Congrats Padres

[Schwks]

On the signing of Omar Minaya as Senior VP in charge of baseball operations, a deal that will undoubtedly seal your fate and cellar dwellers for years to come.

Minaya's follies as a Mets GM have been well chronicled. On the transactional side, he essentially handcuffed the organization for a period of roughly seven years, several of which have yet to be played. The most famous of those moves was signing Luis Castillo, then an already aging speed guy, with bad knees to a 4 year contract at $6 mill per, at a time when he probably would have been lucky to score a one year deal in the $1 million range on the open market. He signed an erratic, and largely unsuccessful Oliver Perez to three years t $13 million per. Minaya's parting shot was adding Jason Bay at roughly $17 mill per for 5 years, a contract that still has two more years on it. This leaves out other disadvantageous, long term and expensive contracts: Santana, K Rod to name two.

For those of you counting, that is over $100 million in salaries basically thrown away on no production, over a period of 7 years. In fact in the case of Castillo and Perez, both guys were negative influences on the team. Met fans who want to know why the Mets can't afford Jose Reyes, need to look no further then these contracts.

The trades are not nearly as bad, but there were some noteworthy ones that set the organization back. He traded away Heath Bell, and Matt Lindstrom both hard throwing right handers, who have had success, for a bag of doughnuts. In the Lindstrom deal, he acquired Jason Vargas, who he sent to Seattle in the Putz deal. In that deal he also sent Mike Carp, who for those of you paying attention in the second hal last year, looks to have a bright future.

From the business side of things, Minaya was even worse. He hired Tony Bernazard and made him his right hand man. This was the guy who took off his shirt on a minor league team bus to fight a guy. Minaya also blundered nearly every "situation" imaginable, including the nightmare of firing Willie Randolph after allowing him to go on a West Coaast trip. Minaya flew to California to fire Randolph in the wee hours of the morning. In 2009, Minaya attacked Mets beat writer Adam Rubin, saying publicly that Rubin was attacking Bernazard in the press because he coveted a job in the Mets front office...surreal.

So we know that Minaya does not have General Manager savvy. We know that he is a clown when it comes to running an organization. And yet not only does he get a cushy and influential VP job, he gets to fight off suitors who want him in their organizations.

Some things about baseball never cease to amaze me.

[poopytooth]

I couldn't agree more. Minaya is not someone I would want involved with my team.
Santana may have been an ok signing that just hasn't worked due to injury, but overall, Minaya is a waste. I'd rather have Ed Wade run my team than Minaya.

[Baseball Furies]

I completely second this. The guy is a complete debacle of a baseball executive. And let's not forget what he did for the Expos way back when to get Bartolo Colon...Brandon Phillips, Cliff Lee, and Grady Sizemore I believe it was? If that's not the biggest trade debacle involving prospects in the history of the game, I don't know what is.