With the Mets reportedly improving their offer to free agent OF Jason Bay, Amazin Avenue’s James Kannengieser‘s tackles the perception (voiced by one one his site’s own readers) that GM Omar Minaya is biased towards Latinos. Who knew that Chris Russo would be 3 years ahead of his time?
Last winter, Omar’s Mets were part of a blockbuster three team trade which included Mariners and Indians. In the biggest trade of his reign, at least in terms of player volume, he gave up four Latino players and received (gasp!) three white players in return. It had nothing to do with race. Omar wanted to upgrade the bullpen at seemingly any cost and he got his guy, J.J. Putz. Flawed evaluation of players? Almost certainly. Racial bias motivating a transaction? No, sorry. It’s curious how transactions like this are conveniently ignored once the Omar racism watchdogs come out of their holes to spout absurdity. Usually, Oliver Perez, Moises Alou, Orlando Hernandez and Luis Castillo are brought up with nary a mention of Tim Redding, Scott Schoeneweis, Darren Oliver or Gary Sheffield.
If you think Omar Minaya only goes after “certain players” it’s because you want to believe the poorly performing GM of your favorite baseball team favors one race over another. It’s because you want to believe he has some sort of scheme to decrease the number of non-Latinos in baseball, or to increase money paid out to Latinos in this country. Criticizing his moves in the strict baseball context is not enough for you – it has to become personal, an assault on Omar’s character. As always, you’re free to have these beliefs, but you’re flat-out wrong.
Indeed, Minaya’s acquisitions have included the likes of Billy Wagner, Paulie Go Nuts and Chris Coste. Under Omar’s stewardship, the club continued to insist Daniel Murphy was qualified to play left field and/or first base and gainfully employed the not-at-all hispanic Razor Shines to supervise a succession of ’09 baserunning blunders.
There are some roots to this situation, though, that have nothing to do with wild speculation based on the percentage of Latino’s he’s acquired. I’m thinking of Carlos Delgado’s comments regarding Minaya’s use of the race card when they tried to sign Delgado as a free agent (and before he signed with Florida). I think it’s a valid point of argument, even if his newer acquisitions have been of the Putz Variety; he wouldn’t be able to sign an all-white Latino team even if he tried. And I do believe that his ‘philosophy’ has changed the last couple of years because signing guys like El Dookie didn’t pan out and the natives had gotten restless. One of the intrepid Mess bloggers should give Delgado’s agent a ring if he isn’t re-signed. I’d like to read that Q&A.
I believe it was Tony Bernazard who was specifically blamed for the alleged racial pandering that offended Delgado, but yes, a prominent member of Omar’s administration.
This isn’t specifically Omar’s fault either, but some members of the NY press corps seem to have what can charitably be called an arms-length relationship with the likes of Beltran, Delgado, Reyes, hence the dependency on David Wright as the defacto club spokesman. Better than Wright than Captain Fucko, I guess,but it’s a situation Paulie Go Nuts bitched about.