The New Whipping Boy

By Mike McGann
Posted Sunday, October 29, 2006

Quietly, the Steve Trachsel era has come to end with the Mets. Of the five players from the 2006 team that filed for free agency, Trachsel is the only one that has zero chance of coming back in 2007. Not that many Mets' fans will be losing sleep about it, mind you, but it does represent a big change.

For the past few seasons, Trachsel has been the player Mets' fans love to hate. Around the 'Net, he is often referred to as "TrashPail" — and the anger spiked to record levels during the playoffs. It's hard to debate the fans' dislike of Trachsel as he was maddingly inconsistent.

So now, who is the new "most hated" guy? Despite having played OK during his month-plus as a Met, Shawn Green seems to be a candidate. His outfield defense and loss of power — this guy was once a top run producer — seem to have Mets' fans dreading a 2007 return in right field. Billy Wagner, who seems to have inherited the Mets' closer disease, blowing big games in relief, is another possibility, I suppose. Beyond that, it's hard to find a logical target for Mets' fans angst.

Which, I suppose, explains the vitriol launched at Mets' GM Omar Minaya since the Mets' lost to the eventual champion Cardinals in a hard-fought NLCS. Minaya has been ripped over the Kris Benson trade, the Carlos Delgado deal — even bringing in Paul Lo Duca. At the same time, the Wilpons have been hammered for not spending enough money and so on.

Sorry — I don't get it.

Go back two seasons and the Mets were arguably the most dysfunctional front office in baseball. GM Jim Duquette, a nice guy, had the title in name only. Three separate factions battled over player and money decisions. The on-field players were dead from the neck up in most cases. If anything, moves I hit Minaya for when he made them have paid off — almost every move he makes has worked out.

Like a cokehead in need of an intervention who crosses the line once too many times, the Scott Kazmir trade finally got ownership to admit they needed help. Minaya, who knew all too well the kind of bizarre situation he was coming into, agreed to come back, only if got "full autonomy." it looked good on paper, but Minaya has, seemingly one inch at a time, clawed his way into control of things in the front office and gotten the Wilpons to buy into his program. Of the three old factions, one is gone, and the other largely muted and isolated. Minaya brought his own "shock troops" to help watch his back and now dominates the policy decisions.

With all that going on the background, Minaya has managed in two seasons to convert a lousy 71-win team into a 97-win division winner. With a couple of hits, this team would have been in the World Series.

I'm not sure how you do much better. Yet, a small but vocal population of Mets' fans continue to kill Minaya on Web forums.

Obviously, it's not that Mets' fans are spoiled. But you have to wonder whether all of them can cope with prosperity. Others are obsessive when it comes to the SABR type statistical analysis of the teams. Too often, though, those numbers create a "who are you going to believe, me or your eyes" reality, to paraphrase Groucho Marx. In short, because they can so easily be taken out of context, the numbers can distort reality.

Building a major league roster and a lineup is an art. The pieces must fit exactly right for it to work — plugging in a new guy because of his VORP — isn't always going to work. But like crafting a painting or a sculpture, you consult the numbers to get the image right, and then create what is in your head. Like a master chef, you measure carefully, but you often go off recipe to get the ingredients to mix "just right."

As we saw with the Xavier Nady trade, a small change can ripple through and make things not work. Minaya didn't want to deal Nady, but when Duaner Sanchez got hurt in a freak accident, he worried that the bullpen would collapse without, arguably, its most important arm. Minaya rolled the dice, downgraded the value of the starters and built a wickedly effective pen. With Sanchez lost for the season, he knew he needed to augment it, of the whole house could come crashing down. So, he gambled.

He gambled that Lastings Milledge would be able to replace Nady in the lineup. One of the few gambles he made that didn't pay off, he moved quickly, once it became evident that both the pen needed help and the lineup was struggling. He dealt for Shawn Green, who did help stabilize the back of the order, although it increased the Mets' vulnerability to lefty pitching. He added Guillermo Mota. He managed to make both those deals when a dozen teams were looking for hitters and pen help. Sure, you could argue that getting Preston Wilson, as I suggested at the time, would have been a better move. But the medical reports on Wilson's knee were bad — and his mobility in the outfield was severely limited. It was a risk that Minaya, already dealing with a gimpy Cliff Floyd, felt he couldn't take.

All things considered, Minaya had a pretty good season. And until we see what he does this offseason, which gives him a full three seasons to remodel the Mets, it's not entirely fair to pass judgment. But, all in all, it seems you have to give the guy, at minimum, an A-, if you're going to grade him out.

Frankly, at this point, any Mets' fan who is ripping Minaya should be locked in a room and forced to watch every Knick game — plus all of Isiah Thomas' press conferences. After 60 days of that, those fans will be begging to watch the Mets and singing the praises of Omar Minaya.