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Snooze Buries Omar

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jun 10 2008 07:20 AM

Adam Rubin gets a double-truck analysis peice today and argues that by relying on established stars and emptying the minors during the post-steroid, enforced-parity era, he made a big mistake. Well, duh. [url]http://tinyurl.com/5wzrgz[/url]

metirish Jun 10 2008 07:31 AM

The attention is now turning to Minaya , Rubin does everything but call him a a fucking twat.

Benjamin Grimm Jun 10 2008 07:34 AM

He also didn't call for Omar to be punched in the neck. I'd definitely consider replacing Omar too. I think finding a good GM is probably even harder than finding a good manager, but keeping a bad GM in place too long can do more harm than sticking with a bad manager. What about that guy the Reds cut loose? (I can't remember his name.) He sounded like he might know his stuff.

AG/DC Jun 10 2008 07:44 AM

I'm saving the neck punch for first commenter Peter: peter53 Jun 10, 2008 7:45:09 AM Report Offensive Post Does anyone remember Omar's little panic gem of 2 years ago ? Xavier Nady for Roberto Hernandez,(who he refused to sign the previous winter) after Sanchez got hurt. Granted, we got Perez, but he was 1-3 in 2006 with an ERA of 6.38 and is 20-17 since the trade...not really bad, but you never know if he's going to be Koufax or Rick Ankiel. And, I said this in the 2006 LCS...Nady makes those two catches off of Spiezo that Green couldn't. Cost us at least 1 game if not 2. That doesn't help.

Frayed Knot Jun 10 2008 07:50 AM

Xavier Nady may be a lot of things, but a good defensive outfielder isn't one of them. Amazing how quickly some have forgotten that.

Benjamin Grimm Jun 10 2008 08:21 AM

And if they didn't have Perez, who would have made those two NLCS starts? Mike Pelfrey? Darren Oliver? I was strongly opposed to Perez' Game 7 start, but he pitched like a champ that day.

metirish Jun 10 2008 08:28 AM

Benjamin Grimm wrote: What about that guy the Reds cut loose? (I can't remember his name.) He sounded like he might know his stuff. Wayne Krivsky , certainly there is a wealth of talent coming through the Reds system , is he responsible for them , he was on the job in '06. I would think the most controversial trade he made was the one sending Kearns and Lopez to the Nationals for Gary Majewski and a bunch of spare parts.

AG/DC Jun 10 2008 08:31 AM

Frayed Knot wrote: Xavier Nady may be a lot of things, but a good defensive outfielder isn't one of them. Amazing how quickly some have forgotten that. Or that Nady's power disappeared down the stretch for Pittsburgh as he recovered from emergency appendix surgery, or that Perez gave us the big start in game seven. Or that Roberto Hernandez didn't fail after his re-acquisition, so much as the subsequent deal for Guillermo Mota (and Mota's suprisingly stellar strethch run) made him redundant. Unscrambling the eggs his hard. Doing it to isolate and reverse one or two plays is impossible.

Centerfield Jun 10 2008 08:45 AM

I've never read Pedro Carlos and Omar. How did Rubin view those trades in his book?

Benjamin Grimm Jun 10 2008 08:50 AM

I don't remember. Pedro Carlos and Omar was as bland a book as I've read in a long time. You didn't miss anything.

Gwreck Jun 10 2008 09:20 AM

My recollection was that it painted Minaya in a much more favorable light, but given the end of the 2005 season, I think that was fair to do so. At that point, the Mets looked to be in a good spot. The cavalcade of problems, whether injury (Martinez, Hernandez, Alou) or questionable contract lengths (Franco, Chavez, Castro, Anderson) came later.

AG/DC Jun 10 2008 09:45 AM

Here's the thing. I don't care about the trades and signings that have left the Mets' system to be the most depeleted thing in known history. Yeah, the Mets have dealt away potential stars in the pipeline, but any system can produce the useful spare parts --- hitters without positions, back-end bullpenners, hustling infielders --- that the Mets either currently need, or have shortsightedly dealt off in recent years. A little more confidence in the Bells and Keppingers that come out of your own system is all I ask. It's hard to call his main offseason move (Santana) a failure at this point. But he invests all this money in one guy, and he has to have a brand name guy playing next to him. The genius of Davey Johnson is rediscovering languishing disgruntled-former-first-rounders like Backman and Hurdle and failed-coffee-cups like Chapman and Mitchell and making useful big-leaguers out of them.

Frayed Knot Jun 10 2008 10:27 AM

="Centerfield"]I've never read Pedro Carlos and Omar. How did Rubin view those trades in his book? Rubin wrote the book with his beat-writer hat on; a kind of 'just the facts ma'am' approach that wasn't out to give opinions on the moves or on the movers. It's actually somewhat unusual for a beat writer to step out like this an offer analysis as that stuff is generally left to the columnists. I remember back when Marty Noble was working the Newsday beat the paper would make sure that a noticable 'Analysis' lable was on top of his handful of yearly opintion pieces so it was immediately distunguishable from his usual beat work.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jun 10 2008 10:35 AM

The Snooze labels this story analysis too.

G-Fafif Jun 10 2008 12:40 PM

It's fascinating to read the blogs produced by the beat writers, particularly if they do in-game comments like John Delcos of the Journal-News does. They don't hide their feelings, they talk like fans, positive or negative (even if they aren't Mets fans). It's becoming harder and harder in this day and age for the "objective" face to be put on when everybody has an opinion and everybody has an avenue through which to offer it. Here are the reporters who theoretically know more than anybody else about the team yet they are, by custom, straitjacketed in their stories. Rubin's piece today was jarring, not because of what he wrote (which struck me as quite logical and clearheaded) but for the fact that he put it out there in the paper as he did. "Pedro, Carlos & Omar" was, after a saucy chapter reiterating the mess Omar came in to clean up, very, very dry (to put it kindly) and offered almost no biting analysis . Maybe this isn't all that different from sixty years ago when Jack Lang and pre-demonic Dick Young began calling out the powers that be, but it seems to represent a sea change for how modern baseball reportage is conducted. Knowing full well that their readers have become used to getting opinion, these guys can't simply hold back in the name of protecting sources or, more accurately, their relationships with sources. [Not unlike political reporters fretting that bloggers without "credentials" daring to report what politicians say in non-approved settings are cramping their style.] Three years ago, Adam Rubin (or any beat writer) might have worried more about getting the front office annoyed at him because down the road he would need them. Now he has to worry about being compelling and simply read. The world has changed a lot since "Pedro, Carlos & Omar".

Frayed Knot Jun 10 2008 02:18 PM

I'm not sure things have changed all that much. These blogs do give the beat guys some more room to free-lance a bit and include some stuff that doesn't quite fit 'the mold' of what their day-to-day activities require. But they still need to be in the clubhouse each day and therefore can't be as free-swinging as the columnists or radio-talkies in the same way the White House beat reporters aren't going to have the freedom to tee off on a Presidential action like some 'Meet the Press' panelist. What Rubin did today isn't any different than what we mentioned Noble doing occasionally doing all those years ago - and off-days are always the most likely time to see one of the beats step out of thier mold.