PORT ST. LUCIE – Omar Minaya loves to conference call with his three top advisers, John Ricco, Tony Bernazard and Sandy Johnson. Call it four-sight when they all get together to map out the Mets’ future. Minaya is captain of the ship, but his closest advisers help plot the course.
The calls can come at any hour. So it was not surprising last month when Bernazard got a call from Ricco at 7:30 in the morning saying Minaya, who was in Africa at the time, wanted to have a little chat. “Hold on, Tony,” Ricco said, “I’ll conference in Omar now.”
With that, Ricco tapped a button. The next sound Bernazard heard was the blast of an elephant’s trumpet. Ricco had programmed in the elephant’s call from the Internet.
Yes, Minaya’s Men are a unique group. While so many teams have gone to the young guns’ approach to leadership, the Mets have one of the most diverse leadership groups in the game. That is their strength and a big reason why they have gone from a team that was lost on the field to one of the more highly regarded franchises in the game.
Whenever the Mets make a move – big or small – it is discussed at length between Minaya, Bernazard, Ricco and Johnson. Four different backgrounds, four different opinions.
Ricco, 38, is the assistant GM. He came over from the Commissioner’s Office, where he was the director of the contract salary administration. He looks quiet and studious, but can be sarcastic. He is the joker of the group. Think Eddie Haskell from “Leave It To Beaver.”
Bernazard, 50, is VP of development, a former second baseman who spent 10 years in the majors. He was a special assistant with the Players Association, often sitting across the table from Ricco. Bernazard brings passion, knowledge and history.
Johnson, 68, is VP of scouting, the baseball lifer who first hired Minaya as a scout with the Rangers in 1985. He has seen it all and is not shy with his opinions. No one knows the 48-year-old Minaya better than Johnson. “You could see right away he was a people person,” Johnson says of when he first hired Minaya.
Minaya the people person is not afraid to surround himself with talented people.
“We all came from different backgrounds and that’s a credit to Omar,” Ricco says. “He does that in all walks of life, he brings people together. You got the former big-league player in Tony, you got the grouchy, old scout in Sandy and you got the bookworm in me, and somehow we not only co-exist, but work well together. We are constantly coming at things with different views and that’s what gives us strength.”
Bernazard’s concentration level is high. “I bring that intensity, Sandy and I are the crazy ones,” Bernazard says with a smile. “I’m going to tell you things the way they are. If you want a yes man, you got the wrong guy.”
Bernazard expects big things from these Mets this year and the next and the next. “I expect us to be in the playoffs,” he says. “We came here to win.”
Most of all, Bernazard says it is important to bring in players who want to be great.
“I was talking to Carlos Beltran the other day and he said he wants to talk to the two young guys, Fernando Martinez and Carlos Gomez, about the importance of wanting to be great and the things you have to do to be great,” he explains.
When Omar and his front-office team first came together in November of 2004, they knew where the franchise stood.
“The Mets were an irrelevant organization,” Bernazard says of that time. “Players did not want to come here. That’s one of the first things I told Omar, I heard it all the time. I was in tune with the players. We had to change that.”
They did just that, signing Pedro Martinez. Since the Red Sox lost Pedro, they have been swept away in the first round of the 2005 playoffs and finished in third place in 2006 while the Mets have been moving forward. “We have to keep pushing,” Bernazard says.
“You voice your opinion,” Johnson says of the meetings. “Hey, don’t ask me if you don’t want answers. It’s pretty informal and we just shoot from the hip. That’s the way I’ve always done it. I’m not changing now, for cripes sake. I’m on the back nine.”
“We argue over everything,” Ricco says.
“I allow them to express their opinions,” Minaya says with a chuckle. “I cherish experience and track record and I also value statistical information, bringing in young guys. I think it’s important to think outside the box. I always tell them, ‘Don’t be afraid to disagree with the general manager.'”
Sometimes they agree 4-0, sometimes the vote is 2-2 or 3-1, but Minaya always makes the final decision.
“A lot of times it goes against Omar 3-1 and he still goes his way,” says Ricco, who is the voice of the team’s statistical experts, Ben Baumer and Adam Fisher, who is also coordinator of amateur scouting.
“Omar has learned and adjusted, that’s why he has had success,” Bernazard says.
The Mets meet in a large group first with such talented scouts as Bryan Lambe and Ramon Pena, special assistants to the GM, and others like Jerry Krause, the former Bulls GM, whom Minaya uses for special projects.
“Omar’s got the young turks in the front office from top-notch schools, he’s got the field people with years of experience,” says Lambe, who once sent in a report on a catcher out of Newtown High School in Elmhurst by the name of Omar Minaya. “All that information gets batted around, and it’s his job to make the final decision. Sometimes you almost want to say, couldn’t we streamline this a little bit because everybody gets to talk?”
After all that, the Gang of Four gathers to make a final decision.
“Omar tries to do big things,” Ricco says. “That’s his mindset. He’s going to take a shot at the biggest and the best. He’s so energetic, you don’t want to let him down.”
There is a saying around the Mets – F.O.O. – Friends of Omar. They’ve even had baseball caps made up with an F.O.O. logo. “Omar hasn’t changed from the day I first met him,” Johnson explains. “He loves everybody and everybody loves him.”
“When we were at the winter meetings, when you meet team to team, I looked at our group,” Ricco recalls, “it’s an odd-looking group but we have pretty much have all the bases covered. I feel we match up front-office-wise as well as anybody.”
These Friends of Omar are making their mark.