Well it’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything, and I was ready to post something last week until the Francouer trade went through and I went into a deep depression that I’m only now coming out of. While the public treatment of Minaya as a GM infuriates Pat, it’s slightly different for me as a Mets fan. The guy has taken my favorite team, with all the resources in the world (the second highest payroll for most of his tenure) and made them exceedingly mediocre. Pat went through a lot of Omar’s shortcomings as a GM, and I agree with pretty much everything he said, but wanted to add a few things on. He’s shown no shrewdness or ability to think outside the box at all – like Pat said his only positive contributions to the roster have been no-brainer FA signings or trades in which he was the only one with the ability to pay the price – and has shown no understanding of how to build a roster longterm. And Pat was exactly right about the team having no depth, a huge fault of Minaya’s, and how crazy it was to depend on getting the same amount of playing time from the four legit bats on the team. But for some reason, he’s been given a pass on the overall weakness of the roster, and that’s what I want to focus on. Several times, he’s traded away Mets assets that would have been valuable if only he had been patient, instead of jetting them off for 60 cents on the dollar. So I ‘ll highlight his failings on the bullpen.

The Bullpen has been a constant struggle for the Mets since Minaya took over. Last year, most of the blame for the Mets struggles was placed at the feet of a failing bullpen and the loss of Billy Wagner. So he overreacted this winter by signing K-Rod and trading for J.J. Putz, not terrible deals in and of themselves, but money and assets that could have been better used elesewhere, especially if the bullpen was in better shape … which it should have been.

Exhibit A – Heath Bell and Royce Ring for Jon Adkins and Ben Johnson  – Long before Heath Bell became an All-Star closer, I was crying at his mistreatment by the Mets.  It was the same thing over and over. He would be called up, asked to do a job in the middle innings and follow through admirably with good stuff, then be sent down because he was the one with options. It was pretty clear to most observant fans that he had a future in a Major League bullpen, but that offseason he, along with serviceable LOOGY Royce Ring, were traded to the Padres for Ben Johnson and Jon Adkins, both of whom were never heard from again.

Exhibit B – Matt Lindstrom and Henry Owens for Jason Vargas and Adam Bostick – This trade went down only five days after the Bell trade, and I’m not quite sure why Minaya was in such a hurry to trade young power arms for a fringy lefty starter. Here’s the thing, high payroll teams like the Mets should be building their pitching staffs like the Red Sox with young homegrown power arms filling out the bullpen. That way, the extra dollars the team has to spend can be spent on filling out the back end of the rotation. These two trades show a disregard for that, Minaya sent away four promising young relievers, one of whom had already had major league success in his limited opportunities, and two of whom were both hitting the high 90′s in the minors (Lindstrom and Owens), for pitchers with #5 upside at best and a token 4th/5th outfielder. If Bell and Lindstrom had stayed in the Mets system, there’s no guarantee that the bullpen would be “fixed” but the situation would have been less dire and some of the money or assets spend on getting K-Rod and Putz could have been put to signing another impact bat. But I shouldn’t pretend like Minaya ignored the bullpen that offseason, a month later he traded away Brian Bannister for Ambiorix Burgos, nicely played.