My plan on making the New York Mets a relevant Franchise again Part 1

I never bring it up, but I am a die-hard New York Mets fan. I have been ever since I was a kid, when the Mets ruled New York, and baseball in 1986. I remember being in the first grade, and my father bringing me to Game 6 as my first baseball game. Imagaine that? Game 6, the comeback. Gary Carter, Kevin Mitchell, and Ray Knight with consectuive 2 out singles with the season on the line. Mookie Wilson's grinding at bat, getting a wild pitch from Bob Stanley to tie the game. Then, the Buckner play, Mets win, force a Game 7.

I still remember at age 6, way beyond my bedtime, as Shea Stadium turned into an insane asylum. It was the first time I realized that the earth can shake from noise. Grown men and women, cheering and even crying in joy collectively.

For Game 7, my mother forced me to go to sleep because it was a school night. I popped a tape into the VHS(It actually might of been Beta!), and recorded the rest of the game. I was so excited the next morning, it was almost like Christmas. I woke up on my own at 6am, skipped breakfast, and ran right to the television, and pressed play. Like, Christmas, I got exactly what I wanted. Orosco striking out Marty Barrett, flips the glove in the air, everyone bum-rushes him at the mound. Mets win the World Series.

I was hooked for life from there.

Looking back at that era now, the Mets had the perfect blend. Yes, they picked up free agents and veterans throiugh trades (Keith Hernandez, Gary Carter), but most of what made those Met teams was through within the system. They knew how to evaluate young talent and either traded for it (Ron Darling, Howard Johnson) or drafted accordingly (Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, Kevin Mitchell, Lenny Dykstra).

The Mets back then had a sturdy foundation in the management. Davey Johnson was the manager, Mel Stottlemyer was the head of a loaded young pitching rotation, Frank Cashen, the General Manager, fielded a front office that knew how to scout and draft, but most important of all, the Mets had an owner that truly cared about winning in Nelson Doubleday Jr.

Present day, the Mets have an owner, Fred Wilpon, that is in the newspaper more about being ripped off in Bernie Madoff's ponzie scheme than his frustrations with a subpar Met team and organization. The Mets have a GM that has made two great moves (Delgado and Santana), then tried to patch work everything else up. They have a scouting system that has not carved out anything in years.

Unfortunately, we cannot fire an owner. We can only hope that he changes his attitude and had more passion towards building a baseball organization properly. It is also in his power to clean house and hire the right people to make this franchise respectable once again.

Omar Minaya has become a circus show. From the way he handled the firing of ex-manager Willie Randolph, the entire Tony Benazard saga of attempting to be a hot headed gangster with scouts and minor league players, and how he did not sell at the trading deadline, because the sub .500 Mets were "still in the race", it is obvious that Minaya has lost the grasp to do his job. I will not talk about that again, I will talk about why he should REALLY be shitcanned. Those three reasons are how he handles free agents and budgeting,  the farm system and how he drafts, and how he will buy anything from another team to try and attempt to catch lightning in a bottle.

Lets start with the Mets payroll and how they spend money. In 2009, the Mets payroll was anywhere from 145 mil-150 mil, depending on what site you looked at, which was 2nd in the MLB to the Gordon Gecko Yankees.

In some situations, Minaya spent properly (Johan Santana), but the signings and trades have slowly drifted to being mostly bad lately.

Minaya traded his best hitting prospect, Lastings Miledge (more on him in scouting), for a career 4th OF Ryan Church, and an aging, often injured Catcher Brian Schiender. Granted, Miledge has wound up being a bust, but how many people forget that six months earlier, Minaya could of possibly had ace Dan Haren in a deal centering around Miledge and Aaron Heilman? Church and Schiender have/had amounted very little for the Mets, as Church already has been dealt again, and Schiender has been injured as much as he has played. This deal added on roughly 7 million per year on the payroll per year.

