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October 5, 2005
The Minaya Manifesto: Part III: 2004 Offseason Evaluation
When Omar Minaya fled the lame duck Expos in favor of the Mets a year ago he was hardly assuming the throne of a perennial playoff contender. Quite the opposite, in fact, as the Mets team he would assume control over was firmly entrenched in a morass of ineptitude that began after the 2000 World Series and left in its wake two managers, two general managers, one owner and countless disenfranchised fans. Before they would become the “New Mets”, the old Mets were a team that had averaged 90 losses over the prior three seasons while toting payrolls in the $100 million range. Amid torrents of cash, contracts, and player signings, Omar Minaya set out to mold the Mets into his vision of a National League colossus, a team that would excite fans and torment opponents with its potent blend of youth and star power. Flushing wasn’t built in a day, it would seem, though Omar’s Mets have ameliorated to the point of respectability, something a stone’s throw wouldn’t have struck a year ago. Now that we have the benefit of hindsight we can take a shot at evaluating the job Minaya did last Winter. Big Fish With the departure of Al Leiter to the Marlins (and eventually the Yankees) the Mets were left without an ace in their starting rotation. To be fair, Leiter was something less than an ace those past couple of seasons, but he was a very good pitcher for the Mets from 1998-2002 and he was certainly a guy who was really the Mets’ pitching identity for the better part of a decade. If Omar Minaya was determined to remake this team, the pitching staff was a good place to start. Did he go the safe route and plug in a middle-of-the-road starter to fill out the rotation? No sir. Omar went right after the pitcher who sports the single-best career ERA+ in the history of the sport. Enter Pedro Martinez. One short week after MVP candidate and amateur soothsayer David Ortiz proclaimed that Martinez “…ain’t going to no Mets, Pedro did just that, inking a four-year deal worth $53 million to play in Queens. Martinez’ track record speaks for itself, but there was no guarantee that his past dominance would carry over to the Mets and the National League, particularly at age 33. How did he do? IP ERA SO SO/9 BB/SO WHIP OPS 2005 217.0 2.82 208 8.63 4.43 0.95 .583 NL Rank 13th 4th 3rd 5th 1st 1st 2nd Pedro was at or near the top of the league in virtually every rate stat, and would be a serious Cy Young candidate if the Mets could have won him a few more games. We will see how Pedro holds up over the life of this contract, but based solely on his first year with the team he is easily the best free agent acquisition the team has ever made. If you recall, the Mets made not one but two forays into the big ticket free agent pool, the second of which netted them budding superstar Carlos Beltran. Beltran was just 27 years old when the Mets signed him to a seven-year, $119 million contract that would have him roaming centerfield at Shea (or the Mets’ forthcoming stadium) through 2011. Beltran had just come off an otherworldly postseason performance with the Astros in which he batted .435/.536/1.022 and knocked eight homeruns in 12 games while falling just short of the World Series. Beltran’s accomplishments included far more than just the 2004 playoffs, as he also completed his third-straight season in which his OPS (on-base plus slugging) was greater than .900 and his fourth straight 100 run, 100 RBI, 20 homer, 30 SB season. His walk rate improved for the fourth consecutive season and he was the proud owner of the best stolen base success rate in baseball history. He was just entering the prime of his career and, despite his immense contract, the Mets saw nothing but the goods in Beltran. How did his first season in orange-and-blue go? And the survey says… AVG OBP SLG 2B HR BB SO SB/CS 2005 .266 .330 .414 34 16 56 96 17/23 Career Avg .282 .350 .479 30 24 62 107 30/4 Career High .307 .389 .548 44 38 92 135 42/3 Yikes! We might expect Beltran to fall off somewhat from his career highs, what with the oppressive ballpark and the bright lights of the big city, but this season was definitely worse than anyone could have predicted. Some players who posted a higher OPS than Beltran’s .744 mark: David Eckstein (.758) Beltran did fight a quad injury throughout the first half of the season and returned, probably prematurely, from that horrific collision that left teammate Mike Cameron with a broken face and Beltran with facial and cranial injuries of his own. These two ailments, coupled with the supposed pressure that comes with playing in New York for a contract that could choke a yak, likely played a significant albeit unquantifiable role in Beltran’s offensive disappearing act this season. Carlos Beltran may well bounce back from this awful, crippled showing, so it would be unfair and inappropriate to make a full evaluation of his contract at this point. That said, we all expect bigger and better things from him in the years to come. Holding Their Own In addition to nabbing two of the biggest fish on the open market, Omar Minaya retained the services of some players who finished the 2004 