Someone Help the Mets
If Machiavelli ever penned a manual on how to operate as a general manager he would have undoubtedly included a chapter on how to extinguish the proverbial hot seat. Way number one: Win. Way number two: Win more. Way number three: Win even more. And so on until the options become more about shifting the responsibility of burden and the actions include firing personnel or trading players.
Fortunately for Omar Minaya, Jerry Manuel is giving him all kinds of signs that he’s ready for a post-managerial career. Unfortunately for Minaya, it would be the second manager he’s axed during his Mets’ tenure, and would place the heavily glowing spotlight over his own head. The way things are going, Minaya may not have a choice. He can cut Manuel loose and save his own job for the time being, or allow Manuel to drive the team into the wall and have them both dismissed at once.
Ignore the extra innings mismanagement of Francisco Rodriguez. That’s merely another bullet point on Manuel’s pink slip. Consider the horrendous handling of Jenrry Mejia to date. Manuel has instructed him to focus on his fastball – presumably the pitch that needs the least work for Mejia to become a good starter. If telling the organization’s best pitching prospect to disregard developing his secondary stuff isn’t enough, then how about then using that pitcher in lower leverage situations than just about everyone else in the bullpen? Manuel is actually using Mejia in the perfect developmental situations, yet he’s capping that development by disallowing him to throw his curve and change-up as often as he wants. Meanwhile, Mejia’s service clock continues to tick.
As for the other act of ridiculousness, it was an in-game maneuver that Manuel pulled earlier this afternoon. After allowing Fernando Tatis to pinch hit, Manuel elected to keep him in the ballgame … by removing David Wright. This decision came after Jason Bay had been removed, leaving Gary Matthews Jr. and Jeff Francoeur as the Mets’ corner outfielders. Rather than replace one of those with Tatis – the Mets’ emergency catcher, which is only important because that’s Manuel’s stated reason for keeping him in the game – Manuel decided it would help the team to replace his best player. You know, just in case Rod Barajas suffered an injury.
The Mets fittingly lost on a walkoff home run by Orlando Cabrera. This team is too big of a mess for one with so many excellent and enjoyable players like Jose Reyes, Wright, Carlos Beltran, and Johan Santana. It’s not just Manuel or just Minaya. It’s a combination. I’m not sure a great manager can overcome a poor general manager, and I don’t believe a great general manager would endure a poor manager. But when you get a pair of the same quality it leads either to beautiful fireworks or a bunch of self-inflicted burns. The Mets currently employ the latter. Truthfully, it’s hard to find an uglier design than what the Mets have in place with these two.
Some quick fix moves to start!
step1. Move the best lead off hitter back to lead off.
step2. Remove Pagan, from leadoff (since he is not a lead off guy) and go back to step1.
step3. Move Castillo from the two hole (I would like to see a hitter who can take advantage of those fastballs and not hit 18 hoppers to the second basemen)
step4. repeat step1
Reyes in the 3 hole isn’t really a problem. Ideally I’d have Castillo #1, Reyes #2. But really putting someone who should be one of your top 4 hitters in the 3 hole so he can have runners in front of him isn’t terrible.
What is terrible is starting GM Jr., double switching out your few good hitters, overworking Pedro Feliciano and Fernando Nieve, messing with Jennry Mejia, and using Frank Catalanotto as your first pinch hitter.
That’s terrible.
The lineup order…..just be happy when he has the best 7 hitters out there (Pagan, Castillo, Reyes, Wright, Bay, Davis, Frenchy…either Barajas or Blanco is fine at catcher).
The best lineup, in the short term, would be Reyes/Francouer/Wright/Bay/Davis/Barajas/Pagan/Pitcher/Castillo.
I know, Francouer in the 2-hole? But he’s a) been walking a ton lately, and b) would probably benefit most from seeing fastballs with Reyes on.
Frenchy in the 2 hole is not the answer if you want him to see more fastballs. Frnechy can’thit fastballs. He feasts on off-speed stuff. His OPS is like 200 points lower vs. power pitchers than against off-speed pitchers.
In what world has Francouer been ‘walking a ton lately?’ He has two walks in his last 16 games and four in his last 20. Moving forward expecting him to walk more than 5 or 6% of the time is something only the Mets could believe.
so you want the guy who is arguably the team’s worst hitter getting the most PAs?
The problem is Castillo and Pagan are the worst hitters on the team and shouldnt be batting one and two.
