http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4366267
Associated Press
NEW YORK -- Mets general manager Omar Minaya said Thursday that he has apologized to a beat reporter for his critical comments during a bizarre news conference earlier in the week.
Minaya said he met with New York Daily News reporter Adam Rubin on Wednesday. But the GM was unclear when asked Thursday if he stood by his statements that questioned Rubin's motives and credibility for a series of articles about former player development executive Tony Bernazard.
Minaya has been sharply criticized since he said Rubin had "lobbied" him and Bernazard for a job in player development. Rubin denied he asked Minaya for a job and insisted he had merely sought career advice.
Minaya says he believes Rubin accepted his apology.
Good. That's what should have occurred after Monday's debacle of a press conference where Minaya seemingly lost his cool, if not his mind entirely.
Now to the interesting question... It's one day before the trading deadline, and the Mets are pretty much doing exactly what I predicted here. Though there are still 3 games left to play in July, so we'll have to see how those games end out.
The issue is this. The Mets haven't died a horrible death over the last month, and the current 4-game win streak they are riding is helping things. But they're still a long ways out of the wild card race with 6 teams in front of them, and currently 10 games behind the Phillies in the NL East.
The Mets can't really sell any players, because the few options they do have to trade, they either need for next year (Pedro Feliciano, Sean Green) or are on the DL (Gary Sheffield, JJ Putz).
At the same time, expecting the club to make a play for a major impact player at this point in time, is going to cost a significant amout of prospects out of an already-depleted farm system.
So it seems the best thing for the Mets to do before the trading deadline, is really nothing. That's not to say you don't have conversations with other GMs about trade ideas, but there just doesn't seem to be any major actions to take right now except hope that the injured players begin to come back as soon as humanly possible.
There isn't a great free agent class for the 2010 season, but that's likely where the Mets will have to focus their attention. Perhaps there will be offseason trades to be made that will allow the club to improve in areas they need to, instead of making desperation trades right now for a postseason berth that isn't realistic.
Right now, put out a good product, have a winning season, don't do anything stupid, and plan for 2010.
Now that I've seen and heard the press conferences from the New York Mets about the firing of ex-executive Tony Bernazard, the absurd blame somehow put on New York Daily News reporter Adam Rubin because he allegedly asked how to get a job in player development (which Rubin later denied, only admitting to asking Jeff Wilpon at one point "how to go about getting a job in baseball,") and then then the apology from Minaya and COO Jeff Wilpon, here's what I've taken from the entire ordeal:
First, Mets' GM Omar Minaya stated that the firing of Tony Bernazard, formerly the Mets VP of Player Personnel and Development, occurred after the Mets HR department had conducted an investigation and presented him with the findings, which weren't pretty. He then presented his recommendation to the Wilpons that Bernazard be terminated, and the Wilpons agreed.
This is standard operating procedure for HR issues in corporate America involving problem employees. So the fact that it happened the same way with a professional baseball club should not be a surprise to anyone. None of us are privy to the terms of the contract that Tony Bernazard had with the Mets, but you can't simply drop the axe on someone in a company without dotting the i's and crossing the t's. The legal ramifications are far too dangerous if you don't go through these procedures. Employees of companies have sued for unfair/wrongful termination and won a lot of money from those companies as a result. Some of those cases were justified, others were not. However, a ballclub like the New York Mets had to make sure that their ass was covered before Bernazard was terminated.
Minaya had mentioned that the HR report had found that there were complaints filed against Tony Bernazard by unnamed employees within the Mets organization, people interviewed did not speak highly of him, and the findings were of an interpersonal relationship nature. Basically, people didn't like him to the point they complained to HR about his behavior. If you've ever worked in the corporate world, you have to usually be a real special type of asshole in order to garner those types of complaints in numbers.
Second, Omar Minaya's bizarre attack on New York Daily News reporter Adam Rubin. Minaya stated that since Rubin's initial report on the Binghamton Mets clubhouse incident in which Bernazard took off his shirt and challenged players to a fight, had expedited an ongoing internal Mets HR investigation in regards to Bernazard because of other complaints within the organization filed by employees.
But Minaya also questioned the motives of Adam Rubin in writing the reports about Bernazard because he had previously lobbied Omar and others in the front office for a job in player development. Rubin, who was in the room, asked Minaya if he was implying that the only reason he wrote those articles was in hope of getting Bernazard fired in order to take his job. Omar Minaya denied that to be the case.
That... doesn't quite make sense.
