What Horrors Await Minaya?

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

He is supposed to be the nice-guy owner around here, the one who is most definitely not The Boss, the one who doesn’t fire secretaries for ordering him the wrong sandwich or general managers for making the wrong trade.


But the image of Fred Wilpon, out of Lafayette High in Brooklyn, friend and teammate of Sandy Koufax, paternal owner of the New York Mets, doesn’t square with the reality. Because although the bucks most certainly stop in Wilpon’s office, the buck never seems to stop at Wilpon’s desk.


Yesterday, Wilpon proudly announced the return of the prodigal son, Omar Minaya, to the job he should have been given four years ago, that of general manager of the Mets.


At first blush, it sounds like a dream come true. Local product, born in the Dominican, raised in Corona, a stop away from Shea Stadium on the 7-train. Worked his way up through the ranks until, at age 45, he took over the team he grew up rooting for.


He brings to the table a reputation as a shrewd talent evaluator best known for signing Sammy Sosa as a 16-year-old. Not all of the moves he made as the GM of the Montreal Expos were brilliant – Carl Pavano for Cliff Floyd? – but with no budget, no hope of retaining free agents, and a team that was constantly under threat of contraction, Minaya was forever dealing from a position of desperation.


That should not happen with the Mets. Although they conduct business as if they were based in Milwaukee, the Mets share with the Yankees the most lucrative sports market on Earth. Money should not be a problem.


But what other horrors await Omar Minaya in the shark tank that is the Mets’ executive offices?


For one thing, Fred Wilpon has a son, Jeff, who by all accounts has far too much say in the Mets’ baseball affairs and far too little baseball knowledge to justify it.


For another, time and again, Fred Wilpon, who travels everywhere by limousine, has shown a disturbing tendency to throw the less fortunate under the nearest bus.


Yesterday it was Jim Duquette’s turn to wear tire tracks across his face. Eventually, it will be Minaya’s turn.


“Omar will have autonomy,” Wilpon said at a gala Shea Stadium press conference yesterday, held in a shabby basement room that used to serve as the Jets’ locker room before they vacated the place. “But so did Jim. That’s a fact. In 25 years in this business, I cannot remember one time we ever turned down the baseball department, even when it was above budget. We’d change the budget. That’s a fact.”


To take Wilpon’s statement as factual requires one to believe that it was then-GM Steve Phillips who didn’t want Alex Rodriguez, because he was, as Phillips famously put it, a “24-and-1 guy,” meaning selfish. Turns out A-Rod was so selfish he was willing to relinquish his position at shortstop to come to the Yankees and play third base.


To believe Wilpon is telling the truth also requires one to buy into the fiction that it was Duquette and his associates who decided that Vladimir Guerrero’s sometimes troublesome back made him a bad risk for the Mets, even though they spent more on the morbidly obese Mo Vaughn than it would have taken to lure Guerrero to Shea. This year, Guerrero’s back has tormented him to the extent that he was only able to muster 38 home runs and a .338 batting average for the AL-West leading Angels.


To believe Wilpon is to accept that his underlings, notably pitching coach Rick Peterson, were the driving force behind the trade of super-prospect Scott Kazmir for a sore-armed righty named Victor Zambrano, even though sources say it was Jeff Wilpon asking the “Baseball Department” if anyone could come up with a good reason why he, Jeff, should not trade Kazmir.


Under Wilpon, the Mets valued the opinions of players such as Robin Ventura and Todd Zeile when it came to making a decision on whether or not to pursue Gary Sheffield. According to Flushing lore, the Mets passed only after the two veterans informed the front office that Sheffield would be a divisive factor in the clubhouse.


Right now, Sheffield is the glue holding the Yankees together as they make a run for their seventh consecutive division title. The Mets, meanwhile, have barely managed to avoid finishing last for the third year in a row.


Wilpon said he expected the Mets to engage in a “meaningful game” this year, but they haven’t done so since October of the 2000 World Series against the Yankees. It has been all downhill from there.


In addition to Vaughn, the Mets have burned a ton of cash on such losers as Robbie Alomar, Jeromy Burnitz, Roger Cedeno, Cliff Floyd, John Franco, and Art Howe, to name just a few. At the same time, they have found reasons to remove from consideration the likes of Rodriguez, Guerrero, Sheffield, and Kazmir. And none of it has been the fault of a Wilpon, father or son.


Omar Minaya, who worked as Steve Phillips’s assistant for three years, knows the deal. He inherited a mess and although he was given a five-year deal, is aware that the Wilpons pulled the plug on Duquette after a mere 11 months. Like all Mets front-office personnel these days, Omar Minaya will remain employed at the pleasure of the Wilpons.


Accordingly, the first person Minaya thanked at yesterday’s news conference was Jeff Wilpon. The second was Fred. He said he only agreed to take the job after he was assured he would have” autonomy, “an assurance he believes he received.


But that was before Fred Wilpon said that Minaya would have the same kind of autonomy his predecessor had.


“This is not about Jim not doing a good job,” Fred Wilpon said. “Under his contract, we had the right to re-assign him within the organization and that is what we chose to do. We could have chosen to reduce his salary, but we chose not to do that. Jim will be Omar’s right-hand man.”


See what a nice guy Fred Wilpon is? As long as Omar Minaya looks both ways before he crosses the streets around Shea, he should be fine.



Mr. Matthews is the host of the “Wally and the Keeg” sports talk show heard Monday-Friday from 4–7 p.m. on 1050 ESPN radio.


The New York Sun

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