Heres my lineup:
Reyes, pagan, wright, bay, davis, frenchy, barajas, pitcher, castillo.
Castillo acts like a lead off hitter but Reeys gets the most abats on the team. Pagan will see more fastballs with Reyes on base and Wright behind him.
lead off hitter isn’t a special enough role to warrant that kind of argument.
Meh, typical Fangraphs Met-hate. Manuel and Minaya are both idiots of course, but tell us something we all don’t know.
I don’t think anyone at Frangraphs actually cares enough about the Mets to hate them. They write about them because they write about all the teams, and big-market teams tend to have more and more interesting stories, but I have a hard time seeing anything but indifference beyond that motivation — certainly nothing of the passion that enlivens hatred. They do seem to hate stupidity, though, and you seem willing to agree that is what they’re identifying here.
And anyway, how does mentioning something that we all supposedly already know qualify as “hate”? Maliciously manufacturing stories, or at least digging up new evidence of stupidity, or examining that evidence from a new angle, might more plausibly fall into that category (at least if it wasn’t better described as “good journalism” by those who don’t take articles about a team personally). Methinks you doth protest just a little much.
I don’t know. There have been some really snarky Mets articles…The whole ‘contest’ thing with that guy from KC. And then there was at least one really biased article from the resident Brave fan on the staff. I think they write about all teams, bu they sure seem to enjoy picking apart the Mets. But the Mets keep providing easy pickins though too…
Omar earned his place in the contest. It’s not hating if the guy has sucked for a long time.
As a Metshater, I thoroughly enjoyed this article and look forward to reading more of the same in the future.
It’s not a matter of making fun of them anymore; it’s just sad…
Oh well. I suppose you can’t have good managers without bad ones right?
You’re right, complaining about K-Rod throwing 100 pitches in the bullpen is so two weeks ago.
So I’ll just complain about this: The Mets just played three games that were decided in the last at-bat. K-Rod pitched one inning in those three games. $11.5 million well spent.
11.5?
try 13 million this year and next and 17 million in 2013 if his easy vesting option vests.
As a mets fan I’ve decided to take the money I was going to use to pay for mlb.tv and invest it in drugs instead.
At least you won’t be disappointed this time.
As a mets fan I’ve decided to take the money I was going to use to pay for mlb.tv and invest it in drugs instead.
awesome.
also last night, mets are up 4-2 heading to the bottom of the 8th. in trots fernando nieve (for the 3rd day in a row) as the metsies 8th inning man. ignore this larger problem for the time being. nieve retires drew stubbs and brandon phillips bringing up the left handed joey votto! i understand votto hits lefties pretty well (.859 OPS career vs .956 vs righties, somewhat mitigated by 3% worse walk rate and 6% worse k rate vs lefties), but feliciano is on the team for this sole purpose: to get out the big lefty in the 7th/8th…and he’s pretty darned good at it to boot! SNY cuts to feliciano ready in the bullpen. cuts to nieve taking his time and looking in at jerry. cuts to jerry, motionless. nieve promptly gives up back to back home runs to votto and rolen (who i know is RH but frankly id rather have feliciano vs a RH than nieve anyway even with nieve’s slight 4.44 to 4.80 career xfip advantage). now feliciano is summoned, and disposes of jay bruce on one pitch. fantastic. no word on whether jerry had k rod warming up for the previous 5 innings just in case as well.
I’m a Mets’ fan and what frustrates me is the way the squander their advantages.
They’re one of the biggest market teams in baseball and yet they waste tons of money on players. And then they don’t take advantage of players out performing what their being paid.
They were paying Reyes about 3 million a year and he was giving them $20 million dollar player value. They were paying David Wright between 1.3-5 million and he was giving them $30 million dollar value. Even before than Wright was being paid $500,000 and performing like a $20 million dollar player.
They were paying Beltran about $18 million and he was giving them $20-30 million in value.
What do they have to show since 2005? One division title?
Um, winning the NL East is no easy task. Remember the pennant winner has come from this division twice in the past 5 years.
3 consecutive seasons of implosions for a team is hard to muster too.
I suppose they are consistent at it.
It’s easy task when you’re basically gifted 4 of the top ten or so players in the NL, and the biggest bank roll in the NL. Competent roster building, as in not going into 2008 with 140 million dollar payroll relying on Moises Alou, El Duque and Carlos Delgado, among other things, would have had them run away with the title.
