OMAR Minaya is getting a pass from Mets ownership for this miserable season and for his own public missteps, but it’s becoming increasingly apparent that the general manager’s pass is stamped “One Time Only.”
A source close to owner Fred Wilpon told The Post yesterday that Wilpon continues to lay virtually all of the blame for this 65-88 disaster on the blizzard of injuries and not the performance of Minaya or manager Jerry Manuel.
Wilpon went on record to the Post’s Mike Puma on Aug. 22 guaranteeing Minaya, and by extension Manuel, would be back in 2010.
The source yesterday made it clear Wilpon’s feelings haven’t changed, though the Mets went in a dizzying tailpsin while Citi Field attendance plummeted since his comments were published. Last night’s 5-2 loss to Atlanta was their 22nd loss in the past 30 games.
Despite the previous vote of confidence, the brewing overhaul of the Mets’ baseball operations department, which continues to claim victims brought in by Minaya, easily can be seen as a shot across the embattled general manager’s bow.
One of Minaya’s top assistants, Ramon Pena, already has been given the axe in the wake of the Mets’ woeful showing in his area of international scouting. Amateur scouting director Rudy Terrasas also is in trouble, according to a source, and vice president of scouting Sandy Johnson intends to retire. Minaya brought in all three, and Terrasas and Johnson go back decades with him to their time together with the Rangers in the 1980s and ’90s. And Minaya already was forced to fire his ill-tempered confidant, Tony Bernazard, in July.
If a housecleaning of essentially your entire rank of closest advisors isn’t a warning sign, it’s hard to think what would qualify.
The only prominent member of Minaya’s department that’s plainly safe at the moment is assistant general manager John Ricco. But that hardly can be comforting to Minaya because Ricco continues to be mentioned as his replacement-in-waiting.
One team source yesterday described the retooling of the scouting department as more a case of the Mets getting their house in order before an extremely important first-year player draft next June than as the beginning of the end for Minaya.
The Mets are on track for a top-six pick next year for the first time since 2004, and with their dreadful track record of producing homegrown talent under Minaya, the Wilpons want to make sure they finally get one right.
Along those lines, Nationals scouting director Dana Brown, a Seton Hall product, has been mentioned as a possibility to take over Terrasas’ beleaguered amateur scouting department.
Also keep in mind that the controversial three-year contract extension the Wilpons gave Minaya last year doesn’t even kick in until next season. And ownership is reluctant in the post-Madoff era to pay off contracts even for the relative $4 million or so pittance it would take to cut ties with Minaya.
But the recent machinations increasingly point to Minaya and Manuel getting 2010 — and just 2010 — to make up for this embarrassment of a season.
That’s not exactly news in Manuel’s case, considering the manager is signed just through next season and jokes about his lack of job security. But the waning of the Wilpons’ long-professed devotion to Minaya certainly is notable.
Minaya had better hope this season can be blamed on all the injuries, because all signs indicate the Mets’ payroll will be coming down this winter — perhaps way down — and they are unlikely to be major players for the likes of Matt Holliday or John Lackey.
Minaya still feels the Mets would be getting ready for the playoffs instead of playing out the string if the core of this year’s roster stayed healthy.
His job appears likely to depend on that happening next year.