It's Mets For Me: Off-Beat, Tangentially Relevant Mets Ruminations

Off Base Since 2005! Mets commentary from the counter-intuitive to the unintuitive and all the intuitives in between. ** "Through the use of humor and gross inaccuracy...a certain truth can be gained." Rob Perri ** (pester me at:itsmetsforme@gmail.com or follow me @itsmetsforme on twitter)

Friday, November 30, 2007

Another Black Friday: Top Ten Reasons the Village was Pillaged

Top Ten Reasons Omar traded Lastings

10. He didn't. It's a dream, wake up sillyhead. Also the Phillies never won the NL east
9. Omar got wind of Lasting's new forthcoming single, "I f*cked Omar's Mom"
8. Friendly wager with Jim Duquette as to who will be remembered as worst Mets GM ever gets out of hand
7. Al Leiter treadmill-related incident
6. Schneider is Livan Hernandez' personal catcher
5. Omar intent on not letting Billy Beane take advantage of him this time
4. Fred Wilpon acquiring Nationals franchise later this week.
3. Now Twins GM knows the Mets mean business
2. Necessitated by new plans for Green monster in Citifield
1. Manager Art Howe's reservations about Manny D's influence in the clubhouse




LM gets the call that he has been traded; now he has to explain this to Manny D.

I'mmmm baaack. Smoked out from the rock I live under by another "Mets GM Stoopid Spectacular." Solidarity with the writer's strike here in LA was getting boring anyhow.

[start rant]

I had a busy day today. A busy day off to a bad start when I was distracted by some puzzling news:

Omar traded the Village for a couple of random townspeople.

What in the name of Brian Lawrence? Ok, well maybe there is more coming, I rationalized. Maybe Mr. Moneyballs didn't actually covet Lastings as we have heard for all those years, but actually had a chubby for dumbass Ryan Church.* There has got to be more to this story, I thought, before dashing off to my busy day, no need to worry now. Then mercifully, I didn't think of it again the whole day. Until I just got home, warmed up the internets and blamo! This actually happened. It's settling in.

Flores, Bannister, Ring, Bell. The sound you hear is the sound of eyebrows raising across MetsNation. Can we take this one back, like the Yorvit thing? Can Superman fly around the globe in reverse?

Time will tell if LM turns out Escobar or Bay. But right now I don't fucking care about time or telling. I'm pretty sure I could have gotten more for Lastings Milledge.

I have decided after no reflection whatsoever that I dislike this trade. Perhaps not as much as this guy. But its up there. Talk about managing an asset into nothing: from Manny (Ramirez) to (knocked on our) fanny in just a few short years. Last time I checked, "add mediocre catcher" and "add mediocre outfielder" were pretty far down the priority list for a team that blew it big time last season.

Because no team wants to trade a number one pitcher for Lastings is why you trade him? Sure, I know trading is fun Omar, but there are other things that are fun too. Like winning with affordable homegrown young stars. Like holding on to players that took years to develop and now supposedly no one wants to see if they can't continue to develop on your own club.

Once upon a time, Omar spent Thanksgiving targeting top tier free agents with personalized attention. Now he just spends them smoking crack out back by the dumpster.

I just don't understand which potential phenom Omar is planning to have man right field ably and cheaply for the next 500 years. Is anyone out there saying, aha, now it all makes sense the way the Mets discarded Paul LoDuca, its because they had a master plan to land Brian Schneider and stock up on mediocre outfielders.

I joked earlier about Al Leiter being behind this, but now I am serious. Does anyone have a better explanation? This deserves mention in the same sentence as the last black mark on the franchise's trading record. Here is the sentence, in case you're wondering: "The trade of Lastings Milledge for Ryan Church and Brian Schneider is as bad as the K*zmir deal because even though he was injured at least Victor Zambrainless had a ceiling."