season with the Mets. The biggest of those signings was that of Kris Benson, whose three-year, $22.5 million deal set off a blitzkrieg of similar deals for similarly mediocre pitchers league-wide, including Eric Milton, Jon Leiber and Jaret Wright. Benson missed all of April with a pectoral injury, but was healthy for the remainder of the season as he attained a level of mediocrity not seen since, well, his mediocre performance in 2004. ERA SO/9 SO/BB WHIP OPS 2005 4.13 4.90 1.94 1.26 .715 Career 4.25 6.14 1.92 1.37 .736 The thing that jumps out immediately is Benson’s strikeout rate, which dropped precipitously from his 2004 mark (6.02 SO/9) and similarly from his career average. The Mets’ defense was pretty good this season, and that certainly worked to Benson’s advantage considering all of the balls he was putting in play. Benson’s walk rate is quite good (49 walks in 174.1 innings this season), but there is plenty of cause for concern over his strikeout rate, and I fear that if he doesn’t improve his ability to miss bats these next two seasons could be long ones for him. Omar also re-signed journeyman reliever Mike DeJean to a one-year deal, hoping to solidify the bullpen. DeJean was very effective in the latter part of 2004 with the Mets and everyone was hoping he could keep it up. DeJean had done a terrific job of stranding baserunners, but Damien was pretty sure he wouldn’t keep it up:
As we all know, DeJean was a complete disaster in 2005 with the Mets. He allowed 54 baserunners in just 26.2 innings, 19 of which scored. His strikeout-to-walk ratio was 18:17 (more walks than strikeouts), and his ERA bloated to 6.31. He was eventually and mercifully traded to the Rockies, where ironically he performed much better than he had with the Mets. Picking Up The Pieces In addition to the guaranteed contracts that were handed out, Omar Minaya also cast a fairly wide net into the NRI (non-roster invitee) ocean, landing some useful role players in the process. Guys like Ramon Castro, Chris Woodward and Marlon Anderson all played very well for the Mets this season. Roberto Hernandez was signed to a minor league contract and was the Mets’ best reliever this year. Some players retired (Todd Van Poppel, Andres Galarraga), some never made the team (Kerry Robinson) and some played poorly for a short period of time (Mike Matthews). Miguel Cairo was signed to a guaranteed one-year deal, and he went on to put up the fourth-worst OPS among all National League hitters with at least 350 plate appearances. Cairo hit .251/.296/.325 for the season and was an unmitigated disaster both at the plate and in the field, where every ground ball to him was just out of reach. Considering the low (no) risk nature of these moves and the fact that the Mets struck gold (or at lease silver) with Castro, Woodward, and Anderson, Minaya should be given a fair amount of credit for these successful signings. Give and Take Prior to the season the Mets made several trades in an effort to bolster the Major and Minor league roster. Jason Phillips, whose goggles grace the eyes of MetsGeek.com’s logo, was shipped to Los Angeles for Kaz Ishii. Both players performed poorly for their respective teams, so from a trade standpoint it was basically a wash. From an organizational standpoint, Ishii was allowed to start far too many games, tainting the trade with an overall air of failure. Serviceable righty Matt Ginter was traded to the Tigers for Steve Colyer, neither of whom we have really heard from since. Doug Mientkiewicz was acquired from the Red Sox in exchange for 1B prospect Ian “The Blade” Bladergroen. Minky was a solid glove man as advertised, but he struggled offensively for most of the season, also as advertised. Bladergroen was injured for a good deal of the season, and struggled when he was healthy, batting just .240/.337/.331 in 263 at-bats with the Class-A Wilmington Blue Rocks. Nothing ventured, nothing gained I suppose. In the best trade of the offseason, Minaya netted shortstop-turned-second base prospect Anderson Hernandez in exchange for big-talking backup backstop Vance Wilson. Though Hernandez struggled in a cup-of-coffee with the Mets this year, he had a very good year in the Minor Leagues and is one of the Mets’ better position prospects right now. Wilson is still a backup backstop, hitting just .203/.281/.291 for the Tigers this year. Conclusion Pretty much a mixed bag. Pedro was an overwhelming success, but Beltran, to this point, has been a big disappointment. Benson leaves a lot to be desired, but the small fish signings worked out very well. Where do we go from here? Nobody knows for sure, but I can assure you we will spend the next couple of months speculating, conjecturing, and analyzing all possible permutations that the forthcoming offseason might bring. 15 Responses to “The Minaya Manifesto: Part III: 2004 Offseason Evaluation”Leave a ReplyYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
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Healy made a comment during Benson’s last start that basically stated that Benson had stopped using his curveball during the season to simplify his approach and that was the reason for the declining K/9.
Did anyone else remember hearing that?