Remember how every Met fan collectively cringed when Minaya gave Luis Castillo, a 2B on the other side of 30, with a history of bad knees, a 4 year-26 million dollar contract extension? What part was the worst of it? That the Mets are stuck with Castillo and his albatross of a contract for two more seasons, unless they eat 60-80% of that contract, or that the extension might of been the only reason the Mets could not sign Orlando Hudson? Sad part is, Hudson really wanted to play for the Mets, and his price tag dropped more than the NASDAQ in W. Bush's last year in office.

The 2008 offseason was by far the worst of it all. The three major moves, trading for RP JJ Putz, signing closer Francisco Rodriguez from the Angels, and Oliver Perez.

Those three moves alone put close to 30 million on the payroll. KRod has not been the typical KRod, with 6 blown saves and an ERA over 3 for the first time since he became a closer. Putz at 6 million for a set up man (Jesus) was a bust. Oliver Perez was The Bust.

Minaya gave Perez a 3 year deal worth 36 million, basically bidding against himself, since no team in baseball, in this economy wanted to risk that money on a wild, erratic headcase. Except Uncle Omar of course. Perez's ERA is close to a touchdown with the PAT, his Whip is close to 2, and his mind is more fragile than Ron Artest's sanity. By the way, the Mets couldve had Bobby Abreu, Randy Wolf, and Hudson for one million more a season combined!

Oh, and lets not forget Omar's scarpeheap/waiver wire All Star team of Livan Hernandez, Jeff Franceour, Tim Redding, Ruddy Lugo, Aaron Sele, Jason Standridge, David Newhan, Sandy Alomar Jr., Ruben Gotay, Chan Ho Park, Killer Burgos, Anderson Hernandez, Jorge Sosa, Ben Johnson, Alay Soler, etc. Do I really need to go on with this list of budding athletes? Ok, thank you.

Next, is the scouting department and farm system, which I am being nice when I say it is easily in the bottom half of baseball. The Mets have not brought up a homegrown starter since the Reyes-Wright combo. Starting pitching? Do we even count Mike Pelfrey? I guess I have to since he really is the only Minaya draft pick that really has a secure spot on the Met roster. Daniel Murphy will most likely be an utility/bench guy. Whoopie!

The Mets offically had 4 Top 100 Prospects at the beginning of the 2009 season, according to Baseball America. They were OF Fernando Martinez, SS Wilmer Flores, SP Jonanthan Niese, and SP Brad Holt. None of them were in the Top 25, with Martinez being the top rated prospect, but sliding down the ranking from the year before.

Martinez was overwhelmed by MLB pitching in his call up, Flores right now is more buzz than action, and Niese will be at best, a #4 starter. Of these prospects, only Holt has had a very good season in the minors this season. These are supposedly the best the Mets have to offer, along with 1st round draft picks 1B Ike Davis, and 2B Reese Havens from the 08 Draft.

A big problem in this, is that Minaya usually buys top Free Agents, and loses his 1st round pick in the deal. Uncle Omar has had three 1st round picks since 2005, and two of them were in the same season of 08. Minaya does not get a shot at the prime prospects because of this, then in turn, he attempts to draft college players, that would  estimate to be ready for MLB service quicker than some of the more raw, but higher ceiling Prep School players. A great example of this would be Eddie Kunz, who Minaya hoped to be at least in the Met bullpen by now. Keep holding your breath Uncle Omar.

Minaya also goes to the Latin countries and signs young, cheap players that could one day be groomed into players on the roster. I will give Omar credit for this one, he duped the Twins into Carlos Gomez and Deolis Guerra, but who else has come from this grapevine yet?

And what is Uncle Omar going to do in the 2010 offseason? Sign Matt Holliday? Jason Bay? John Lackey? I hope not. It is time to clean house, and stop trying to buy like the Yankees. We are not in competition with the Yankees. We are in competition with the Phillies, Marlins, and Braves. How much of their rosters are homegrown? Hmmm...

This post was about why the Mets need to clean house and fire Omar Minaya, Part 2 will be how I would fix the situation over the course of 3-5 years, both short and long term.