Mets Forget Part of Announcement

It’s been a few days since the Mets announced that Omar Minaya had been “relieved of his duties” and that the option for 2011 on Jerry Manuel’s contract would not be exercised.

During that same day I waited to see the public introduction of the person who would be the new General Manager.

However, no press conference was held to introduce the new hire on Monday. I figured, well, maybe the new person hasn’t made it to NYC just yet — perhaps he/she missed a flight or something.

But then, there was no press conference on Tuesday, either. Nor on Wednesday.

It’s now Thursday, and there is no press conference scheduled to introduce the new GM. And there likely won’t be any public announcement until mid-November, as MLB doesn’t like it when teams take attention away from the postseason — and we all know that the Wilpons always adhere to the rules laid down by BeelzeBud Selig.

I would like to believe that the Mets knew who Minaya’s replacement would be before Minaya was let go. I’m holding fast to this idea, but the piles of rumors and lists of “candidates” and interviews mentioned throughout the media and blogosphere is making me think that the Mets do NOT know who their new GM will be.

Is that possible?

Truly and sincerely: did the Mets start their search for a new GM on Monday afternoon? If so, that means they believed Minaya would be manning the ship in 2011 as recently as late September. At the very least, they were considering the idea that Minaya would stick around. Which in turn means that the Wilpons believed Minaya was doing a fine job throughout the summer — despite the fact that the team has gone backward since 2006 and that people were staying away from their brand-new stadium in droves.

You really have to wonder what the Wilpons were thinking in late July, when the team was floundering and had next to nothing in terms of support from the farm system. Or did they think that the made-for-Disney story of R.A. Dickey was somehow reflective of their minor league development?

You also have to wonder what course of action the Mets would have taken if Carlos Beltran returned from the DL with a hot bat and Jason Bay didn’t suffer a concussion. Those two extra bats in the lineup likely would have been the difference between finishing in fourth and finishing in third. In fact, I will go on a limb and say that Bay and Beltran hitting near to what we all expected down the stretch might have helped the Mets to 85 wins — which still leaves them in third place and out of the postseason. And what then? Does Manuel stay on as manager in 2011, and does Minaya get another extension? Or would the Wilpons have been smart enough to realize they were damn lucky that Dickey’s wagon never turned into a pumpkin and that the likes of Elmer Dessens, Raul Valdes, and Manny Acosta were retiring Major League hitters (perhaps via witchcraft)?

Because without the minor miracle of Dickey and the black magic of the journeymen relievers, the Mets might have struggled to stay out of the NL East basement. The team has annually put together a flawed roster with no depth and relying more on past resumes, hopes and wishes than actual talent — this despite having one of the top 5 payrolls in all of baseball. Additionally, the farm system has developed very little in the five years Minaya has been in charge. The best “homegrown” players since 2005, in fact (Mike Pelfrey and Ike Davis), spent very little time in the minors — it could be argued that both “developed” in college and were very close to MLB-ready the day they were drafted.

Maybe the upper management of the Mets believed their own hype. Maybe they really thought that their Opening Day roster was good enough to play postseason baseball in 2010 and 2009. And if so, then we can only hope that the next person they hire to be GM has very different thoughts.