Um, winning the NL East is no easy task.
Actually, with a 7 game lead and 17 games to play, it is pretty damn easy.
The NL East is a middling division. The Phillies have won 89, 92, and 93 games the last three years. They’ve been successful in the playoffs, sure, but it’s not like they’re winning 100 regular season games.
i dont think Omar Minaya is AS terrible as people think. I believe the Wilpon’s have a very big role in roster management. But Jerry Manuel, yeah, he’s just terrible.
Just wondering if the condescension and sneering in this article could be any more pronounced. Hey RJ, I think you are overdue for a performance review yourself… From someone just as arrogant as yourself. Ah, poetic justice.
angry are the mets fans. they never did learn to keep it to themselves…
less amazin’ than jerry’s boneheaded moves is the fact someone writing about the mets for fangraphs took the time to watch one of their games!
or at least read about them online the web!
now, overdue congratulations on your discovery of the low-hanging fruit that we call the tenure of jerry manuel!
easy pickings! nice job writing your article!
maybe tell matthew carruth how you found out about when they were playing and perhaps for his next half-assed, hatchet-job article he’ll do some research on the mets, too!
Can we institute a rule that requires all posts to contain at least one sentence that does not end with an exclamation point?
Shall we also require sentences to begin with a capital letter while we’re at it? I mean, we can’t dictate intelligent content in the comments (unfortunately) but we could require that folks get the basic mechanics right — you know, the stuff you’re supposed to get taught in the first few grades of school.
Absolutely!
Ironic that two people would be making grammatically snarky remarks, yet their names are “the ghost of dick pole” and “joser”.
Shouldn’t those names be “The ghost of Dick Pole” and “Joser”?
I’ve yet to see a style guide, much less a grammar text, that mandates any rules about user names. The rule regarding capitalization in sentences is well-established; the one regarding forum nicknames is, to the best of my knowledge, as yet undevised. In my case you could view this unorthodox orthography as an attempt at informality and humility, an homage to ee cummings and kd lang, or simply an error when initially registering with the site since perpetuated by the usual mechanisms of auto-login.
My take on Minaya is he has absolutely no clue how to fill out a roster.
He has a few star players and he surrounds them with absolute garbage. You look at teams like the Yankees, Phillies, Red Sox etc. and those teams have their stars players too, but they don’t surround their stars with a whole bunch of junk.
Every year Minaya’s way to fix (insert problem here) is to throw tons of money at one of the top free agent’s and then do nothing else.
So, you’d rather he not sign Santana. Gotcha
Well (1) Santana wasnt a FA, and (2) he didnt say that
He said spending your whole offseason budget on 1 guy when you have multiple holes isnt a great way to build a team.
so, you’d rather dabble in fallacious argumentation?
I’d rather him not sign K-rod or Oliver Perez. We’re paying them a combined 25 million this year, 25 million next. And k-rod will get 17 million the year after that. That’s laughable. Those overpays and the number of small overpays, 6 million to Castillo, 2.5 million to Alex Cora??? are what’s killing the team. He has no idea how to evaluate the $$ value of a players contributions.
There seems to be snarky anti Met sentiment all over, but the recent FG articles are justified. The Met fans on blogs and local talk radio make the same points with a lot more venom. Jerry has made incredibly stupid moves consistently this year and last.
The Wilpons might interfere with the big offseason signings, but I doubt they had a hand in moves like trading for Gary Matthews, promoting Mejia to middle relief, signing Mike Jacobs, not signing any starters, etc. Minaya is a terrible GM regardless if the Wilpons are really that hands on.
You really think if Omar had a blank check he wouldn’t have signed Piniero or Lackey by any means necessary? Or some starter. Why would a guy fighting for his job and with a big pay check not sign a starter? Not to mention as far as mets fans know the reason Meija’s is in middle relief is because the mets front office, mostly thanks to the Wilpons, has no real power structure and for some reason Jerry is being allowed to over rule Omar and everyone else in the front office. I don’t think Omar is any great shakes as a gm, and really in a semi decent organization i imagine he’d be much better suited as a head of scouting or international scouting director or something definitely no where near the gm position, but I’m also not convinced he isn’t the best mets fans can’t hope for and possibly the only reason the few competent baseball decisions that do get made are made.
