SLEEPY HOLLOW, NY—
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Old Man Minaya
Went to the cupboard,
To get his skipper a hitter:
When he got there,
The cupboard was bare
And the season went down the sh**ter
Apologies to Mother Goose, but there simply isn’t a better way to describe the state of the Metropolitans. I find it increasingly hysterical that the New York media, the fans, and even Jerry Manuel are sounding the alarm that Omar Minaya needs to get a “big bat†and make other deals before the season is lost. Wake up and smell the formaldehyde people! Our fearless GM picked those minor league rosters clean a long time ago. Sure, the Mets could probably use someone like Carlos Gomez right now, but no one can fault the deal that brought Johan Santana here. However, the supposed “steal of a deal†that landed J.J. Putz, Sean Green, and Jeremy Reed in New York cost the Mets plenty of young players.
Although Endy Chavez is out for the season with an injury, it’s anything but a sure thing that it would have happened in New York, and boy could the Mets use his defense and hustle in the outfield now. Mike Carp would also most likely be playing first base right but he’s gone too, as are LHP Jason Vargas and 20-year-old pitcher Maikel Cleto who throws in the mid- to upper-90s. Now, it’s very possible that none of these guys or various other minor leaguers the Mets have traded recently would have been able to bail this team out, but the fact remains that they were valuable bargaining chips. I mean, no one cried when Aaron Heilman was included in that deal, but give the Mariners credit for turning around and shipping him to the Cubs for two players, one a pitcher, Garrett Olson, who has done a decent job as an emergency starter. What I’m saying is, Omar made moves that everyone called brilliant at the time but he left the minor league talent pool severely drained.
So, for everyone out there clamoring for Minaya to make a deal, the question is this: What player or players do the Mets have in the minors that will bring any kind of real help to their current roster? I got news for you, if the Mets had anyone good they were hiding in Triple- or Double-A, they’d be playing in Flushing right now.
In case you missed it, can’t-miss whiz kid Fernando Martinez is playing for the big league club. He couldn’t hit J.Lo’s a** with a banjo, but he’s playing.
The rest of the no-hit no-names are the best we’ve got, meaning not very good.
In the end, no matter what happens, the excuse for this season is going to be injuries. But some of the blame has to be placed on a real lack of depth at just about every position and the continued evidence from the minors on up that the Mets organization does not drill the fundamentals of the game into their players. It’s a mess all the way around and there is no simple way to fix it. The guy on the line for all of this, and he knows it, is Omar Minaya. It will be interesting to see if he has any final trade tricks up his sleeve. I know everyone wants to see someone like Adam Dunn playing for the Mets, but I don’t. Omar should take a cue from another nursery rhyme and realize that it’s going to take a whole lot more than a last gasp deal to put this Humpty Dumpty back together again.
