I HEARD something last week that I just could not believe and so I checked it out with Omar Minaya and — to my astonishment — it was true:
The Mets have not put in a single phone call to ask about Oakland’s Matt Holliday.
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Now this does not mean I believe the Mets should trade for Holliday; I don’t. This is just about me being stunned that an organization despondent over its lack of power has not even placed a cursory call to learn what the sticker price is on Holliday.
As the second half opens tonight, the absence of a call screams about two horrible possibilities for the Mets both in the short and long runs: 1) Their front office is negligent. 2) The Madoff affair has left the organization so depleted of funds that Minaya knows that there is no use even calling about big-ticket items.
At this moment, Holliday is hardly attractive. He is proving that he just might have been a Coors Field creation as he enters the second half with just eight homers, a .276 average and a .419 slugging percentage. He is in his walk year and is making $13.5 million.
But all of that also provides a reason why Oakland might be in giveaway mode with Holliday, looking to recoup something from a failed trade, though A’s general manager Billy Beane told me last week that he will not sell low on the outfielder.
Still, the A’s recognize it might be too risky to offer Holliday arbitration to gain two compensation draft picks. The history is that Scott Boras clients do not accept arbitration. But what if Holliday does, and the A’s are stuck with his $15 million-plus contract in 2010?
Minaya said he was planning to check in soon. But why the wait? The Mets are the most powerless team in the majors, so bad that one team executive said, “It isn’t just Citi Field, we are last in the majors in home runs on the road, too.”
But the bigger issue is simply about doing the job properly. Constantly talking with your fellow executives is how ideas are either created or fine-tuned. You chat about Holliday and end up brainstorming on other issues. But I have just heard from too many officials around the game that the Met front office is not as engaged in this process as most and is not particularly good in returning calls and/or doing follow-up calls.
The more ominous possibility is that Minaya is just not pursuing anything with a significant cost because he knows he can’t. Jeff Wilpon has said that losing hundreds of millions in the Bernie Madoff debacle would not impact Mets’ operations. And the Mets do have the NL’s highest payroll, and their executives did receive year-end bonuses and raises. Minaya recently said he could add payroll if he wanted, but just has not found anything to his liking.
However, during this season the Mets have not behaved like a team willing to add dollars.
Take the example of Eric Hinske. A week before the Yankees acquired Hinske he was on waivers, which meant for about half his salary (around $800,000), the Mets could have added lefty power and league-average production to an offense sorely lacking in both areas.
Minaya said it was not money that deterred him from Hinske, but that he wants to play Daniel Murphy at first and didn’t think Hinske was capable defensively in the outfield corners at big Citi Field. But, of course, Jerry Manuel does not play Murphy regularly. And Gary Sheffield (and at times Nick Evans) have played Citi’s outfield corners.
Minaya said he could live with Sheffield doing that because, “he is a run producer.” Which is just sad that the Mets need Sheffield’s bat this badly.
But what does this underscore: That Minaya really is not allowed to add even $800,000? Or that he does not go far enough in appreciating the value of upgrading roster depth, especially when that upgrade does not cost even marginal prospects?
Neither is positive for the Mets as the second half begins: Are they poorly run or just poor?