OK, there are two things you should read before continuing here. First, this from Jon Heyman, who suggests that “Omar Minaya is on thin ice” and “some Mets people believe the biggest reason Minaya is being kept for now is the three years and $3.5 million remaining on his contract.”
Second, this from Jeff Sackmann at the Hardball Times, which evaluates how teams fare in earning value from the draft, international free agency, trades, waivers and plain-old free agency.
By his system, the Mets ranked second from last in the Majors in 2009 in getting value from the draft, received no value from international free agents, were near the middle in trade and waiver-wire pickups, and dead last in value spent versus value returned in free agency.
Sackmann’s system is admittedly limited, plus he’s only working from 2009, when the Mets didn’t really get much value out of anybody. Still, it underscores something many Mets fans — this one included — have been saying for years: Omar Minaya does not spend his resources efficiently.
I always take offseason rumors from anonymous sources with several grains of salt, but what Heyman suggests does seem to jive with everything that has happened in the Mets’ front office and every rumor we’ve heard.
And if it’s really true, the Mets should fire Omar Minaya right now.
Look: Either you have confidence in a GM to build your team for the upcoming season and the future or you don’t. “Putting the heat on him,” as has been suggested, is about the worst possible approach. That only further pushes Minaya toward moves of desperation, the type made to save his job but not necessarily to forward the franchise.
That’s a bad thing. That’s the opposite of progress. That’s regress.
What’s worse, keeping the guy around just because he’s owed more money is not only a pitiful misunderstanding of sunk-cost economics, but a massively ironic one. If — as Sackmann shows — Omar Minaya does not spend money efficiently, then why continue paying him to waste your money just because you owe him a tiny fraction of your overall budget?
If the Mets think Minaya is the guy to run the Mets for the long haul, they should make that abundantly clear to everyone and make sure no one in their front office is leaking out any suspicions to the contrary.
After all, Minaya — maybe as much as any GM in baseball — is conscious of public perception. Remember, this is the guy who couldn’t go out for bagels without hearing about how he should fix the bullpen.
And if the Mets are unwilling to make a long-term commitment to Minaya as a general manager, there’s no sense in making a short-term commitment.
There might be some advantage to having a manager know he’s on the hot seat, because it might compel him to shake things up and think of new and better ways to get the team to win. It’s the manager’s job to try to win immediately.
But that’s not the case with the GM. The GM must be held responsible for the present and the future. He needs to focus on building a sustainable winner, not a patchwork club wearing thin on resources.
Putting the GM on the hot seat will only force him to make myopic decisions, precisely the type that got the Mets into this mess in the first place.
Tedquarters 
True.
However, if the Mets front office was all on the same page as to not send mixed messages, maybe things wouldn’t be in such shambles, and the outlook would look better.
the mixed messages may actually be a symptom of the problem.
Great site by the way. I’m glad you get to branch out. Way better than Cerrone’s crap. I Agree that Omar should be fired now, right now, at 3:23 he should have been fired. He will never help the Mets Present and Future.
Remember this is the same guy that had to be begged to fix a horrible bullpen by (everyday GM’s, us the Mets fans) on his way to get bagels and made it seem like some one died when he had to fire his buddy Bernazard. I find it entertaining though, when there is a press conference and he tap dances his way around a answer he doesn’t know.
Omar should be fired, yes; but Sackman’s article isn’t completely fair given the team’s health this season.
International free agents are typically signed at age 16, so players from Minaya’s first class turned 20 this season — or not old enough to make an impact at the ML level.
As far as the draft is concerned, he has a mixed bag. He hasn’t had a full complement of draft picks to work with, due to signing a mulitude of Type A free agents (Pedro & Beltran cost 2nd and 3rd rounders in 2005; Wagner cost a 1st rounder in 2006; Alou, foolishly, cost a 1st rounder in 2007; KRod, also foolishly, cost a 1st rounder in 2009), but many of high picks he’s made are either helping at the ML level (Pelfrey) or have turned into a significant prospects (Davis, Holt, Havens). The 2007 and 2009 drafts, unfortunately, look to be complete bombs, so there’s that.
His utter lack of regard for player valuation in free agency and trades have been his biggest faults. The Perez, K-Rod and Castillo deals are all disasters to various degrees. The trades of Bannister and Bell plus the singing of Schoeneweis has shown us that he doesn’t understand what makes a good relief pitcher. Most recently, the Church/Francoeur trade has shown us that Minaya doesn’t really understand the concept of replacement level.
Good points all. I’m very much with you on the international free-agents thing. I think that’s actually one of the things Minaya has done reasonably well.
But the draft and free agency, as you suggest, are all tied up together. I’m not willing to call 2009 a bomb yet, but a GM definitely can’t continue making bad Type A free agent signings (Perez, K-Rod) and complementing them with bad drafts.
And Sackmann’s study skews the opposite direction a bit, too. Since he only counted 1.0+ WAR players, he didn’t penalize Minaya for spending ~$5 million on Tim Redding, Alex Cora, and Cory Sullivan, three free agents who combined for a whopping 0.2 WAR.
Here’s what I wrote last week:
http://www.blueandorange.net/?p=739
Nothing earth shattering, but on the same plane as what we’re discussing here.
Re. Minaya and Manuel, ownership is repeating its past behaviour in these types of situations (see Harazin, Phillips, Duquette). They are late in making these key decisions, and tend to overanalyze the potential reaction amongst fans and press.
The fact that the Mets spend less on the draft year after year than other top-market clubs is indicative of the small-mindedness the Wilpons are capable of.
I don’t see Minaya as the main problem, although the situation has gotten to the point where his dismassal makes great sense. Isn’t the main problem Jeff/Fred Wilpon?
I’m hoping against hope that when they replace Minaya it won’t be with a Ricco type, but with a strong, proven GM, who will be allowed to spend what he thinks is necessary on the draft (one example). But I’m not holding my breath that will happen
Problem is most strong proven GM’s have jobs already.
Here’s the problem with whats going on right now. Its all in how these people interpret whats happening. Like you say the Mets should just make a commitment to Omar long term if hes the guy. But to quote Omar, ‘the reality is’, the Wilpons have done that. They publically gave him the vote of confidence and last year gave him the contract to prove it. I’m not sure how much more clear they can make it, that Omar is thier guy.
When you think about it, most of these ‘rumors’ about Omar being on the hot seat seem to stem from guys like Heyman who see Mets push to keep Sandy Johnson or the Mets exploring the names Kevin Towers, JP Riccardi, or any other GM type, as some indictaion of pressure on Omar, or that they are doing it to think about possible replacements.
So to me there in lies the problem. The Mets seem to be making an effort to bring in thebest staff they can to work with Omar, to the media, and then the public, its perceived as them not showing confidence in Omar. So are they not suppose dto pursue the best talent for the front office?
Why are we always tossing around the same tired names. These guys dont have jobs because they didnt do a good job the first, second, and third times around. Find some young new guy with a good head on his shoulders and something to prove. We need a young Theo Epstein not a some narrow-minded thinking that we always seem to have.
I don’t know what tired names you’re speaking of, but Kevin Towers was a pretty successful GM. His keen eye for value would surely buoy the Mets front office. J.P. Riccardi was a good assistant for the A’s during the “Moneyball” era.
The real problem is that the Mets haven’t hired a GM from outside the organization since Frank Cashen. Frank Cashen!!! That was 1980. Since then, they’ve replaced the general manager with an assistant below him, regardless of how successful (or in most cases, unsuccessful) his superior was.