Clik here to view.
If it was grade his bullpen offseason, it would have been an A. (Photo by The Associated Press.)
I've been out of the loop for the past few days, but apparently the latest "Fast and Furious" movie made $70 million last weekend. Did my plane land on the time-shifting island in "Lost"? Because I swore it wasn't 2001 anymore.
One person who's glad it's not 2001 anymore is Omar Minaya. Because in 2001, he was mere months from Montreal Expos purgatory. Now he heads up the New York Mets. That would be a favorable gig even if Youppi still had a baseball franchise to support.
But several years into the job, Minaya is still looking for the right combination of talent with the Amazin's. Did he find it this past offseason? That's the question I posed to you in our most recent poll. Here's what you had to say.
In response to the request to grade Omar Minaya's offseason, InterMet readers voted:
A -- 8 percent.
B -- 50 percent.
C -- 26 percent.
D -- 6 percent.
F -- 10 percent.
Clik here to view.
Youppi and Omar Minaya are no longer on the same payroll.
Usually a C is considered average, but for the purpose of this experiment, I'm considering a C as a bad grade for Minaya. He heads up a big-market club opening a new cash-cow of a ballpark and coming off back-to-back brutal finishes. He had to do better than average.
So by that standard -- admittedly my own standard -- readers were pretty split. 58 percent were positive. 42 negative.
Keep in mind most of these votes came in before the Gary Sheffield signing, which has the potential to negate my big complaint that he didn't do anything to improve the offense. It also has the potential to have zero impact at zero risk, so we'll see.
But looking at what Derek Lowe gave the Braves on Sunday, I can't help but think the Mets dropped the ball on letting him go to a division rival. That would of course fall on Minaya, but it's hard to say he botched the negotiations when some would say the negotiations turned out exactly how he wanted them too once Oliver Perez returned to the fold. But the Mets still overpaid for Ollie, so there was some level of botching there, no matter what Minaya really wanted.
Combine that with the offense concerns and I can't see going higher than B. But with the restructured bullpen, it's hard to imagine going any lower. I'd go with a B.
Half of you agreed. Let's hope we were tough graders.
