Let the second-guessing of Omar Minaya begin. From ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark :
On Monday, Pedro Martinez said yes (at least tentatively) to the New York Mets, to an offer of $50 million over four years that is as close to a definition of insanity in baseball as we have witnessed since — what? — the Mike Hampton contract?
The Red Sox were never going to guarantee this man four years. They weren’t particularly excited about guaranteeing him three years.
They know — everybody knows — Martinez has a tear in his labrum that’s practically as wide as the San Andreas Fault. One informed estimate put that tear as 90 percent full.
So there is a stupendous chance that one of these days, Pedro will go from being Omar Minaya’s most famous acquisition straight to being the Mets’ next Mo Vaughn.
Minus the insurance, that is.
We surveyed a half-dozen baseball men Monday, after word of Martinez’s stunning I Love New York tune began to leak around the winter meetings. The question we asked was this:
What are the chances of Martinez making it through four healthy seasons as a Met — no muss, no fuss, no trips to the DL?
And the unanimous answer won’t surprise you: Zero. None. Nada.