Another impact is similar to that of the NRI, something like the midseason roster giveaway. This element should be graded, if for no other reason because of its impact on team chemistry. Midseason when you give a guy like Graves a spot, and an option at that, with a 7+ era, you have to wonder about it. Especially when you consider the Norfolk pen had some legit options at the time (Padilla was having an AAA all-star first half and stayed there for an extra month after Graves was signed, for example). Daubach v. Brazell, Keppinger right before he got hurt v. Offerman, are some of the decisions I believe could have kept things moving forward. Ice is a known quantity, youth is variable with the potential to spark a team. None of Omar’s midseason pickups of the old scrapheap amounted to jack.
Well, presumably Gerald Williams, and Offerman provided invaluable services to the Mets in terms of clubhouse presence and team chemestry. Or at least that’s what Ted Robinson told us during the Met broadcasts.
Baseball-wise the moves were a mixbag ranging from puzzling to ridiculous. Graves was a mistake from the beginning, but its worth noting that more than a few people thought it was a good move. The fact that the Mets kept on him the roster for so long is a complete joke. Daubach vs Brazell? Sorry to break it to you, but Brazell sucks. Plain and simple. Daubach was killing AAA, and he deserved a chance to replace Eyechart. Unfortunately, the Mets never gave it to him. Keppinger got hurt before the team acquired Offerman so it wasn’t a case of either or, but that still doesn’t justify Awfulman’s presence on the roster. I’m speechless about Williams. What possible explanation can the team give us? Ice can’t hit, and he can’t play defense. Needless to say, he doesn’t belong anywhere near a MLB roster.
There’s no question that Omar, Randolph and the rest of the front office need to do a better job at getting rid of junk. These guys were probably not the reason why we missed the post-season, but they didn’t help matters either. If Ice, Offerman and all these retreads are still with the Mets come spring training, we’ll know winning isn’t a priority in Flushing.
Actually, I will breakdown the Keppinger comment. Cairo goes down June 14th. Daubach is recalled. Matsui the 16th, Ice is recalled. Minetkiewicz the 26th, Offerman gets his spot. Essentially by not bringing up Keppinger first when Cairo went down, it trickled into Offerman.
Yes, Brazell does suck, but guess what, so does Daubach! If you want to throw out Daubach’s huge #’s for Norfolk, I’ll throw you Offerman’s .167 at Norfolk (0xbh). Meanwhile Keppinger, if brought up would have brought a nearly Daubach-esque AAA BA w/ him (w/ great eye and patience too ~something the Carlos inspired first pitch swing popup Mets needed this year). But instead of trusting what the scouts and organizational coaches do so well, they trow the flunkies in.
The only success Graves had w/ the Mets was bringing his Norfolk era back down from 54.00 to 18.00 before the Mets so eagerly recalled him in September. The fact that you take solace in others thinking it was a good move at the time enhances the point that even after they saw him really suck, the kept running him out there until the merciful DFA, then the brutal recall after the aforementioned 54>18 era posting.
Good for Willie he can laugh about winning in the Bronx with Ice on the bench, well worth the stagnation.
But yes, I realize Kepp went down the same day as Matsui. He should’ve been recalled when Cairo went down.
Pedro is a given, but it’s not a stretch to suggest that most of us would have signed him if given the chance (and money). It remains to be seen whether the 4th year will be a good decision or not.
Other than Martinez, the only ones Omar can really hang his hat on are Castro, Hernandez and Marlon Anderson (Woodward was okay, but nothing special. Really Anderson wasn’t either, if you look at his whole season, but I’ll give Omar one of the two).
The rest were complete disasters. Beltran - who I like and think will have a much better year next year - was a huge failure. Benson was even worse and practically gets a free pass for it. Graves, Offerman, Cairo, Mientkiewicz, all horrible pickups.
The team’s best players outside of Pedro were all here prior to Omar and Willie: Wright, Floyd, Piazza, Glavine (in the 2nd half), Heilman, Seo - and Omar tried desperately to move Floyd for Sosa!
We’re going into the offseason with most of the same weaknesses as last year: 1B, 2B, a #2 starter, closer…plus we now need a catcher. I don’t think we made much progress, unless we assume that they’ll give Jacobs a chance at 1st.
Overall I give Omar a poor grade. The team was better because the players that were here played better.