So we come to the sad end of arc of another Mets super prospect. And even sadder, we all know this story. Trading Lastings to a competitor is one thing, giving him the career-long motivation of being traded for a bag of shit is entirely another. I have had it with this team, again. I am upset enough to do something I don't normally do until a period of reflection. I am awarding the coveted asterik to this name L*stings M*lledge. May we never speak of this again.


"You traded me for what?"



*though I must admit I look forward to seeing how many permutations of the "separation of Church and plate" gag I can make. If the Mets win because of Church's performance, "Ryan: Church and Plate Cannot Be Separated." If the Mets lose despite Ryan's best efforts : "Right Church: Wrong Pew." Mets lose due to his bungling: "Mets get Abused by Church member" ...ahhh...you get the idea.

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12 Comments:

  • At 5:34 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    My condolences, my dear friend. With all due respect, I for the first time, must totally disagree with you about one point (but everything else I am in total agreement). Please don't give the * to Lastings. It's not his fault. Please take my advice and do like this - Om*r. I'm through with that guy. He was more lucky than good, it turns out. Lucky that he still is GM of the Mets, but we're not. This was some sick shit. I wish I could be more funny, but there was nothing funny about it. I'm very thankful though, that you were at your usual clever self and quite enjoyed what you wrote. I'm quite worried, if Omar thinks this was so smart, what else he might do.

     
  • At 8:12 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Something that really got to me is the realization of the parallels between the Leiter turning off Kazmir's music in the locker room incident with the Wagner/Milledge "know your place, rook" story.

     
  • At 11:03 AM, Blogger I.M. Forme said…

    Om*r, huh? We might be headed there.

    Right now i just feel dirty. I am even reviewing some previous trades. I know getting Mota out of town was a goal shared by fans and the GM alike--but he still had a live arm. And I don't see why you trade for Estrada, who I think could be a viable option back there if he recovers from surgery (and don't think should be just written off), if you just intend to waive him in favor of a "defensive" catcher who can't hit at all. That will make me even more disgruntled. I say keep them all and have a competition in spring training--I like HEAD Castro, but is he really so great/not an injury risk that you don't look at improving behind the plate? Church needing a platoon buddy also pisses me off.

    Maybe M*naya has pulled some rabbits out of hats, but if he was more good than lucky I'd expect him not to squander assets so often.

     
  • At 2:58 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Other teams were envious of our tandem of Lo Duca/Castro, which to be fair, O*mar put together. He likes fooling around with the team and making risky moves, it seems. This all goes back to the fact that most of the parties involved aren't true Met fans. Fred Wilpon is a B'kln Dodger fan, Willie the Yanks and Omar's allegiance has always been more to latin baseball in general (How can anyone say that when he was a kid in Queens, he didn't root for Clemente, Cepeda, etc. to beat the Mets). It is much easier for him to take a chance with our team, because it isn't really his. He's already GMed a team opposing us in our division. He can always get a job working for another team or in the booth, like Ph*llips. The guy says he has a plan, but it is clear that he doesn't. Plan A, B & C for catcher (Torbealba, Estrada and Schneider). Schneider was obviously Plan C, but he was in talks for weeks - odd. Castro and Estrada can hit but aren't healthy enough to be fulltime ML catchers and Schneider can't hit enough and his throwing out baserunners are in decline, which could even signal an injury (when was the physical done on him or was there?). The guy is no Jerry Grote or even a J.C. Martin (lefty, who was the #3 catcher in 69).

     
  • At 6:51 PM, Blogger I.M. Forme said…

    i got rid of that annoying word verification thing for now. I am starting to feel towards blogger the same way i feel about microsoft.

    What you say about the lack of real mets in the front office is disheartening. I don't think stockpiling catchers is a good use of time the way stockpiling relief might be.

    Meanwhile, it is also depressing to watch the Yanks and Sox duel it out for the pitcher WE need, mostly because the mets have not tended their farm system and have no reasonable way to get in the game. Even while i hope Boston gets him if the Mets can't, the best case senario is Santa joining an already dominant Red Sox staff--making it almost impossible to win the World Series when we do get there. The only good outcome would be for Minnie to keep the guy for a little while longer, give us a chance to get in the game, or for him to end up in Seattle or something.
    doom. Doom, i say!

