Remember this?
It is, of course, almost perfectly fitting that each man photographed with Minaya there in June, 2007 as examples of his early success could now easily be cited as symbols of his downfall.
Minaya picked up Orlando Hernandez (top left) for only Jorge Julio during the 2006 campaign. Hernandez helped the Mets reach the playoffs that season and pitched well for the team again in 2007. But the 40+ year-old righty succumbed to injury in September of ’07 and again in Spring Training of 2008, exposing both the organization’s lack of depth and its nasty habit of relying on old players with lengthy injury histories.
Minaya acquired Oliver Perez (top right) as a throw-in with Roberto Hernandez in a deal for Xavier Nady after Duaner Sanchez’s fateful taxi-cab ride in 2006, and Perez wound up recovering his floundering career with the Mets and posting solid seasons in 2007 and 2008. When the Mets were unwilling to meet Derek Lowe’s contract demands the next offseason, Minaya — dead-set on acquiring a starting pitcher — ponied up three years and $36 million for Perez. You know what has happened since.
Willie Randolph (bottom right) was fired after a game in Anaheim, around midnight Pacific time or 3 a.m. in these parts. Most of the criticism Minaya received for his role in Randolph’s departure was probably unfair, perpetuated by East Coast newspaper reporters upset that the Mets acted after their print deadlines and some handsome devil on a blog broke the news to the world. But though Minaya maintained a good relationship with the media, his shaky public handling of embarrassing incidents — most notably Tony Bernazard’s firing — became a stain on his tenure.
Endy Chavez (bottom middle) was picked up as a free agent before the 2006 season and proved a great find for Minaya, playing exceptional defense in his fourth outfielder role. But Chavez was one of multiple useful players sent packing in one of the worst deals Minaya made as Mets GM — the acquisition of then-injured and never-examined J.J. Putz (as well as Jeremy Reed and Sean Green).
Though the players the Mets dealt away in the trade have netted only about 4.4 WAR (per Fangraphs) for their new clubs, many are still young and under contract for a while. The three players the Mets received combined for -0.6 WAR, and only Green is still with the Mets.
John Maine (bottom left) probably isn’t as good an example of all that went wrong as the rest of the guys. Still, he was offered arbitration and eventually signed for $3.3 million last offseason coming off two straight injury-plagued years. And his injuries frequently appeared misdiagnosed, mishandled or at least mysterious.
Maine was counted on to be a member of the 2010 Mets’ rotation and made eight mostly ineffective starts before being lifted from a game after five pitches, feuding publicly with his manager and disappearing into the ether. So, actually, on second though, maybe Mainer’s a pretty good symbol of the way things went wrong.
Hat tip to Richard Deitsch for the reminder, via Tom Boorstein.
Tedquarters 
2006 was the most fun I’ve ever had following baseball. If that team won the World Series, every single one of those guys for all their flaws would have become legends.
this was a great example of SI’s tragic shift in cover style from “bad ass action shots” to “awkward family photos”.
DUDE. I am all the way there with you on most things, but you can’t be participating in the NY media’s solipsistic “fired in the middle of the night” claptrap. He was fired after a game. As happens.
East Coast media bias!
Wait, I was trying not to do that. I was trying to say that even though it was unfair that Minaya got blamed for the middle of the night thing, part of his downfall was the way he handled embarrassing public incidents.
Also I wanted to note that I’m handsome.
Oh sorry, I see now that you were snarking. And, you know, handsome is as handsome does.
During the Willie Randolph firing, East Coast media forever harped on “3am 3am 3am” as if there were no other time zones on the planet, and that Omar was doing this to somehow avoid the news getting out.
As if the internet didn’t exist in 2008. LOLZAPALOOZA!
After seeing the postseason schedules this year, it’s nice to see that hasn’t changed a bit. Screw all the baseball fans west of Chicago.
How about letting him go to the West Coast in the first place and not firing him before the trip. Omar knew he was going to fire him, yet let him make that 3000 mile flight anyway. Just dispicable.
