Omar Minaya Dropped the Ball on a Golden Opportunity

(Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

At some point during December's winter meetings in Las Vegas, Mets GM Omar Minaya stopped rolling up seven's at the free agent slot machine. After bringing in Francisco Rodriguez and J.J. Putz to fix what was a terrible bullpen in 2008, Minaya forgot to do one thing, one very BIG thing...fix the starting rotation.

Even though the team has rights to the games best pitcher, Johan Santana, the team had really nothing substantial behind him. John Maine was coming off an injury riddled 2008, which saw the pitcher turn into a four or five inning pitcher; Oliver Perez (more on him in a minute), a shell of a future Hall of Famer in Pedro Martinez, and the young bright spot known as Mike Pelfrey.

The Mets had a chance to get better. They had a deal in place with the Chicago Cubs to acquire Jason Marquis for reliever Scott Schoeneweis, a deal that would have made the Mets marketability better in the starting rotation.

Something happened when that deal was close to being done; either Minaya pulled away, or the Cubs realized that Schonenewies was worthless.

Either way it was an opportunity missed. Marquis was instead dealt to the Colorado Rockies, and he is well on his way to having an appearance in this year's All-Star Game.

Marquis is 4-1 with a 3.31 ERA for the Rockies this year, including a dominating complete game against the San Francisco Giants on Saturday. Marquis is not known for putting up big numbers, but his start is better than anything the Mets have to offer.

Then, there was Derek Lowe. The Mets and Lowe were on the verge of agreeing to a three year contract, but Lowe wanted an extra year and a little bit more money.

The Mets, having been burned by Pedro Martinez's four year contract, buckled and decided not to sign Lowe to a contract. Instead Lowe walked to division rival Atlanta, and got the four year deal he wanted.

How's Lowe doing this year? He's doing great. 3-1 with a 3.03 ERA. He leads the Braves in wins and innings pitched, 35 and two-thirds to be exact. Lowe has struck out 28 batters in that span, and has a WHIP of 1.29. Think the Mets would trade for Lowe's stats over Oliver Perez's 9.79 ERA right about now? You bet.

Finally, there was Jon Garland. Garland has not been great for the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2009; he's 2-1 with a 4.94 ERA, but he is certainly a better number five starter than Livan Hernandez whose ERA is over seven.

Plus Garland is only 30, so you could have made the argument that if the Mets had shown any interest in Garland at all, he could have been the Mets five starter for three or four years. Oh well, another one bites the dust.

Instead the Mets settled for Oliver Perez. Throughout the winter the Mets were competing against themselves for Perez's services. No team in their right mind would want a pitcher who is wild with his command and lacks the mental make up to get through a game without a psychologist visit to the pitching mound.

The Mets threw three years $36 million at Perez. Three years $36 million that could have been used to sign Garland, or Lowe, or even Marquis after a trade was completed. The complaints about Perez began in March, when the pitcher decided to join team Mexico in the worthless World Baseball Classic. 

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