The last time we saw the New York Mets playing regular season baseball, they were winding down a third-consecutive disappointing season, the last two of which were under manager Art Howe. Artie is gone; so is GM Jim Duquette. New faces are in, old faces are out. MetsGeek.com writers sit down for Part One of our inaugural roundtable discussion on the New Mets.

1. What was your initial reaction to the hiring of Omar Minaya as GM? What did you think the short-term and long-term impact of that hiring would be?

Damien: An unforeseen occurrence, Omar’s hiring showed that the organization was willing to let somebody completely take the reigns. After offering him the position of co-GM (with Jim Duquette) following the 2003 season, and having been declined, it was pretty obvious that Minaya wasn’t going to come to the Mets if he wasn’t given some kind of front office autonomy. So, firstly and most importantly, the signing showed me that he’d been given the go-ahead from the finally relenting Wilpons. That’s why I was probably most glad about the signing, and completely willing to accept it despite that infamous OBP quote which has been floating around thanks to Primer.

Apart from that, however, I was unsure of what Omar’s stance on the farm system would be, and how he’d attack the free agent market. It came as more of a surprise that the ownership opened its collective wallet. After getting Beltran and Martinez, it didn’t even disappoint me too much that Ian Bladergroen was traded, although, looking back, I see that he probably could have garnered more than Mientkiewicz in a deal. That said, Omar addressed the needs of our club - the outfield and first base - while also improving the rotation. While I don’t think both Benson and Martinez were desperately needed (I’ve always been an advocate of Seo in the rotation), I can’t deny that he’s markedly improved the ballclub, without clearing out the top prospects or losing important draft picks.

OFF: Shocked. I did not share Damien’s positivism when it came to the Mets’ willingness to let somebody take the reigns of the club. On the contrary, I thought this was yet another example of how the Wilpons didn’t follow through with their original plan and instead changed their minds in mid-flight. As for Omar himself, well, let’s just say I wasn’t exactly thrilled with his work in Montreal. While the Wilpons saw someone with a great scouting eye, I saw someone with a horrendous trade record who basically destroyed the Expos’ farm system in less than two years. Add to this his then apparent unwillingness to embrace statistical analysis, and I was downright furious he had been hired as the Mets’ new general manager. I thought his hiring would have mediocre short term results and even worse long term ones.

Andrew: I believe my initial reaction was, “Wait… what?” I’ve always felt, and I’m sure I’m not alone, that Jim Duquette was going to be a good GM. He’s intelligent, he’s great when it comes to the financial aspects of the job, and he seemed to have the right idea when it came to trades (Scott Kazmir not withstanding). But I also knew that with JD at the helm, there would be a lot of rebuilding. Duquette’s a lot of things, but charismatic ain’t one of them. And if you’re looking to get top free agents to sign on with a team that went 71-91, you’re going to need to be able to do a little song and dance. Quite frankly, I felt that Omar would be the best guy available for that quick turnaround job the Wilpons had been eyeing. I never felt Montreal was a fair place to judge Omar, because he was making trades with no idea what the future held. If the team wasn’t even going to be around in a year, what’s the point in thinking of the future? Essentially, I had no idea how Omar the GM would be, because I hadn’t seen him in action yet. But I was pretty confident that he wouldn’t run the team into the ground, and that’s all you could ask for at that point.

Jeremy: I was absolutely shocked, just like OFF. And just like OFF, I wasn’t confident. The trading record in Montreal, while he had constraints, was not pretty and I was just not convinced I wanted to see the Wilpons hand him full “autonomy” over this team.