It was all downhill after this cover: http://bit.ly/9inFGD
I was expecting this one:
Wow, what a difference life has been for the Mets since that June ’07 cover. Hard to believe now but they were one of the best teams in baseball around that time period.
The thing that stays with me about Minaya is how much money he spent and how little he got back in return.
El-duque was a huge waste of money for the ’08 season. Something like $7 million and he didn’t even pitch an inning. Moises Alou had something like 50 plate appearances in ’08 and made $7 million.
He was “solid” in ’07 if by solid you mean a #3/4 starting pitcher. If you look at Fangraphs he had a 2.2 WAR in ’07 ranked 61/80 among qualifiers in the majors. You’re looking at a #3 pitcher at best.
In ’08 he had a 1.3 WAR and finished 76/88 among qualifiers in the majors.
The red flag I always saw with Ollie were his walks. He led the Majors in BB in ’08 and finished 13th in ’07. There’s no way you can give a guy a $36 million dollar 3 year contract with those type of numbers. Realistically Ollie was worth something like $6-9 million a year. His contract should have been something like 3 year $18-27 million. And to make matters worse he’s been horrible in ’09-10, literally not even worth a dollar. If anything Ollie owes the Mets money for taking up a roster spot.
Endy was a decent player but ill-suited to be an every day corner outfielder. He was a back-up center fielder/defensive specialist type player which really didn’t make sense for this team because they had Beltran who played every day.
Maine was similar to Ollie but Maine didn’t cost them a fortune. I’ve always felt that Maine was never the same pitcher once Peterson left. Say what you will about Peterson but Maine and Perez most productive time periods were when Peterson was the pitching coach.
Re: Peterson, I’ve said similar: http://www.tedquarters.net/2010/05/21/habitually-not-so-good/
“Say what you will about Peterson but Maine and Perez most productive time periods were when Peterson was the pitching coach.”
Nothing more than coincidence. Especially since Maine has been injured so frequently as of late. I saw that Ted noted that Maine’s arm troubles have increased since Peterson left. Causal relationship? Doubtful.
Consider that Billy Wagner had trashed Peterson on the way out/after they left. As did Aaron Heilman. As did Guillermo Mota. They were not fans of his “one size fits all” approach to pitching.
Mike Pelfrey has made it no secret that he was not a big Rick Peterson fan, yet has gone out of his way to endorse the Mets keeping Dan Warthen.
Rick Peterson has been the Milwaukee Brewers pitching coach for all of 2010. Outside of Yovani Gallardo, have you seen their pitching staff? Horrible. Granted, some of that is on their GM and the pitchers themselves. But the idea that Peterson can miraculously fix guys or that they perform better directly because of him, is specious at best.
So you’re going to just dismiss the work that Peterson did and say it wasn’t his teachings that got the most out of those guys but rather he happened to be there when they were good.
queensbridge stand up! memory lane (sittin in da’ park).
its over. its but a memory
That was a good John Maine article.
I was a Peterson fan so I never wanted to see him fired. He was intelligent but he wasn’t pompous, and he never talked like a guy with a big ego. If you ever heard him on the radio he came across like a pretty decent guy with some really good ideas. He always reminded me of a really smart guy who was once a part of the Beach Boys or something.
I think he took two guys, Perez & Maine, who were throw-in/scrap heap players and turned them into decent #3/4 starters. He took a lot of crap for his Kazmir statements but in the end he was 100% correct in his assessment. I thought he and Willie should have been able to finish the ’08 season.
I never liked the Manuel/Wharthen show. I thought it was a big step backwards. I never understood why they were re-hired after the ’08 season. I was at the game on September 10, 2008 and the Mets were 3 1/2 games in first. At worst, I thought they would win the wild card. Minaya/Manuel/Wharthen should have been fired at the end of the ’08 season.
Why weren’t they held accountable like Randolph/Peterson???
There are some pretty funny subtleties to that photo in hindsight. John Maine trying to look happy might be my favorite.
Thanks Ted. Now I has a sad. :(