Minaya questions writer after firing, maybe should question his own team

Editor on 07 30, 2009

Article contributed by Alex F.

On Monday, New York Mets GM Omar Minaya fired team executive Tony Bernazard, who was the Mets Vice President of Player Personnel, who has gotten into a argument with All-star closer Francisco Rodriguez, challenged Double-A players to a fight, and berated a team employee over a seating mix-up.

Then during the news conference, Minaya turned his focus to writer Adam Rubin of the New York Daily News, who has a written a series of articles about the Mets minor league system and its issues.

“You got to understand this: Adam for the past couple of years has lobbied for a player development position. He has lobbied myself, he has lobbied Tony,” Minaya said.

Rubin was obvisiouly shocked by the accusation that he was trying to get Bernazard fired and asked Minaya if that is what he was alleging.

“No, I’m not saying that,” Minaya said. “I am saying, in the past, you have lobbied for a job.”

“Over the years he said a number of times that he would like … he asked me personally … to work in the front office,” Minaya said, “in my front office. Not only me, but he’s asked others.”

Rubin denied that he has asked Minaya for a job in the Mets front office and insisted that he just asked “How do you get a job in baseball?”

Minaya though, instead of focusing on local writers who he claims want a job in his front office, should focus more on trying to find out why his major league team is underacheiving so much.

Ever since the historic collapse in 2007 when they lost a seven game lead with just three weeks remaining to miss the playoffs, the Mets have been a huge dissapointment. They acquired Johan Santana hoping to bolster their rotation and make a run at the World Series in 2008. Instead they finished three games behind the Philadelphia Phillies in the NL East and one game behind the Milwaukee Brewers for the Wild Card. Then this offseason they signed closer Francisco Rodriguez to help fix bullpen problems they had, but they still find themselves (as of 7/28/09) 4 games under .500, 10.5 games behind the Phillies in the NL East, and 6.5 games behind the Colorado Rockies in the wild card, and that’s with the second highest payroll in baseball.

They have had some injuries, Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado, and Jose Reyes have missed a combined 170 games this year, but even the players who haven’t missed time are not playing up to their potential. Out of the 16 teams in the National League, the Mets rank 14th in slugging % (.389), last in home runs (59), 10th in runs scored (420), 9th in ERA (4.30), and 10th in fielding % (.983). All the errors that they make though seem to be at the worst times possible, like Luis Castillo’s dropped popup against the Yankees. Their outfield play has been poor, to put it nicely, and errors haven’t been charged because they can’t even find the ball. Gary Sheffield leads the team with 10 home runs and David Wright leads the team in RBI’s with just 48. They don’t really know who their fifth starter is between Oliver Perez and Fernando Nieve, and Johan Santana is the only starter (that qualifies for the ERA title) that has an ERA under 4.00, and just has an 11-8 record to show for it. J.J. Putz was signed to be a setup man to Rodriguez, and he has a record of 1-4 and is 2-4 in save chances with a 5.22 ERA.

So instead of worrying about local writers and what their motives are when they are writing their stories, maybe Omar Minaya should start worrying about his team playing up to their potential before he is the next one to go in the front office. Then he can accuse some writer of trying to get him fired so they can be the Mets GM, although right now, they might be just as useful as Minaya.