Let's momentarily assume that Adam Rubin had indeed asked about how to get a job within the Mets front office and everything Minaya said about Rubin was 100% true.
Is it reasonable to assume that Adam Rubin was going to obtain that particular job simply by asking? If you're going with Omar Minaya's bizarre theory, Adam Rubin was somehow naive enough to go from Mets beat reporter for the NY Daily News, into Tony Bernazard's position overnight?
If anything in Adam Rubin's articles about Tony Bernazard's behavioral issues were found to be factually incorrect or baseless speculation without any foundation, and Rubin was hardly the only one in the NY sports media to report about Tony Bernazard incidents over the last month, then Minaya should have attacked Adam Rubin or NY Times reporter Ben Shpigel or Newsday reporter David Lennon or NY Post reporter Joel Sherman for falsely reporting information. That's not what happened.
Heck, if any of these reports were fabricated or completely made up, Tony Bernazard could have a potential libel suit on his hands against Rubin and others since it ultimately resulted in the termination of his job, defamed his character and it has obviously damaged his reputation. Except it's tough to prove libel when people are telling the truth about you.
Minaya seemed to be in a mindset of "shoot the messenger" instead of focusing upon the content of the message itself. The content was, in a nutshell, "Tony Bernazard has developed a pattern of pissing a lot of people off up and down the Mets organization." That content was corroborated by the Mets' own HR department. So then he goes after Rubin for essentially... being right. Utterly ridiculous.
Omar Minaya, and perhaps Tony Bernazard as well, were acting like Scooby Doo villains in this situation. "We would've gotten away with it all, if it weren't for you meddling kids!"
Omar Minaya and Mets COO Jeff Wilpon had another press conference later in which Minaya apologized for airing his thoughts about Adam Rubin publicly in that forum, but stood by his comments. So basically, he's sorry for unjustly punching him in the face in public, but would do it again in private, even though the punch in the face isn't justifiable in either situation.
My best guess is that this was Minaya's ill-conceived emotional way of "getting back" at Rubin for the somewhat scathing article published on July 11, 2009 which did not paint Omar Minaya in a very favorable light, seen here.
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/2009/07/11/2009-07-11_meet_the_mess.html
As of 10:30pm Pacific Time, the NY Daily News web site has not published any article or story covering the Mets 7-3 win over the Colorado Rockies on Monday night.
At this point, Omar Minaya owes Adam Rubin a sincere apology, a public
retraction of the accusation leveled against him if it is indeed untrue
or inaccurate. Because frankly, if he doesn't, it could get a whole lot
worse.
After a 3-game sweep at the hands of NL East rivals and current division leaders Philadelphia Phillies over the July 4 weekend, it's time to call it. The season for the 2009 New York Mets is basically over.
Understand that unlike a lot of Met fans, I'm not the whining complaining blame & flame-throwing type. I don't fault any one person for the failure of the 2009 New York Mets. I don't beat drums about firing everyone in the front office, or demanding that they trade away part of "the core." I'm generally pretty optimistic when it comes to all things baseball. But I'm also realistic.
And the reality has finally set in for this team. It's not Jerry Manuel's fault. It's not Omar Minaya's fault. It's not Fred and Jeff Wilpon's fault.
It's the fault of overwhelming injuries to a multitude of players.
Injuries are the great unequalizer in sports. It's what makes fantasy sports such a tough game to win. You can draft the best players in any fantasy sports league, but if your #1, #2 and #3 picks go down for an extended period of time, you're going to have a very tough time of winning your fantasy league. Now translate that to REAL sports, and you've got a serious problem.
The 2009 New York Mets have lost a lot of players this season to injury. Some minor, many major. Oliver Perez was first to fall. To some, that's not a big deal. But then Carlos Delgado went down with a hip injury. Then Jose Reyes's calf and hamstring. Then JJ Putz with his elbow. Then the oft-injured starting pitcher John Maine and his shoulder.
But the biggest loss on top of all of the others that had already accumulated, was Carlos Beltran and the debilitating and painful bone bruise on his right knee.
There were periods of time in which the Mets were also without starters Ryan Church (RF), Brian Schneider (C), and backup utility man Alex Cora (SS/2B). There's a revolving door/platoon in LF once the Daniel Murphy outfield experiment ended. Fernando Tatis is not hitting at even close to the pace he was in 2008, and the backup players (Alex Cora, Gary Sheffield) are being worn down by playing nearly every day.
