 5th guy, and Pelf is in the mnors or pen, and comes in when (not if) Duque goes down.
Remember, they have 2 injury risks pencilled in (Pedro and Hernandez), and last year proved you need better quality guys for the 6 and 7 hole!
I expect Pelf to be pretty good next year though. Just MO.
It seems like the only trade that Minaya ‘had to make’ was one to get rid of Lastings Milledge. Oh well. At least he hasn’t been told to make any others.
Delcos?? Is this true??? Your paper gives you a second rate server because its a Mets blog!!!! This is worse than I thought! I hope you have a better server than the Knicks! How do we get you a new server bro?
I’d cancel my subscription but your paper isn’t sold in my area.
Can any of the Omar supporters explain what makes this team better?
This is what I see.
They have replaced Green/Milledge with Church. At best a wash. At worst a potential disaster. Less power (Milledge Green hit more HRs and a lot less steals. Church had all of 3.
They have replaced LoDuca with Schneider. Better D worse O. I don’t think he’s the the Johnny ench of defense.
They have a more aged Alou. Worse.
Same at SS/3B/1B/CF (some will be better some worse but stats overall should be =)
Castillo for whole year is an improvement over Valentin for start of 07
Relief corp improved when they lost Mota but got worse when they traded for the bum from the Rays.
Starting pitching has lost their innings guy (even tho I’m glad he’s gone because he’s a Brave at heart and always was), I guess replacing him with Pedro who is one big ?????? going into a full season. Pelfrey really showed no improvement late in year. One good start does not a careeer make (does it Aaron Heilmann??). Humber was put in horrible position. Will they mistreat him again like the did Heath Bell for 2 years?
So where and how is this team better?
Well Mel, nobody could answer so I think that’s the answer.
Good review except you left out the bench. Anderson as the first lefty is much better than Newhan, but its only one AB every couple days and a 24 man roster would be better than Franco on the bench!!!!!!!
Send Omar to ESPN with his mentor!
Thinking out of the box
Although this has probably been contemplated already
Is it possible to trade Maine to Twins or to A’s (Haren) and still have enough pieces to get a Maine replacement?
Replacement would be Blanton or someone similar who is a middle rotation guy.
Maybe send Maine, Pelfrey, Gomez, Heilman, FMart to A’s for Haren and Blanton?
Blanton and Haren are under contract for several yrs.
Big concerns here would be near complete depletion of farm (b/c it seems to be so thin) and the thin RP becomes paper thin.
John Delcos, anyone else who wants to comment?
Of course Minaya’s going to say that. If he comes out and says he’s desperate to trade for a starter, other teams will ask for more in exchange for one. He has to act like he’s happy with the current construction of the roster even if he isn’t. I hate the Milledge deal as much as anyone, but calling for Omar’s job over statements like this is ridiculous. Don’t take anything he says to the media this time of year too seriously.
The bad farm system is absolutely killing this team. No better than an 85 win team.
Some of you are idiots i swear.Do you think he is going to say that its a must they have to? Then we’ll be giving up our b prospects also. Plus its old news he said this last thursday.
Well… duh. Of course the Mets weren’t getting an Ace.
For crying out loud…some of you write more than the damn author of the blog. Lets keep it to a ten to twelve sentence minumum folks. And Fred, watch the language you big dope.
These meetings are a poker game. If Omar shows his cards and lets every other GM know how desperate he truly must be then of course every other GM with a SP to trade will ask for the entire farm. So he says he’s comfortable with the team we have and we’re better than last year. Clearly we are not. I know this. Scoopcoopdeloop knows this. Smelly Mel knows this. My uncle Peter knows this. Even Slopzilla knows this. Omar himself knows this. But he’s being sly…sneaking…slick. He doesn’t want those other GMs to know how desperate we really are.
