Here Are Some Links and My Corresponding Opinions

Jonah Keri, writing for the New York Sun, points out that the Mets' contingency plan sucks. It sucked last year, and it sucks now. And it wasn't like it was a huge surprise that the Mets would face injuries and declining production. Keri adds:

All those teams did a better job of scouting and player acquisition than the Mets did. They also did so with smaller payrolls, in some cases much smaller.

They say necessity is the mother of invention. Maybe necessity is what the Mets have been missing.

Maybe. But the Red Sox and Yankees also have big payrolls, and they aren't backing up their outfielders with the likes of Endy Chavez and Marlon Anderson. It's not lack of necessity that makes Omar Minaya so bad at roster construction. It's that he actually thinks those guys are good players. Or, he doesn't realize the extent to which they are inadequate for the roles to which he has assigned them.

Greg at Faith and Fear writes a typically cute post in "Desperate Times Call for Robinson Cancel." It would make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside if it weren't for the fact that Cancel should not be on the team and should not be pinch-hitting in that spot, even if his weakly-struck ground ball found a hole. (However, I disagree strongly with the Shea Stadium crowd that Pedro should have hit for himself there.) If you still think Cancel is a better hitter than Valentino Pascucci or any number of other freely-available players, I don't know what to tell you. First of all, if we have three catchers on the roster, why is the best hitter amongst them not starting? If he's not starting (because Brian Schneider is presumably a great defender), why is he not used as a pinch-hitter ahead of the most anemic hitter of the bunch? It is so incomprehensible that I have a hard time giving a shit about the last time Cancel got a hit. There's a reason it has been so long: he sucks.

Yes, Joe, It's Toasted is consistently funny. Here we have a typical interaction between Omar Minaya and the media:

Reporter: Omar, what is Willie Randolph's job status right now?

OM: We have a manager. His name is Willie Randolph. Obviously I evaluate things every day, but right now, Sunday, June 15, 2008, we have a manager, named Willie Randolph.

Funny, but basically true. In addition to his poor decisions about everything else, Minaya isn't making it easy for his team to concentrate on playing baseball, even as he adds "a gamer" to the roster. Speaking of such:

"He's a hard-nosed player," David Wright said. "He's a guy who's going to go out there and get dirty. He's a guy that plays with a lot of intensity, and I think that's a good thing both on the field and as a clubhouse guy. He's been on a championship team. He knows what it takes to win and he'll go out there and give you something day in and day out."

But what I really want to know is whether he's a blue collar kind of guy. Does he bring a lunch pail to work? I don't want to hear that he's only leaving something on the field and not all of it. Does he know the meaning of the word "quit"? If he does, I want no part of him. I know he's "hard-nosed" and "dirty," but does he play the game the way it was meant to be played? Also, is he a professional hitter? Let's not just skim the surface here, David.

Get ready for some token firings.