Once the anger subsides, maybe certain things can be looked at realistically. I admit to being surprised that Omar Minaya is going to get a contract extension today. But I also know that I am still angry the Mets are not in the playoffs so part of me wants heads to roll. On the other hand, since Omar took over the team, the Mets have been relevant again. The Mets have not had a losing season since he took over the club. They have averaged just a bit over 89 wins per season since Minaya was hired.

Minaya has made good deals. He brought in Xavier Nady that ultimately turned into Oliver Perez. He brought in Duaner Sanchez who was lights out until the Taxi cab accident. He signed key free agents such as Pedro Martinez, Carlos Beltran, and Billy Wagner. He also traded for Carlos Delgado. And while many now are screaming that he should be traded if the Mets pick up his option, the Mets do not get into the playoffs in 2006 without him. He obtained Ryan Church from Washington. Church did a great job until he missed two months of the season with a concussion. And of course he was able to land Johan Santana.

Omar has made bad deals too. The bullpen in 2006 was fine. In fact it was above average. The pen was certainly good enough to get to the World Series. Remember, it was Jeff Suppan who prevented that from happening. But the bullpens from the last two seasons were dreadful. This year’s was the worst of all. He traded away Matt Linstrom, the flame throwing right hander who has been great for the Marlins. He sent Heath Bell packing to San Diego and he has flourished there. Omar relies way too much on aging players. The continued hope that Moises Alou and Orlando Hernandez would contribute is just one indication that Minaya needs to rethink this approach. In retrospect, Minaya should have resigned Cliff Floyd. His presence on the team is sorely missed and his production would not have been any worse that Alou’s.

However inconsistent he has been, I give Minaya a grade of B for his work with the Mets. I can’t give him a C as many would. He came in to a losing organization and turned the culture around. You have to give him credit for that. Contrary to my opinion though, Adam Rubin of the Daily News makes a good point. Minaya inherited an 83 million dollar payroll and was allowed to increase it to 140 million. Rubin goes on to say that a lot of GMs would have faired well given that type of money to play with. In theory, of course that is true. But we don’t know that for sure. All we know is that with the money Omar had to play with he did turn the team around.

Another question that needs to be asked is if the Mets did not bring back Minaya, who would they have hired. What wunderkind is out there that can guarantee the Mets win a World Series next year? Theo Epstein is a bit tied up. Pat Gilick is not leaving Philadelphia and Brian Sabean is not leaving the Giants. Billy Bean has a great thing going on in Oakland. He will stick with the A’s.

There is something to be said for continuity. It does not make sense to make a change every time things do not go right. After all, were the Mets a second division team the last four years? No, they weren’t. They flirted with the wild card in 2005, they won the division two years ago and have failed to make the post season on the last day of the last two years. While we understandably feel devastated about that, would you rather have had the Mets out of the race by August 1st, the way it was before 2005?

I wrote a piece after the 2006 season. In it I asked how disappointed would Mets fans be if the club took a step back the following season. Look, I’m no genius but I have followed baseball for well over forty years and I know that it takes time to build a consistent winner. Probably the worst thing that happened for Omar Minaya was the 2006 season. The Mets won too soon within his five year plan and that caused unreal expectations for the last two seasons.

If you recall, the Mets steam rolled into the playoffs in 2006 in part because no one else in the division was very good. And that included a Philadelphia team with a good young core of players, the same guys in the playoffs today, who were struggling to find themselves then. The Phillies went through the same things the Mets are going through now. That’s a huge reason why I say do not break up the Mets core group of players. It takes years for the development of a championship team. We got spoiled in ’06 and our insatiable appetite for instant gratification has clouded our judgment. 

I am not absolving Omar for his mistakes, he made plenty of them. But perhaps the reason he has not traded everyone in the farm to get the “key” players who may (or may not have) gotten the Mets to the post season this year is that he and his staff know Rome was not built in a day.

Sometimes we need to take a look into the future. Where do we want to be in five years? Five years ago, a Mets fan would have said I just want our team to be competitive, be in a position to win. Five years later that is true. No question the ends of the last too seasons have been disappointing. But in life, there is often suffering before there is reward. The Brooklyn Dodgers of 1950 and 1951 proved that by losing the last game of the season with a chance to go to the World Series. Then they rolled off a series of seasons winning the pennant and a World Championship. 

So all and all I think it is okay that Minaya stays on. We as fans can rant and rave as much as we want, that’s our right. We hope that Minaya and his staff have the smarts to ignore us and our tantrums and do the right thing to help the Mets grow. This Mets team does not need to be blown up. Doing that would return us to the dark years of Art Howe in a heartbeat. Then we’ll have to wait even longer, much longer for what we long for. The Mets are close. Hopefully this winter, Minaya will have learned some lessons and figure out how to get the Mets closer.