The Mets today announced a three-year contract extension for GM Omar Minaya and he then said the club has told Carlos Delgado it plans to pick up his option for the 2009 season.
Delgado is coming off a year in which he started poorly but finished as a serious MVP candidate with 38 home runs and 115 RBIs. The ’09 option is worth $12 million, and the Mets have until five days after the World Series ends to pick it up.
“I’ve spoken with his agent and just let him know that we are probably looking at having Carlos Delgado, we’re picking up the option,” Minaya said on a conference call. “We have made contact with his agent and notified him that we are going towards picking up his option.”
Minaya called the option pickup “a formality.” It also gives the Mets the option of trading the 36-year-old.
“I’d like to be back. I think it’s a great group of guys,” Delgado told the AP last week. “At my stage, I don’t want to be bouncing around any more than I have to.”
Minaya also confirmed that the Mets are in negotiations with Jerry Manuel about continuing as manager. Manuel reportedly has been offered a two-year deal and Minaya expressed confidence that Manuel would ultimately decide to come back.
“My hope is we’re able to get that done,” Minaya said. “Right now we’re just focusing on Jerry.”
Over the four seasons since Minaya became GM (2005-08), the Mets are 357-291 (.551); prior to Minaya’s appointment the Mets had recorded three consecutive seasons with losing records (212-272, .438).
“We obviously were not a very good team when Omar came aboard, and he’s turned this thing around, and we think he deserves another chance to keep getting us to where we want to be,” chief operating office Jeff Wilpon said.
Minaya now is signed through the 2012 season with club options for 2013-2014.
“I’d like to thank ownership for this continued opportunity and their trust and confidence in me and our staff to achieve the results our organization and fans want,” he said in a statement. “In failing to reach our goal of a championship, we’re already are hard at work in evaluating every aspect of our club to improve it.
“We believe we are on the right track with a strong core of players on our major-league club and our minor-league player development efforts.”
The Mets failed to make the playoffs after leading the NL East by seven games with 17 games left in 2007 and by 3½ with 17 to go this year.
“What is it that we lack? What is it that we need to get across that finish line?” Minaya said.
Wilpon and Minaya have begun reviewing what went wrong.
“While we’ve made some progress, we still have a lot of work to do,” Wilpon said. “Coming up a game short the last two seasons is incredibly frustrating and disappointing. The entire baseball operations staff is evaluating our shortcomings from top to bottom to see what we’re missing so that we can get into the postseason in 2009. This contract extension reinforces our confidence in Omar’s leadership in the short and longer term.”
Minaya became baseball’s first Hispanic GM when he was appointed by Major League Baseball as vice president and GM of the Montreal Expos on Feb. 12, 2002.
He served the Mets as the team’s assistant GM from September, 1997 until he took the GM position with the Expos. He was named Mets GM on Sept. 30, 2004.
With Bart Hubbuch; Mark Hale; AP