The Mets season came to a close this past weekend. And it wasn’t long before Omar Minaya and the Wilpons were making moves. The flurry of Mets-related news signals the beginning of the “new” Minaya Era.
The first news of the day was that Luis Alicea got dropped from the coaching staff and Sandy Alomar Sr. will be moved to another position in the organization. The Mets shuffled the coaching staff by relieving Razor Shines and Sandy Alomar Jr. of their duties. They’ll receive new assignments for the upcoming season. Howard Johnson, Dan Warthen, and Randy Niemann will all keep their jobs.
At about the same time, the Post reported that Omar Minaya might seek to build a front office supergroup with recently fired GMs. Minaya called both J.P. Ricciardi and Kevin Towers after they were canned by Toronto and San Diego. Post reporter Joel Sherman speculates that Minaya might be laying the groundwork to bring them to the Mets. It would be shocking if adding those two “great baseball minds” would actually benefit the Mets. Towers is decent but J.P. Ricciardi repeatedly proved he was an idiot this year.
It was around mid-afternoon when we finally learned the fate of Jose Reyes. The Mets revealed that the hamstrung Dominican would require surgery on his right leg. Apparently, there was never any calf injury and his hamstring tendon was the issue all along. He will only need surgery to repair the hamstring tendon but not the hamstring muscle tear. Reyes is expected to be ready for Spring Training. Given that timeline, his recovery time is likely to be around 10-12 weeks. Doesn’t that mean he could have dealt with this issue during the season? Though, that would have required a proper diagnosis and treatment.
The hectic day of Mets news closed with a Q&A session with Jeff Wilpon and Omar Minaya (video is here). Wilpon expressed his disappointment in the 2009 squad and called New York a “results town.” The Mets executive also indicated that Omar Minaya would be given “one of the highest payrolls in baseball.”
Wilpon also goes on record to say that Jose Reyes’ hamstring was initially misdiagnosed. When the Mets medical staff finally identified the hamstring tendon issue, they thought he could wait it out. Instead of healing, it fully tore and eventually required surgery.
Other tidbits: Jerry Manuel will return as manager; Daniel Murphy got a vote of confidence but won’t be handed the first base job; no decision has been made on Carlos Delgado who will be a free agent; Wilpon said he’s fine with his current role and won’t be “more visible” next year.
I picked the Mets to win the AL East this year and go to the World Series. Clearly, I bought into the 2009 Mets hype. But after watching a season’s worth of their games, it was obvious they were a flawed team. That’s not to say the team can’t be fixed. However, Minaya needs to find the happy medium between sitting on his hands (which he did far too often this season) and brash spending to be successful.
Tags: baseball, carlos delgado, daniel murphy, jeff wilpon, jerry manuel, jose reyes, MLB, new york mets, omar minaya, razor shines