David Wright has become a very streaky and inconsistent hitter who has lost his power swing. Despite being the only major Met starter to remain healthy all season, he is going to have a career year in most strikeouts at his current pace, and his final BA could end up being .260 or .350, depending on what streak he ends the 2009 season on. But even assuming the best for David Wright, he's one player. Even Albert Pujols has a superior supporting cast surrounding him.
There are some Met fans who want to blame GM Omar Minaya for not providing a better set of backup players, forgetting that backup players are just that. Backups.
They're the guys who alternate in to give the others rest on a Sunday day game after a Saturday night game, and occasionally a couple of them can fill in for extended periods of time over the course of a season when needed. But when your backup players get hurt, and then you're calling up minor league players to fill-in for THEM before they are ready to produce at an MLB level a la Fernando (K-Mart) Martinez, Nick Evans, Argenis Reyes, etc. it's an unplanned recipe for disaster.
There are some Met fans who want to blame GM Omar Minaya for not having already traded for another offensive player, like an Aubrey Huff, Mark DeRosa or Matt Holliday. The three major problems with these concepts is that one player alone isn't going to turn the Mets around. The second is that despite the simplistic belief of many a baseball fan no matter which team they support, other GMs have to actually agree to the trades. The third is that Minaya has gone on record stating he wasn't willing to mortgage the future prospects of the franchise for short-term solutions. A very wise decision. However, the pill of potentially giving up on 2009 to have a shot at legitimately competing in 2010 and 2011 is proving to be a tough one to swallow.
The indisputable facts are this:
- Through 81 games, the halfway-point of a MLB season, the New York Mets have gone 39-42. They are 3 games under .500, and 4.5 games behind the Phillies.
- Last year, the 2008 Mets were 40-41 at the halfway point, 3 games behind the Phillies. They went 59-32 over the 2nd half of the season, which was still a game short of the NL wild card. And that's a team that didn't have nearly the number of injury problems that the 2009 team has endured.
- There are SEVEN teams currently ahead of them (Giants, Rockies, Brewers, Cubs, Marlins, Reds, Astros) in the wild card race, with Atlanta just a half-game behind the Mets in both the NL East and wild card race.The Mets are 5.5 games behind current wild card leading San Francisco Giants.
- Since June 1, the team has went 11-21, which would only be slightly palatable had they not gone 9-12 in April. Even though the team went 19-9 in May, things started to slide when June came, and went to hell in a handbasket once Beltran went on the DL (5-9 since June 22), including series sweeps against the Yankees and Phillies.
The Mets have their next 6 at home going into the All-Star Break. 3 against the Dodgers, owners of the best record in baseball, and the Cincinnati Reds. Figure the Mets go 3-3 over that span, losing the series to the Dodgers, winning the series against the Reds.
After the All-Star break, the Mets go on the road for 4 against Atlanta, 3 against Washington, 3 against Houston. If this were truly the 2009 Mets with all their healthy starters in the lineup, it would not be absurd to expect them to win 8-9 of those 10 games.
But without those starting players in the lineup and the team's inability to score runs at a consistent pace, the more likely outcome of that 10-game roadtrip is 4-6.
The Mets will finish up July with a 4-game set at home against the Colorado Rockies, and a 4-game set that extends into August (1 game in July) against the dying Arizona Diamondbacks. Over those 5 games, I'll give the Mets a 3-2 record.
Taking into account all the series remaining in the month, that would bring the Mets to a July finish of 12-14, and a total record of 49-53 through 102 games played.
For the New York Mets to actually have a reasonable shot of winning the NL East or even the wildcard, they'd have to amass at least 88-90 wins by season's end at the bare minimum.
In a perfect world, you get back all your healthy players PLUS Billy Wagner in the bullpen by August 1, 2009. Maybe you already have some of then back already. But the Mets would then need to go around 39-14 over the rest of the season, and pray that other teams in the NL East encounter troubles of their own. While that's not impossible, it's certainly not very probable. Keep in mind that this is also assuming that the team doesn't suffer any additional injuries to major players.
Whether the Mets should be buyers, sellers, or neither at the end of July will ultimately be determined how the team plays their next 21 games. Will they still be in the race? Will they be completely out of it? Will they barely be hanging on? And can GM Omar Minaya afford to publicly wave the white flag at the risk of lost ticket sales and other revenues at Met home games in August and September, and depending on what moves he makes, 2010?
Only time will tell, but you can put this one in the books. The 2009 Mets will not make the postseason because they've gone too many games without their horses. By the time the cavalry comes back, it will be too late.
I really hope to be proven wrong, but this time, I highly doubt it.
Go Angels.