Basically Omar isn’t the problem he’s just a symptom, just like Willie was. And while he’s certainly not cut out to be a gm in this decade, maybe in the 90s he was, he’s also likely the best gm the mets have had in 10 years. Which should tell you something about how deep the problem goes. Unfortunately Omar will probably be scape goated and replaced with someone just as bad if not worse, just like Willie was.
Jerry, now he’s a problem.
All I want to know from Mets fans is when are you going to apologize to Willy Randolph? Don’t think anyone has forgotten the absolutely shameful way the team and the fans treated that man.
You reap what you sow. I couldn’t be happier about the pathetic state of the Mets franchise.
Forgot about that. Reaping indeed.
Jerry Manuel failing should be a +1 for all of us “geeks”.
Coming in w/ all his nonsensical platitudes and anti-stats yapping, the stupid opposite field drill, his propensity of throwing players under the bus, and general bizarre managerial decisions.
Can’t wait til he’s run out of town.
To be fair, the opposite field disaster was Tom Bernazard’s doing, not Jerry.
80% Bernazard, while he wasn’t the brainchild, he DID roll with it.
A good manager could’ve easily said “this is insane, besides, I’m the one here who’s paid to coach these guys up, not you.” Instead Jerry Manuel said “BRILLIANT!! SITUATIONAL HITTING!!”
Actually google it. Manuel said he learned it when he was working for the Tigers. Bernazard had NOTHING to do with it.
Manuel said he got the drill while in the Detroit Tigers organization.
“In my upbringing with Detroit and Les Moss, I recollect us going out and doing this every morning,” Manuel said. “I saw Kirk Gibson, who was a prospect I think at that time, on that curveball machine everyday.”
http://www.mycentraljersey.com/article/20090221/SPORTS0101/902210334/1107
There may be some valid criticisms of Omar Minaya but most of the morons dissing him here are either ignorant or too lazy to examine the big picture, or both.
FACT: Minaya inherited a terrible team with a worse, barren farm system
FACT: Minaya immediately turned the Mets from losers to winners, from 71-91 in 2004 to 83-79 in 2005
FACT: The Mets then came within one game of the WS in 2006
FACT: From 2005-2008 the Mets had the best composite record in the NL
FACT: No team in baseball, not even the Yankees, could have survived the slew of injuries to key players suffered by the Mets in 2009
FACT: Concurrent with turning the major league team into perennial contenders Minaya has, despite very few high draft choices, rebuilt the farm system which has already started graduating valuable contributors to the big team and is brimming with good prospects.
CONCLUSION: Minaya has accomplished the near-impossible double-task of immediately turning a 71-91 team into a contender while rebuilding the farm and holding on to all key prospects to do so. There is no GM that doesn’t make some mistakes, but what he has accomplished proves that he is a good GM, not an idiot.
Omar’s also failed to understand upgrading the team on the margins, leading to missing the play-offs by 1 game in 07 &08, and continues to not understand it, shown by the fact we’re going to be giving 200 or so at bats to the likes of gmjr and frank catts despite superior players already being on the 40 man roster. He’s also failed to have plan B’s for high risk players, like Alou, El Duque, and Carlos Delgado in 08.
And he hasn’t had high draft picks because of choosing to give big contracts out to type A players in the off-season when it was unnecessary. Like signing Moises Alou before the deadline for the Giants to even decide to offer him arbitration had passed, or giving 51 million to K-rod, and then not letting Ollie walk when there were superior options who would have cost less, and who weren’t type A’s. And you’re completely ignoring the fact that he had a little help doing the “near impossible” because he was gifted two 5-7 win players under team control in Wright and Reyes, not to mention having by far the biggest checkbook in the NL. There was nothing near impossible about turning the mets into a 80 or so win team.
“FACT: No team in baseball, not even the Yankees, could have survived the slew of injuries to key players suffered by the Mets in 2009”
I agree with this, to an extent. However, you had to expect injuries to Maine, Putz and Delgado, and Ollie’s ineffectiveness could be predicted, but not as extreme, to be fair .
“However, you had to expect injuries to Maine, Putz and Delgado”
Why would you expect an injury to Delgado? He played 159 games the year before.
Because he was in his late 30s, and had his 2008 season partially derailed by wrist and hip injuries. I don’t think there were many mets fans who were expecting him to be effective for 80 games let alone 162, even if he wasn’t actually missing them.
