Saturday, June 13, 2009

A Once Proud Franchise Now Heading For Ruin

By now, the whole baseball world has seen the way the Mets-Yankees game ended on Friday night. No need to recap.

It was appalling. Simply stunning and appalling.

It shows in a nutshell what's wrong with the New York Mets. They lack mental toughness. They fold in the clutch, as they have the last two Septembers. They have almost no gamers, or grinders, guys who spit in the face of adversity and go out and get the job done. (Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia of the Red Sox easily pop to mind.)

The Mets are a complete and utter mess, and I lay the blame fully at the feet of their GM, Omar Minaya. He put the 2007 and 2008 collapses together on his drawing board, and he's clearly going for the hat-trick in 2009. (I am still confounded as to why last year's collapse didn't cost him his job.) They are going nowhere this season. They won't catch the Phillies, who are clearly tougher and are better battle-tested than they are. And simply the worst move Minaya's made as Mets GM was on center stage tonight for the whole world to see: Luis Castillo.

He signed that bum to a four-year, $32 million contract after 2007, and it stinks worse than rotten fish now. This past winter, Orlando Hudson was practically begging the Mets to sign him as a free agent, but they couldn't dump that contract of Castillo off on anyone, so Hudson went to the Dodgers (on a one-year deal and for far less than Castillo currently makes) and is having an All-Star caliber season in Los Angeles. (Minaya's all-time worst move was when he traded away future stars Cliff Lee, Grady Sizemore and Brandon Phillips in the Bartolo Colon trade when he was in Montreal, as he was running that team into the ground.)

The Mets will not win with Minaya as GM. Ever. And to make matters even worse for Mets fans, their clueless management actually signed this moron to an extension last winter, which is just as appalling as to what happened in the bottom of the ninth on Friday night. The Mets need a new GM, new manager, and new front office that has the first idea about running a competitive team. The Mets need people who know how to win, on and off the field.

The Mets are where the Red Sox were in 2001. A mediocre team with lots of deadwood. The Sox were sold, and new management made a bold statement by firing the manager and GM who were both under contract and brought in people with a plan. The Red Sox have won two championships and their future is as bright as any team in baseball. The Mets are an old team with players who don't know how to win. They need to be redrawn on the blackboard. They need to bring in a GM with a record of some success (like they did with Frank Cashen in 1980) and who has an idea of how to build a winner.

My deepest sympathies to all Mets fans out there. You deserve better. Certainly not the shit that calls itself the general manager, or the front office management.

The Mets are a disaster, and they will be the second team in New York for as long as they have the same clowns running this once-proud franchise. And that is a terrible shame indeed.

2 comments:

Steel36 said...

We have said all of this before in detail.

Q-take heart-at least The Mets are not The Washington Nationals. Now there is a full fledged farce.

The Mets have the possibility, however remote, of contending. The Nationals are an embarrassment to the sport.

Do you think Jim Bowden could do better than Omar?

Michael Leggett said...

A lot of them on the DL, could constitute an All Star Team, & in some cases an Old Timers Team:

Unfortunately, a Certain General Partner, had Minaya ruin things in his quest to run Willie Randolph out on a rail. Actually, the 2006 Team was an Improvement over the '05 Team, as '06 made Post-Season;

Minaya's Talent Evaluator, Tony Bernezard, was used by Jeff Wilpon, to disrupt Harmony in The Clubhouse. In addition, because Omar actually fought Jeffy Wilpon to sign Willie Randolph to a Contract Extension, Minaya had his power ordered diminished by Jeffy. Bernezard & J Wilpon DESPISED Randolph. Both, BTW, want Manny Acta as Mgr & will wait until Acta's Contract is up in Washington. Acta, it's said, is supposedly popular with the Latino Players;

Minaya is a Figurehead, while Jeffy & Bernezard are running this Farce. It's as if Jeffy Wilpon is Max Byalystock, with Bernezard as Leo Bloom, and Omar Minaya is Uma The Secretary, with Jerry Manuel as Franz Liebkind, in "The Producers";

"Springtime For Hitler" is playing now at Citi Field, just like it did at Shea Stadium in '07 & '08. The Intent is to produce a FLOP until the Alleged Wonderkind is out of his Washington Contract.