Mike: Here’s what I wrote when the local papers started reporting that Omar is coming back town:

This is the best news that I’ve heard in while. According to the New York Post, the Mets are close to bringing Omar Minaya back to the organization. The Mets tried to land Minyaya this past offseason to work with Duquette, but not be the GM. I’m not sure if this will be a two-headed GM situation like the Orioles have had, but this is the news we wanted to hear. When I made the comment yesterday about needing a GM to stand up to the Wilpons and their cronies but no one was available, apparently I was wrong. Minaya is a guy that will stand up for the good of the ball club and will stand up to ownership. Minaya will be the head of baseball operations and will be the guy orchestrating the moves, it would seem. This does restore credibility to the franchise and gets a fresh and reliable face who is well liked, particularly by Latin players. This is a good PR move to change the face of this team to potential free agents and other baseball clubs around the majors.

Omar said it himself on Mike and the Mad Dog. His boss, who is obviously Selig, told him there would not be a team next season. So what did he need a farm system for? With Vlad, Colon, Vidro, and Cabrera potentially leaving town anyway and with what Selig told him, he went for it. To judge him by what he did in Montreal is not fair. Needless to say, I loved the move.

Matt: Betrayal. At the time, I still supported Duquette and continue to do so. In the end, he was not able to assert himself as Minaya was able to do so well at the knees of the Wilpons. The move definitely came as a shock, however, as there were no indications whatsoever that Duquette was about to be demoted.

It’s fun to think about what the offseason would have been like otherwise.

Jay: I was surprised but hopeful. Jim Duquette had scapegoat written all over him ever since the trading deadline. I knew about Omar’s track record in Montreal but I was hopeful that the Wilpons were sincere in their claim that Omar would be given “full autonomy.” I do hope Duquette gets another chance somewhere — he really did get the short end of the stick.

Eric: The Duke? Shafted, though he’s still the highest-paid assistant GM in the game. Omar? The trades he made in Montreal were horrendous. No one will doubt his charisma or his likeability, but a big smile and Spanish fluency won’t prevent more stat-savvy GM’s from taking him to the cleaners trade-wise.

2. Who was your choice for manager of the Mets? What was your reaction to the hiring of Willie Randolph?

Andrew: I wanted Rudy Jaramillo. Now that I know that David Sloane is his agent, words can’t express how happy I am that he didn’t get the job, but at the time I thought Rudy was the best fit. He has a fiery personality, has a Hall of Fame-esque resume as a hitting coach, and he’s bilingual. It seemed like the right fit for the new Mets, a guy that could help lure Carlos Beltran, and all the while was the exact opposite of Art Howe. When Willie was signed, I was pretty much apathetic towards the move in general. I didn’t really care that he was a Yankee, but I admit to being a bit concerned about his complete lack of managerial experience. Since the start of Spring Training, I’ve actually grown to like Randolph, even if the no facial hair rule irks the hell out of me.

Eric: Wally Backman was my first choice, though in retrospect his questionable decision-making skills, particularly regarding women and hardcore narcotics, probably wouldn’t have sat well with Mets brass. Jaramillo was an attractive candidate because of his track record as hitting coach, though there’s a good chance his modicum of experience would have left him ill-suited for managing a National League team.

My reaction to Willie’s hiring was blind indifference. I couldn’t really make a very compelling case for or against his candidacy, so I basically felt nothing. He has impressed me thus far, though, particularly his candor with the media and his willingness to take the clubhouse by the horns and let everyone know who the boss is. Art Howe was never able to garner the respect of his players, and Randolph has apparently already done just that.

Matt: Definitely Backman. But HoJo was a close second. I expect him to be on the Major League staff in 2006.

Jeremy: My choice was probably Backman, though to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t all that invested in who was the next manager of the Mets. As for my reaction to Willie, I liked the move. I think Willie is a smart guy who has deserved a manager job for a few years now.

Jay: I wanted Backman, hands down. When they hired Willie though, I was happy for him. He had paid his dues for a long, long time and certainly deserved a shot.

Damien: Bobby Valentine. Jim Leyland’s name piqued my interest, too, and Wally Backman, despite his misfortunes, is definitely qualified to manage a high-profile team like New York. Wouldn’t you just love to see him handle the media? Willie Randolph isn’t a bad choice, though; he has come in and taken the reigns, and seems to be well in control and seems to have a plan.

