1) Unlike you, I just was never very impressed by Nady. It was his defense that turned me off on him. It’s what took the bloom off the Pagan rose for me too. I am quite surprised at Pagan’s shaky defense sometimes. If that was why the organization initially let him go, I can understand it now. For this reason, I prefer Endy over Pagan. At least for many situations and game matchups. Endy’s defense is leaps and bounds superior to Pagan’s.

2) I’d rather lose a little defense if I can gain in the pitching department and RH bolstered the bullpen and allowed others to move up. Sure he was old, but he was pitching solidly in Pittsburgh at the time and was great for the Mets the year before. He was NY-proven.

3)Omar initially wanted to spin Ollie off into Linebrink which almost materialized but for a last-minute change of heart by Towers. That shows that Ollie had value at the time. RH + Ollie OR RH + Linebrink to me is worth Nady.

4) How can you count on a reliever off of waivers violating MLB’s drug policy and cheating with steroids? That’s the only way Mota was able to succeed in late 2006. No GM can count on that.

As for Green’s ZR, it is what it is. Better than Nady’s. I think both are poor fielders by the way. Neither is as good as Church. I’m so glad they got Church.

So bottom line—I think the trade was a good one. It comes down to the differences in how we value Nady and the bullpen and defense. You value Nady a lot more than I do. And I value a strong bullpen and defense a little more than you do.

Well, we’re arguing from different perspectives. You have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, while I’m arguing how I felt at the time.

Minaya is lucky Ollie got his act together for the playoffs because they hardly used RH. Did he even make an appearance in the playoffs?

And if you want to use 20/20 hindsight, let’s not forget, they got Mota off waivers and he pitched more often and more effectively than RH did.

My ultimate point was that we lost Duaner, weakening the bullpen. Then we traded Nady, weakening the lineup. Sure we added RH, negligibly improving the bullpen, but I don’t think it was worth Nady. To me, there is no way you can sit there and with a straight face claim you knew Ollie was going to do what he did. I always liked Perez and was happy Omar got him included to salvage that trade somewhat, but even I didn’t think he would turn things around so quickly.

And I really don’t want to hear about Shawn “I turn singles into triples” Green’s zone rating.

You’re also kind of proving my point. I never claimed Nady was anything more than league average. His OPS+ at the time was 107, a shade above average. This kind of production from an everyday player is a lot harder to come by than most people think.

Further, at the time of the trade, Nady had a VORP of 9.5. We replaced him with Green, who had a VORP of 7 when we acquired him and who had a VORP of 2 while playing for us.

Let’s also take a look at Duaner’s VORP vs. Robo’s VORP. Duaner had a VORP of 17.7, so yes, I would agree with you, he was a huge loss. But who did we replace him with? Roberto Hernandez and his 4.9 VORP.

So aside from my personal feelings that the old adage of an everyday player having more value than a pitcher (in general, all things being equal), this trade was not a smart one because we downgraded TWO areas of the team b/c of the Sanchez injury. And in my opinion, it wasn’t necessary.

Heilman had a VORP of 20.6, Bradford – 19.2, Feliciano – 25.2, Oliver – 21.0. Some more guys: Mota – 10.0, Bell – -.6 (but he had a 10.0 in Norfolk and a 8.2 K/9 in the bigs and his BB/9 was actually lower in the bigs… so if they had given Bell a shot down the stretch, he probably would ended up being a decent option… but I digress.)

So the point? Losing Duaner definitely stunk, but we had a pretty sick bullpen, sick enough to absorb the loss of Duaner. The REAL weakness in ‘06 was the rotation. So if Omar had used Nady to score a starter, then I would have understood that more than the deal to acquire a guy who didn’t even come close to replacing Duaner (Heilman would have been and actually ended up being, the better replacement.)

And yes, I think they really needed to replace Sanchez. It was for the postseason as much as for August-September. Hernandez, while not spectacular, was solid for the Mets that year. As for Mota, do you really think it’s a lot easier to replace a middle reliever who’s decent? Without resorting to someone on steroids? I don’t think so. Without his fix, Mota was a disaster for Cleveland that year. And we saw what he’s like when he’s clean in 2007.