     
  • At 10:09 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Maybe now you see why I said go hard after A-ROD and trade Reyes for Santana. It was the thing to do, I still believe and I've heard some others mention it (although admittedly, there were some who believed in keeping Reyes at all costs). If we offered A-ROD 350 or 400 million, I doubt he could refuse (or that the union would let him, if we announced it publicly). The guy was a free agent, so it wouldn't have been a case of tampering. The Mets had a chance for a huge moment in history and it is obvious that they are not interested in or willing to invest in true greatness. I'm sorry, but it is disgusting. They were more interested in having the public and Citibank buy them a new ballpark that would guarantee several sell out seasons. So it will be Livan Hernandez, Ryan Schneider and Ryan Church instead of Johann Santana, Paul Lo Duca and Alfonso Soriano (or Lastings Milledge). To tell you the truth, we might have been better off all along, going after Derek Lowe rather than Pedro, considering his numbers over these years were better. At least, Omar could have signed him too. Could you imagine where we'd be now?!

     
  • At 10:36 PM, Blogger Jaap said…

    Blogosphere near unanimous - having more incapable catchers than capable arms in the bullpen was not on the offseason checklist-pass that on the GM.
    Here's my theory: in the beginning, Omar pulled off so many smart moves that other GMs feared to deal with him. Now, in this dearth of willing GMs with whom to deal, Omar is forced to make one bad move after another, intentionally looking stupid so the GMs fear of him dissipates and Omar will then find the napping GM and pull off the blockbuster trade to save the offseason! Hahaha.

     
  • At 1:08 PM, Blogger I.M. Forme said…

    I dunno Cver, it all depends on when you do the gut check: as a metfan i would be unhappy with arod and NO reyes i think, but that all depends on how much worse it gets from here. Prospects are just prospects, but if Omar guts the entire coming "corner outfield revolution" to get some shitty Nationals and a mid rotation A's pitcher, I may join your arod lovin'. I guess it all depends on how you prefer to cripple your team financially: thru a risky big ticket pitcher, or an overpaid position player--i could take a position easier if we had a number 1 starter. I hold on to Reyes for now.

    Jaap's theory not withstanding, Adam Rubin
    http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/2007/12/03/2007-12-03_omar_minaya_brings_mixed_record_to_table.html?ref=rss
    is pretty much dead-on, except for his assesment of the Delgado trade which no matter how bad he was and still yet may be, you HAVE to do: Omar's golden boy honeymoon is officially over and its time to start talking about his mixed record.

    It ain't Isiah time yet, but no matter what the fanboys want to think:
    Ben Johnson and Jon Adkins for Heath Bell and Royce Ring,
    Nady for Mike Cameron, and Ambiorix Burgos for Brian Bannister are and always were bed-shitting fiascos.

    He needs to do something with Aaron Heilman, for whom gruntled is as far from disgruntled as he gets, while he still can. Heilman is a chip that has worn out his welcome here and won't be resigning--let him be a shitty starter for someone else.

    fucking blogger is still tweaky!

     
  • At 3:53 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    That was something! The big story this weekend, that is. The no vote from Mets Nation on O*mar's referendum to be GM for life. I guess they weren't as happy as he thought with him Nationalizing the Mets outfield.

     
  • At 3:55 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    ...and now we have a hint as to who may be taking Om*r's job in a while:

    MetsBlog and SNY agree to Partnership

     
  • At 5:22 PM, Blogger I.M. Forme said…

    i am thinking of partnering up with my own network. Any suggestions?

    Spice?
    The Learning Channel?

     
  • At 7:16 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I dunno, IMFMBC? Now that we have Ryan Church, I would certainly be interested to see some partnering with televangelist Robert Tilton, because he's so entertaining.

     

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