OFF: Quite honestly, I didn’t care. Let me rephrase that. Since managers are difficult to evaluate, I couldn’t say Manager A is better than Manager B, and actually come up with a favorite. Of all the candidates that were rumored to be in the running, I was partial to Bobby V. Obviously, it’s hard to say this with any degree of certainty, but I think he’s a good manager (whatever that means).

My reaction to Willie’s hiring was a positive one. Not because of Willie’s baseball acumen or any of his other attributes, of which I know next to nothing about, but rather because his hiring was sure to be a hit with the NY media. I thought hiring Randolph was a stroke of genius in the P.R. department, and, let’s face it, in a big market city like New York being popular with the media goes a long way.

Mike: I wanted Rudy Jaramillo as well. I thought he would have brought more to the table in terms of being bilingual and being a well-respected hitting coach. He has certainly done a lot with some good young hitters, and while I’m sure the park had something to do with it, hitting coaches get fired when a team is not hitting well, so they must get commended with they do. Rudy also managed briefly in the minors as a head coach and that was a bonus as well. As far as Willie goes, my doubts were that he was a base coach for a while and a bench coach for only one year. A bench coach for a guy who seems to do very little during the game. Throw on top of that it was in the AL and you have some doubt on my end since the NL is a different beast. The Mets had already seen someone come over and massively mismanage the bullpen. Experience was a big thing to me. However, I’ll be the first to say that Willie seems to be a great guy for the job. So far he has done a great job establishing the fact that he is the boss and has the players’ respect.

3. What was the worst Met-related rumor you heard this offseason?

Jeremy: Wow, this one is easy. NYFS reporting that Moises Alou had signed a 2 year deal with the Mets.

Andrew: Yeah, it’s got to be the Alou signing. Either that, or when the Mets were rumored to be interested in Bret Boone.

Damien: The persistence of the Sosa rumors was uninspiring. It reminded me far too much of the Alfonso Soriano rumors in the previous offseason. While I wouldn’t mind having either player, circumstances make it undesirable - in Soriano’s case, trading Jose Reyes, and in Sosa’s case, just that massive contract.

Eric: Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano. I laughed when I first read that Tampa paper report the rumor, and I laugh even harder today with the comfort that such a preposterous trade never materialized (*cries*).

Mike: I think the Sosa rumors were the worst. With the good vibes around camp, the idea of him on the team really seems like a disaster at this point. Plus, if I had to go through a whole season and listen to him profess his love for the game of “beisbol”, I would have lost it.

OFF: Kaz Ishii for Jason Phillips.

Matt: All of the Mike Cameron rumors, specifically Eric Byrnes. But OFF’s isn’t bad either.

Jay: Reyes for Soriano. I was really convinced Omar was going to pull the trigger. Resigning Al Leiter would have been a close second.

4. Were you surprised to learn that Pedro Martinez signed with the Mets? What did his signing mean for the club? What did you think of his contract?

Mike: I was surprised that a guy who just won the World Series with the Red Sox was coming to a team that seemed so far away from a World Series at that time. From the start, I loved the move. It brought a bonafide ace and a fierce pitcher that the Mets have not had since the days of Cone and Gooden. The Mets have lacked fire in recent years and he brings it and then some. Pedro energized the entire organization and woke up a fan base. After the move, a Met official was quoted as saying “everything is a possibility”. It opened peoples’ eyes, and in my opinion, Carlos Beltran was one of them. He brought some legitimacy to Omar and the Mets’ off season. Until that point of reeling in Pedro, Omar had spoken about making a big splash. With the Winter Meetings winding down and some criticism coming about Omar being too ambitious, he had nothing. That was until Pedro.