Anyway, my point was that I felt it was a panic trade at the time, and I still think it was a panic trade, despite what Ollie’s done. Nady was our starting RF and having a solid season. We traded our starting RF for a guy who barely pitched for us. As it turned out, we landed Mota off waivers and he ended up being better than Robo. Which goes back to original point. Trading everyday players for middle relievers is dumb, because it’s a lot easier to replace a middle reliever than your starting RF.

Also, correlation doesn’t mean causation. The difference in the Mets lineup since Nady left could have been because Valentin was real hot in the first half of 2006 and Wright cooled down in the second half of that year. Wright had his power outage then.

I also can’t fault them too much for Wiggy since there was no room for him once Wright came up. There was no place to play him at the time.

Keppinger is another matter. It does appear he was undervalued. It would be interesting to know exactly why.

League average production is not as easy to replace as everyone thinks. Fans think you can just go to the corner OF supermarket and pick another Xavier Nady type player off the shelf. As we saw with Ben Johnson, it’s not that easy.

My dad constantly says that the Mets lineup has never been the same since they traded Nady, and when you think about it, I think he has a point.

PS: How is mr unoriginal doing. I see since I lectured him on his “despicable” metsie behavior he has made nice to everybody. Good for you mr orignal now you can have your name back since you are now a good little metsie like keith and mr scoopy….... and of course the best little metsies of them all clm and Delcos!!!!
good luck tonight against the XMAN… Maybe he has put a curse on you as well for dealing him to the Pirates of Pittsburgh. He would have liked it better if you traded him to the Steelers….

PS: I see your hockey boys are doing bad also….Sweep by both Pittsburgh teams!!!!!!!

Wigginton had a .961 FP last year. I know that is a crude metric, but its not terrible.

“his #s against lefties are much worse.” But how is LaRoche’s #’s on the third Tuesday in August? Come on dude, talk about a straw argument.

.269 .335 .479 – LaRoche
.268 .324 .498 – Jacobs

Pretty much a dead heat offensively… and Jacobs plays in an awful hitters park. As for defense, 1B is last on the defensive spectrum.

“Kazmir? would be great if he could stay healthy…he should be a closer”

I get it now, you’re insane. He threw over 200 innings last year and led the league in k’s with 239. Yeah, make this guy a closer… NOW!

And I never said the Mets are good at developing players, just that they’ve produced some good MLB players recently. Keep hating on good players though.

This is an incomplete list, but a list nontheless of players on our team that are the result of Team Omar.

Santana
Delgado
Beltran
Pedro
Ollie
Maine
El Duque
Smith
Church
Schneider
Wagner
Sanchez
Castillo
Chavez

As you can see, for better or worse almost all the players we have now are here because of Omar. There are really only 3 significant players who were here before

Reyes
Wright
Heilman

So the first list is our farm system.

Omar made trades to make the team relevant. This weakened the farm. Some of the players he picked are gone in the Johan deal.

He has only been here 3 years. We knocked on the door a year ago.

What is the point here?

Can read read dude?

KEPPINGER WAS NOT A MET FARMHAND!!!! and yes he sucks b/c he can’t play defense. Nor does ne have any power.

Kazmir? would be great if he could stay healthy…he should be a closer…of course this brings up another topic about how Mets trade away guys who could be really good and get nothin back….....

Wright and reyes? I never said they suck.

Heilman? I defend him all the time.

Bell was not any good until he learned a slider.

Gomez and Milledge? so far eh… but I’ll give them a TBD

Wigginton? blah…..no defense

Linstrom? TBD

Jacobs is really bad at 1B. And he is not as good offensively as Larouche; his #s against lefties are much worse. And 1B is just as important defensively as any other position except SS.

Anyway keep believing that the Mets are good at developing players.

1 HOF in 45 yrs, very few All stars from w/in. You can’t debate that.