Gina, not only did he play in 159 games and rack up over 650 plate appearances in 2008, but his OPS was almost 1.000 after the all-star break and there was (foolish) talk about him winning the MVP because of how great he was at the end of the season. It might be hard to remember now, due to how things ended up last year, but Mets fans were pumped about Delgado going into the 2009 season.
Derek Jeter turns 36 years old this June (compared to Delgado turning 37 years old last June). He played in less games last year than Delgado in 2008. He had the exact same OPS in 2009 as Delgado had in 2008 (.871). Should the yankees expect Jeter to get injured this year?
Um I don’t think it really makes any sense to compare offensive production from short stop to 1b. An .871 from short stop is WAY WAY above average, .871 from 1b is barely above average. And Delgado was ineffective before the all-star break because of his injuries, so yes it made sense for a front office to expect a 37 year old who’d experience nagging injuries the last few years, something Derek Jeter hadn’t, and who’s offensive output had been declining to not be effective for 162 games, especially when he hadn’t been effective in 162 games the year before. If he was only effective for 80 games the year before why would he suddenly be effective for 162 the next?
You’re being way too kind to Minaya.
He inherited Wright and Reyes on the 2005 Mets. Wright was basically a $20 million dollar player earning $300, 000, so that was like getting an All Star starter for free. Reyes was a $7 million dollar player earning $300,00.
Cliff Floyd came from the previous regime and had a career year. Glavine came from the previous regime and had a good year.
Piazza was the only albatross contract he inherited. He was making $16 million but he was worth about $5 million. Also, it was the last year of the contract so it could be worse.
Let’s look at Minaya’s 2 big signings for 2005, Pedro and Beltran.
Beltran had an off year in 2005.
Pedro had a great year in 2005 but signing this guy to a 4 year 50 million dollar contract was a huge mistake. It was a back-loaded contract as well, so from 2006-2008 Pedro gave them about $12 million in value for $40 million in salary.
Imagine if the 2006-2008 Mets had an extra $13 million dollars each year to add a player?
C’mon Gina, you’re doing a great job of twisting the facts to fit your desired conclusion. Typical Omar-hater. He gets no credit for the positives he accomplishes because anything positive he does is portrayed as so easy or obvious (yeah, right.). I’m not ignoring anything, “two 5-7 win players” does not a team make. And when you are trying to contend immediately (because it is NY, after all) and are determined to build a farm at the same time, what choice is there other than to sign certain select FA’s, which is going to cost you draft choices? Moises Alou was a totally worthwhile signing at the time, the guy was THAT good a hitter — he did after all hit .341 with 13 HRs for the Mets in only 87 games. And the Mets missed the playoffs in 2008 because Wagner got hurt so the Mets bullpen kept giving away games. If Wagner doesn’t go down the Mets win the division in 2008 by at least five games, probably more.
Yeah two 7 win players doesn’t make a team. But it goes a pretty long way in turning a 70 some win team to an 80 some win team. Which was your original point about Omar turning that team around. Really almost all the positives Omar’s done have just been writing checks in free agency, and he’s probably done nearly as much bad with that as he’s done good.
And dude whether or not Alou was worth it is irrelevant did you read my point? It’s that he signed him before the Giants even had to decide whether to offer him arbitration, and there’s plenty of reasons to think they wouldn’t have. And I’m sorry the bullpen may have gotten blamed by the media because they were the most visible but going into the season relying on so many old injury prone pieces was the real culprit. I don’t care what Alou hit the year before he’s always been incredibly injury prone and players don’t usually get less injury prone as they age. There’s zero excuse for a team with the mets resources that was expecting to contend to go in a season relying so heavily on players like El Duque and Alou.
“I agree with this, to an extent. However, you had to expect injuries to Maine, Putz and Delgado, and Ollie’s ineffectiveness could be predicted, but not as extreme, to be fair.”
Fine, but even with injuries to Maine, Putz, and Delgado, the Mets would have contended, as they did until mid-June — even without Reyes as well. It was really only after Beltran also went down that they started to fall apart.
Sky Sparrow,
When you have the biggest payroll in your league, you should be able to get your team above .500. The problem with Minaya is that he’s one of the only GMs left in baseball who, as Gina said, has no idea what the dollar value of a player is. You don’t have to use sabermetrics to properly value your players (look at the Twins), but you do have to properly value your players in some way. Omar hasn’t shown he’s capable of doing that. Hence, he’s bad at his job.