Jay: I was suprised and initially disappointed. I thought they had overpaid for Pedro and that because they spent so much money on him, they wouldn’t go after Beltran at all. Shows what I know. With Beltran, Pedro’s signing looks absolutely brilliant. Can you imagine what this pitching staff would have looked like without him? Try Leiter, Glavine, Benson, Zambrano, Ishii. Scaaaaary.

Jeremy: Maybe a little surprised, but seeing how much money the Mets were willing to throw at him (and how much the Red Sox were), it wasn’t a big shock. His signing was a big deal for the team, if only because he provides a frontline and potential dominating ace the Mets haven’t had in awhile, but also because he gives the Mets a new exciting face. I’m fine with his contract… if the 4th year didn’t have to happen, it would be better, but I can’t complain. He is, after all, Pedro.

Andrew: Only because Theo Epstein seemed so certain that the Red Sox had him signed. Once he had signed with the Mets it was like a completely different team. Even if the Mets won 71 games again at least they wouldn’t be as boring as the last two seasons. His contract is fine by me because it’s what it took to sign him. I think the amount they paid, and the years they gave him, was the least it would have taken to sign him. So, looking at it from that angle, I think Omar did a good job.

Eric: A little bit surprised, yes. I was confident that Pedro was using the Mets to extract a better deal from the Red Sox. Also, despite Omar Minaya being at the helm, I still had flashbacks to the prior offseason when the Mets made a half-assed effort to sign Vladimir Guerrero. Omar shut me up, though. From a pure money standpoint, the Mets probably over-extended themselves for Pedro. From a public relations and credibility standpoint, the Mets paid market value to get one of the best pitchers in baseball, the single-best pitcher available via free-agency, and really made a landmark acquisition that undoubtedly helped convince Carlos Beltran (along with $119 million Samoleans) to play for New York’s other team.

OFF: Definitely. I was surprised and elated that the Mets had landed Pedro. Not because what Pedro meant, or because all the indications were that he was a Red Sox, but because I had no idea the Mets had raised their offer. You see, during the weekend all of this happened, I was at my girlfriend’s house studying for finals and completely disconnected from Mets’ news. So imagine my surprise next Monday when I log on to Primer and find out that Pedro was a Met. Wow. Pedro Martinez, the best pitcher in baseball, a New York Met. I still can’t believe it.

Even when the news finally sunk in, I still thought it was a fantastic move. Sure, he’s not the same Pedro he was four years ago, but he’s still one of the five best starters in baseball, if not better. Considering what Milton and Ortiz got, his contract is a steal. And its even better once you factor in all the good publicity he generated for the club. Does it come with risks? Yeah, like any other pitcher, Pedro is a risk. Big deal, I doubt the Mets would have been able to spend those $13MM in a better way.

5. Did you ever think Carlos Beltran would end up as a Met? Are you still surprised he’s a Met? Do you believe he’s worth his contract? Is he the best player the Mets have ever had?

Eric: Even when Houston’s window to sign Beltran expired, and the Houston Chronicle reported that Beltran would sign with the Mets, I was still only 50-50 on whether he would ultimately wind up with the Mets. I still had that feeling that the Yankees would jump in and grab him at the last minute, and I still have a hard time believing he’s a Met, even when I see him on the idiot box wearing Mets blue. He might wind up being the best player the Mets have ever had, though he’ll have a hard time topping Tom Seaver, and among position players Darryl Strawberry and Mike Piazza will hold that mantel for the foreseeable future.

Andrew: I was in Montreal for a week and a half during the Mets chase of Carlos Beltran. Just a heads up: if you’re ever looking to completely shut yourself off from any and all things baseball, Montreal is the place for you. I spent about thirty dollars American buying the New York Times to read about how the Yankees were saying they were out of it, but were going to end up with Beltran regardless. My last day there, the tune all of a sudden changed, and the Times said that the Yankees were now definitely out of it, and it was down to the Astros and the Mets (the first time the Mets had even been mentioned as a possibility all week). I’m sure my girlfriend was furious, as all I could speak of was Carlos Beltran. Our breakfast, lunch, and dinner conversations revolved around the guy. I would recite his stats as if they were poetry, explaining plays that he made and homeruns he had hit as if he had once rescued me from certain death.