To Joe: (RE: Taking Omar seriously): Truth is, you can’t take seriously anything what Omar or any GM says anytime of the year. It’s all about keeping your hand close to the vest. But, you have ask yourself why a young, productive reasonably priced pitcher would be traded. Who knows what the Orioles are thinking these days, but with Oakland there’s no reason to trade Haren or Blanton. So, by saying what he did today, about maybe not wanting or needing to make a trade, is basically saving face.-JD
Do you run this blog Tweeter??? No, Didn’t think so. So stop making the rules and telling others what to say and do, and unlike you I’ll be polite and say please…... and unlike you, most of the poster, whether pro or anti Omar have good posts with something behind them that you seem to have little knowledge of and that is a thought process. Metsblog is for blasting people and making personal attacks.
If you’re having problems getting to the blog, just get rid of the www. http://mets.lohudblogs.com works just fine.
AB- I use that to get to the blog (without www) and I still have frequent problems. All weekend there was some comment about an invalid Kubrick header and something about the yankees. seriously. This site is down a lot.
In regard to the title of the post, We like it in Atlanta and I’m sure they like it in Philly.
Emjoy your return to mediocrity Metfans.
If the Phils folow your example we’ll win 14 in a row again.
That’s hilarious, Mr Minaya. Tell me another one.
I guess once again we will not get the pitching we need.
I think Benny is right. We will pick up someone else’s trash and hope to find gold.
This team right now is not better than last springs version.
For the first month or so we were rockin.
We will get some starter who is better than Chan Ho and probably some RF or other.
I saw something which said Haren’s first season was similar to what Pelf did last year. I thought he was better the last 4 starts. Not good, but he didn’t get rocked.
So next spring we will limp into the season with a patched up team and hope it is good enough.
Oh well.
To those who have been complaining about our farm. Someone posted a response here on one of the other threads.
Our good farm system went to Wagner, Delgado, Beltran, et al. Without them we would be the Devil Rays.
Beddard and Tejada to the Mets…..
Trade Reyes in a revamped Santanna deal…..
Santanna – Beddard – Maine – Perez – Martinez…..
Not bad.
it could happen.
Thought the Mets should have fired Minaya after last season….he’s not doing very well since his early ‘lucky’ start.
The 2008 season is shaping up to be a very frustrating one….3rd place? YUCK!
Omar isn’t willing to be robbed blind.
Fire him.
Dave: our farm system sucks. Wagner was a free agent (no kids traded). Beltran was a free agent (no kids traded). We traded kids in the LoDuca and Delgado trades—so far, none of them has exactly lit the world on fire (except Mike Jacobs, they’re all still languishing in the minors). Last year, we gave up a lot of kids for very questionable value – Bannister for Burgos (although Omar gets an incomplete on that one; Burgos could still turn out to be a fine reliever/closer type); Bell and Ring for Ben Johnson and John Adkins (Bell had a rebound season in SD, but he was awful for the Mets, and those who claim he never got a chance in NY have rewritten history; Ring otoh still sucked and both were out of options when traded), Johnson broke his leg, but showed no signs of development, and Adkins has already moved on; Lindstrom and Owens for Vargas and Bostick (Lindstrom was decent; Owens got hurt, as expected), trading almost-30 year old prospects for kids, but those kids did not develop. Almost everything else Omar has drafted is mediocre or has serious question marks. So if Omar should be fired for anything, it’s the fact that the farm system sucks rotten eggs and he hasn’t developed it at all, except to make the occasional big splash with 16 year olds who are big question marks and take an eternity to develop (we’re still waiting for the first two—Guerra and F-Mart, and they’re still not exactly can’t miss prospects like Hughes or Ellersby).
Minaya may be right about the team he’s got now being better than the one he had at the end of Spring Training last year but carefully weighing the rosters makes it seem more hype than fact; there’s plenty of time between no and April for injuries.
Bracing you for nothing to happen should come as no surprise. The paltry return for Milledge should have made it clear that the Mets just don’t have the chips to make a big trade. Everything Minaya has done throughout his tenure has pointed to this offseason as being the difficult one—the top of the farm system is pretty depleted and the bottom is too far away to make anything happen. Things would have been different if Victor Diaz and Alay Soler (to name a couple) were “real” players.