Did we get linked from MetsBlog or something? The Met fans at FG are usually the self hating types, not the blatant homers. Seriously, my dad could GM a 500 Mets team with their budget while inheriting Wright and Reyes. The only good think Minaya has shown consistently is that he won’t trade good prospects for mediocre to average veterans like the 80s Yanks.
There’s a lot of comments and I only skimmed them so this might have been said.
As useless as Jerry and Omar have been, what makes this a truly perfect storm of inadequacy is the mismanagement of the Wilpons. Without their continued patronage to failure well after the writing was on the wall, the Mets might be a year into recovery.
That’s a very good point A-team.
Let’s Look at 2008. Omar gave El Duqe & Moises Alou about $16 million dollars and received literally No Production. The Mets still owed Pedro Martinez $12 million dollars and received basically replacement level production.
That’s $28 million dollars with literally nothing in return. All together they gave the Mets about .3 of a win. Even if the Mets just get 1 win for their 28 million dollars, they make the playoffs. What other line of work could you spend $28 million and get nothing back and not be held accountable?
The Mets spent about 1/3 of 2008 with Endy Chavez and Marlon Anderson as their corner outfielders. If Omar could have made a trade for just a “league average” corner outfielder, the Mets make the playoffs. They couldn’t get a Fred Lewis or Randy Winn or Luke Scott? Or even a Raul Ibanez in the last year of his Seattle contract?
Marlon Anderson hit .210/.255/.277 in 151P.A. in 2008. God, even if they had just released Marlon Anderson, they probably make the playoffs.
And how did the Wilpons handle this ineptitude? They brought Manuel back and gave Omar a contract extension.
One sentence you say they get ‘literally nothing’ for their money. The very next sentence you say they get about 1/3 of a win. Do you even know what the word ‘literally’ means?
What’s next? “I have literally no money in the bank. My account is down to $100”?
0.3 WAR from three players, given the imprecision involved with WAR, is literally nothing. It’s completely inconsequential. The error bar on a given player is roughly +/- 0.5 WAR. All three combined were within that.
Kevin,
If the error bar is roughly +/- 0.5 WAR per player, then does that mean it’s possible that they were worth 1.8 WAR combined (0.5 * 3 + 0.3)?
“literally nothing” means zero. These three contributed basically nothing. They contributed virtually nothing. They did not contribute literally nothing.
It means that “literally nothing” is well within any reasonable confidence interval.
Really? The best argument is “well that 28 million actually might have seen as high as a 1.8 WAR return?”…don’t you guys think that’s still a tiny bit of a problem? I’d say when you’re talking about a 28 million investment 1.8 WAR is close enough to 0 to say you got no return.
I can’t believe this thread has degenerated to the point of arguing over the sense of the word “literally” but if you’re going to go there take this mirror with you.
Hehehehe up 7 with 17 to go…
My main reason for thinking Omar needs to go: He trades Billy Wagner to the Red Sox last year for Chris Carter, they use him a little bit, then allow the Braves to sign him and the Sox get the Braves’ no. 1 pick! Why didn’t Omar just keep Wagner and possibly get a great compensatory pick in the offseason rather than trading him for a AAAA player?
Stuff like that makes me think he doesn’t really know what he’s doing…
John Q., do you even have any idea how the 2008 season went down? The outfielders and starters you talk about are so irrelevant to the collapse; the Mets lost out in 2008 because their bullpen imploded, period. Again, if Billy Wagner doesn’t get injured, the Mets would have won that division going away. Look at the game by game results from September, they tell all the story that needs to be told.
And yet even with the bullpen collapse, they force a play-in if they get any semblance of production from those guys that were mentioned.
The bottom line is that some ownerships (the Mets and Royals in particular) are too slow to react to ineptitude in the front office.
Dude. If they’re getting production from those spots the bullpen never becomes an issue. I don’t see how you don’t understand that. The bullpen was the scape goat from horrible roster building and playing with fire and getting burned.
Perhaps the bullpen wouldn’t have collapsed if Omar didn’t trade Heath Bell for Ben Johnson and Matt Lindstrom for Jason Vargas. It’s not as simple as saying they would have made the playoffs if Billy Wagner didn’t get injured. Maybe they would have. Don’t forget the issues with the rotation caused the bullpen to be overtired. We were really a .500 team all year besides that 10 game streak in July. We could have been a lot better than we were, given the enormous size of our payroll. The Wilpons are oblivious to everything. Really, really horrible owners.
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