The night I got home was the night Omar got the deal done. At three in the morning, while checking my cell phone, I leapt from our bed and shouted. I was elated. The Mets could have signed him for two hundred million, and I still wouldn’t have cared. In this era of baseball, name a player who is worth his contract, based solely on statistical merit.

What Beltran did, along with Pedro, was turn around an organization. He gave fans hope. The signing of Beltran brought up emotions in me I hadn’t felt about the Mets since 2000. Right now, he isn’t the best player the Mets have ever had. Nolan Ryan has played more games in a Mets uniform than he has. Tom Seaver has been a Met, and the numbers Gooden, Piazza and Strawberry have put up in a Mets uniform overshadow what he has done up to this point. But in my opinion, by the time 2012 rolls around, Carlos Beltran will have been without a doubt the most important Met in the history of the organization.

Damien: I’m still shocked that he’s a Met! I had been high on the Beltran bandwagon in the 2003-04 offseason, but we’d signed Cameron to a contract I still can’t believe we got away with (three years and $19 million), and last season showed that we had far greater deficiencies (first base and the bullpen) and hence bigger problems to deal with, so I was a bit cold on Beltran as I thought it would preclude us from solving other issues. But, to the contrary, we fixed our biggest hole with a tremendous defensive player, and still got the best bat and arm on the market. When we got closer to Carlos and Houston’s MLB-enforced deadline, I jumped right back on the bandwagon and was thrilled when he signed, though, I’ve got to admit.

$119 million is a lot of money to justify. Can anyone justify seven years? I’ll say this: with Beltran at just 28, I have far fewer reservations about him than I did about Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez or Todd Helton signing their contracts. I don’t necessarily know what that means, but I know it can’t be bad. He’ll have at least seven years to prove himself the best player in franchise history, but with bats like Strawberry and Piazza in the mix, he’s got his work cut out. That’s a big call. Will anyone ever identify themselves with the Mets more than Tom Seaver did?

Mike: I never thought Carlos would be a Met. I kept holding onto the faint hope of it happening and comforted myself with the idea that they had money to spend, but I kept waiting for the Yankees or Astros to snatch him up. That never happened. Omar and Wilpon stepped up and stopped acting like the Mets were a second-rate team who was afraid to tangle with the Yankees and lose out. They landed a five tool player entering his best years. I cannot believe the Mets landed a premier player in his prime, it is just not something the Mets treat their fans to very often. The Mets typically engaged big money players with trepidation in the past, or so it looked to us fans. Carlos looks like he is 100% worth the contract right now and has a chance to be the best position player the Mets ever had.

Matt: Until he starts to break some of Strawberry’s offensive marks, he’s still second rate.
Uh…I mean, yes, at the end of the contract, he will be the best player the Mets have ever had.

Jeremy: As much as I wanted Carlos Beltran to be a Met, never in my wildest dreams did I ever believe it could happen. And yet it did and to this day I’m still shocked he came to the Mets.

Carlos Beltran is worth his contract for his speed, offensive numbers, defensive numbers and his marketability. Remember, selling jerseys and tickets is part of the game too and he’ll do it. He’s worth every penny the Mets give him.

Is he the best player the Mets ever had? By the time his contract is through, I am confident he will be the greatest position player the Mets have ever had. Beating Tom Seaver though? I don’t think so. So, yes, greatest position player, but Tom still holds the greatest player moniker.

Jay: Yes, yes, yes, and maybe. There’s still that pesky Tom Terrific legacy to deal with. And, honestly, — you can write this down — I think David Wright is going to be the greatest position player the Mets have ever had. Beltran is going to be great though.