It might actually work to the Mets advantage to have too few chips to trade for the pitcher they need—maybe one or two of the young guys will get a chance (before being traded away) and actually produce.
We’ll still likely to see a second-rate (at best) pitcher (Livan Hernandez or Silva, maybe) get overpaid by Minaya in a contract with too many years on it.
I think that the only Santana that the Mets could acquire at this point is Raphael Santana. Minaya is covering all bases by waffling. He can’t be wrong because not matter what he does at these Winter Meetings, he covered it one or more of the ambiguous statements that he has made to the press. The honest thing to say would be; “I’m offerring, no one is biting, and, I am not going to give the store away just to make a trade.” Looks like we may have to watch the waiver wire this winter for new blood, since they do not look like they will get it done now and they seem to love to bring in castaways. The only thing that would be even more disappointing right now would be if they trade the “unhappy, I want to be a starter” Heilman and get nothing in return. Omar, we have enough catchers right now, thanks.
What is Minaya supposed to do? Right now he doesn’t have the chips to land a big pitcher. He could trade Reyes for Santana but that makes no sense at all and would be bad business. His best move right now is to stand pat or try and load up on relievers. It sounds like Sanchez will be coming back and that will be a big boost. The thing I don’t understand is not putting Heilman back in the starting rotation. It would solve a big problem and can be offset rather easily especially with the aforementioned return of Duaner Sanchez.
Faith Will Be Rewarded,
the problem with that idea is that nobody knows how effective or good sanchez is going to be. Sanchez hasn’t pitch in over a year and is coming off a serious shoulder injury to his throwing arm. I don’t see how you can depend on sanchez right now.
Speaking of BP
why have we not heard one story (except some overtures to Dotel and Chacon) about improving the BP?
With the lack of inn from the SP, the BP suffered and the historic meltdown happened.
If Omar can’t get a SP, where is the strategy for the BP?
Scoop: Omar is going to count on a return to health by Sanchez and Padilla, count on Schoenweis pitching as well as he did towards the end of the year, hope that Joe Smith got the experience he needs, and if he doesn’t include him in a trade, have Heilman set up for Wagner. And i’m sure they are going to have a spot for Jorge Sosa as well in the pen. I posted above a question as why the Mets couldn’t get a guy like Jonathan Albaladejo, who showed great promise in his call up last year. Who even knows if Omar was even in on him.
You cannot trade Reyes. You lose your leadoff hitter and shortstop (Miguel Tejada is DONE).
It’s nice to have a solid rotation, but what happens when you can’t score enough runs?
Steve,
that is alot of hopes, if, buts and maybes for a BP that was overwelmed by the lack of inn by the SP staff.
If that is the strategy, if the chase for a SP fails, it is not a sound one.
Steve,
don’t know much about this Jonathan Albaladejo guy. But he certainly did well in his call up, albeit only about 10 inn.
You have to believe the Nats asked Omar if he would be willing to give them a Tyler Clippard type for this guy and he passed.
steve,
the guy looks like he must have been somewhere in pro-ball and fell out of favor…and bounced back to make it to the bigs at 25
Albaladejo, signed as a free agent by the Nationals in May before becoming one of the Harrisburg Senators’ better relievers (4-3, 4.17 ERA, 2 saves) over the summer, earned a September call-up to Washington. The 25-year-old Puerto Rican impressed in his first MLB action, going 1-1 with a 1.18 ERA in 14 appearances.
Clippard, 22, went 3-1 with a 6.33 ERA in six starts with the Yankees last year but spent most of his time between Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and Class AA Trenton. While with the Thunder in 2006, Clippard threw a no-hitter against the Senators on City Island.
Congratulations to Albaladejo, who seven months ago wasn’t considered good enough to make the Altoona Curve’s active roster. Now he’s being traded, pending physicals, straight-up for the Yankees’ No. 7 prospect (2007 Baseball America)? That’s a nice jump for the big man…
The difference is other organizations know the Yankees draft and develop players well so that’s why the national made that deal. It’s know secret that the mets farm system for years has been over hyped. it’s well known around baseball.