JIM Duquette knows what it’s like to be in the middle of stormy seas with the Mets and what’s it’s like to have success with the team.
The Mets’ former general manager hired John Ricco, who many believe will be the team’s next general manager. Duquette also was vice president of baseball operations for the Orioles. Duquette is busier than ever these days. He has his national radio show on XM-Sirius called Power Alley, does work for MLB.com and the MLB Network and is a partner in 3P Sports, a company making its mark in the amateur market, taking a scientific and holistic approach to teaching pitching.
Duquette said Ricco, the Mets assistant general manager, has all the qualities to be a general manager.
“John is detail-oriented, very bright, a good listener, the attributes you’d like someone to have that sits in the general manager’s chair,” he said. “He’s ready to be a GM somewhere.”
Duquette, who was replaced by Omar Minaya in 2004, is friends with Minaya and said it was difficult to see the Mets fall to pieces this season. As for Minaya’s infamous press conference in which he verbally attacked a writer, Duquette admitted, “I kind of cringed because I know that was out of character for Omar, that wasn’t him. I felt bad for him.”
The Mets, though, he said, “are going in the wrong direction.”
Going into the season, Duquette said he believed they were a good team, but with a few flaws.
“I felt left field was their biggest weakness,” he said. “That was the glaring hole for me.”
Duquette knows injuries have hurt the Mets, but said there have been other teams that have suffered a series of injuries, such as the Angels, “who have performed well.”
When Duquette was Mets general manager in 2004, his first order of business was to shave a $117 million payroll down to roughly $80 million, a difficult task.
Though Mets fans have taken ownership to task for the failings of the 2009 Mets, Duquette said it’s important to remember the Wilpons allowed the Mets to have a payroll of $140 million.
“Ownership is committed to having a winning team,” he said. “This day and age you can turn things around pretty quickly.”
Duquette worked for the Mets for 14 years and was a key part of the front office that signed and groomed David Wright and Jose Reyes. With the Orioles, working in tandem with Mike Flanagan, he landed two of Baltimore’s top prospects — catcher Matt Wieters and right-hander Jake Arrieta, one of the steals of the 2007 draft.
Duquette was making strides in a difficult arena, pointing the Orioles in the right direction, building through the draft and trying to deal older talent for prospects. Andy MacPhail arrived in June, 2007 and was given much greater autonomy by Baltimore owner Peter Angelos. Duquette resigned two months later.
With the Mets, his most criticized move was trading Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano, an organizational decision that backfired.
Duquette remains a big fan of Bobby Valentine and said he feels Valentine will be managing again in the majors soon.
“Bobby is a terrific baseball mind and a master at matchups,” Duquette said. “I remember him once starting Mark Johnson and saying, ‘He has a slider speed bat and matches up well against this pitcher, who has a good slider.’ Sure enough Mark Johnson hit a two-run homer that night.”
Duquette, 43, is keeping all his baseball options open and most certainly will be back in a team’s front office, but the change in jobs has given him more of a home life with his wife Pam and their three children.
He’s able to coach his oldest daughter’s softball team, his son’s baseball team and work to help raise money for a cause close to his heart, nephrotic syndrome, a kidney disease that put his daughter Lindsey in the hospital for 10 weeks when she was 21⁄2.
Lindsey is seven now.
“She’s 100 percent better than even last October, but we’re still not out of the woods yet,” Duquette said. On Nov. 12, there will be a fundraiser at the Caesar’s Club at Citi Field called Countdown to a Cure (Nephcure.org).
“I’m still extremely busy,” Duquette said. “But the last couple of years have been a good change of pace.”