I think the only mistake Omar made was to overestimate the impact those two signings would have all the team. I don’t know if you can pin it all on him, some of this might be input from Willie, telling him what guys he’s most comfortable with. We (fans, and I would assume mets brass) all told ourselves that we weren’t contenders this year, to try and and build for next year and beyond, and we started playing well and we threw it out the window. It may have cost us a .500 record this year, but we could have tried alot of the youngsters for the bench / bullpen spots (everytime I see Gerald Williams, Danny Graves, or Shingo Takatsu I get pissed, even if they’re not playing, they bother me). I just think that we wasted a full year’s worth of development time for some of these youngers, and that now we’ll suffer because they won’t be appreciably better, and we’ll overpay to fill some of the spots they could have taken. For all the good things about this season, that is the one thing that really gives me the red-ass… Sometimes, you just get the feeling we win despite ourselves…
I’m in no way defending the Offerman, Williams, etc callups, but I don’t think its fair to criticize the Mets for not bringing a guy like Keppinger to be a bench guy. Lets face it, Matsui deserved the chance to get some ABs and with the Mets carrying Woodward/Anderson, the need for another middle-infielder wasn’t great. Oh yeah, since when does Keppinger have “great patience”? The guy is a complete hacker. He gets away with it because he never strikes out, but that doesn’t mean he would have helped the Mets become a more patient team.
I don’t take solace in others liking the Graves move. I criticized the move since the beginning. You can look it up.
I looked it up. This is a transcript of an IM chat we had earlier this year:
Scary.
You can’t evaluate deals using hindsight. That’s not fair. Did you know Beltran would do this badly when he signed the contract? Of course not. His contract was a bit high, but still reasonable. Coming into the year, he was one of the 10 best players in baseball and had just had a marvelous postseason. You can’t blame or criticize Omar for signing him.
As for Benson, I thought the deal was okay. The Mets (again) overpaid a bit, but reasonable considering Benson’s 2004, and his projection coming into this year. He was brilliant in the first half and pitched pretty badly in the last two months. All in all, he was decent. Signing Cairo was a good move at the time it was made. It didn’t work, sure, but it was a good move. I was against Eyechart since the beginning, and I thought it was a silly move. There was no excuse for Graves, Offerman, and Ice. But those moves are relatively minor. Needless to say, I disagree that that deserves a poor grade for the off-season moves.
Overall, I give Omar a “B” for his 2004 offseason. He found something out of nothing in Castro, Anderson, Woodward and Hernandez. Andy Hernandy was especially important, given the dearth of positional prospects that the Mets presently possess. Anderson and Woodward are very valuable utility men. Castro is at least an above average backup catcher.
I still don’t hate the Graves move. It was a worthy risk. The biggest problem was sticking with him once it was completely obvious that he was no longer a viable ML pitcher.
The demotion of Seo was nonsensical at the time. But Seo was able to go down and refine a few pitches, and it seemed to help when he got called back up. Now he is an almost certainly a back-end of the rotation starter for next year. In hindsight, it worked out well for next year, and is hard to criticize now when looking back.
Omar’s grade immediately becomes an F if he resigns Cairo. The temptation for Willie to play him is too strong, and it will cost the Mets more games next year. Cairo is fine as long as he is utilized correctly, which is a start here and there to spell tired infielders. Anything more is ridiculous, I think Cairo proved that this year when his offensive abilities were completely exposed in an inexplicable everyday role.
Omar cannot be criticized for Benson. The trade for Benson forced the Mets to re-sign him, lest Black Friday become even darker. So Omar had to overpay a smidge to retain him. Omar did the best he could with the card he was dealt there.
This has absolutely nothing to do with the topic but I know someone here recently asked about Arizona Fall League stats. If you sign up for Baseball America’s email list you get Arizona Fall League stats plus the other Winter Leagues.
This is a sad, sad statement. True, but sad.
In fact, it is somewhat difficult to evaluate Omar when you have a manager who so completely overuses and misuses his players. The Graves incident wouldn’t seems so bad if he had only pitched in 4-5 games (i.e., he had stopped using him when it was apparent he couldn’t get people out). Same goes for DeJean, Takatsu, and even Cairo (if he had batted the various 2Bs in the #8 slotthen all we could say is “damn Matsui…he didn’t live up to expectations”). In other words, regardless of what people said at the time and what ended up happening, it is not inherently bad to pick random guys of the scrap heap, just so long as you don’t overuse or misuse them (see “Yankees entire pitching staff” and “Todd Jones” for examples).
One other thing: you forgot about the Stanton for Heredia trade. As much as Stanton appeared to be really bad for other teams, it sure would have been nice for the Mets to have Stanton’s line against lefties:
LHB vs. Stanton: .235 AVG / .270 OBP / .259 SLG / .528 OPS
That being said, there is almost NO way that WIllie realizes this and starts using him as a LOOGY, which would have meant that we would suffer through Stanton’s flaw:
RHB vs. Stanton: .358 / .430 / .605 / 1.035
Regardless, Heredia was useless because of the injury and was useless before the injury as a LOOGY, and given how bad we were in the late innings against LHB, this could have made a BIG difference.
This should count against Omar, though generally I think he did a good job (just think: Floyd and/or Piazza for Sammy Sosa was an actually possibility).
Has everyone forgotten that it was Omar who hired Willie?
No, AJ, not everyone…