Pedro made the Mets relevant in the D.R. but the baseball academy they built has probably been a better recruiting tool, and of course money always does atter the most.

One thought on a replacement for Pena is that they do not replace him at all but that Omar takes on most of Pena’s job responsibilities. If the let Ricco handle more of the administrative end this could free up Omar to get out more to the D.R. Also less layers of management in the short term.

The cynical person would also say that Pena will not be replaced so the Mets could save his salary.

Of course I don’t believe Omar is actually going to get fired and leave the organization.
I think by the end of next year he will be kicked upstairs given a different title and spend most of his time in scouting and be a Gene Michael for the Mets Organization.

Omar’s was if we lose draft picks signing top flight free agents we can supplement them with international signings.

The overall problem with this is when you Draft a player 1 of 2 things happen:

1. he went to college and is 2-3 years away from making it to the Majors
2. he went to high school and is 4-5 years away from the majors.

When you sign a 16 year old international free agent, unless they are so stupendous they make it and are successful by 20 they are typically 6-7 years away from being ready for the big leagues, when they will be 22 or 23.

This is why the mets are pushing their IFA’s more then they do they do the drafted players IMO. They want these 16 YO’s to be ready in 4-5 years (F-Mart) like an 18 year old drafted kid out of highschool or a 19-21YO out of college.

When they flipped and went vice versa(with some 1st round picks) in the draft they got some good players (ike davis and reese havens, and missed on Kunz). Davis looks like he’ll be in AAA within 2 years and probably pushing for a MLB job in 2.5-3. Havens had some success this year, but keeps getting nicked up, even he could be near the majors within another 2 years(would be 4 years from drafted). Meanwhile Players like Flores have been with the team 2 years is still in A ball, which isn’t a bad thing for his age. But the Mets keep Throwing him up a level every year, even though he hasn’t conquered the previous league. Still he’ll be in A ball his 3rd year with the team and still be another 2 level away from AAA and possibly 3 years away from MLB readiness. Which isn’t a bad thing as he’ll still be extremely young at 22.

So i think it’s the flawed thinking that if we miss on top draft picks cause we made some Type A signings, we can supplement with IFA’s. You won’t reap the rewards for the better part of a decade. You have to try to make sure that the Type A’s are good and productive players. Because the Top Talent in the draft is closer to the MLB then signing 16 year old international players, no matter how fast you push them.

5,6. Clearly not. Although they didn’t really bring anyone in this year who stood out. Javier Rodriguez and Aderlin Rodriguez have not exactly performed like Flores and Marte did last year. But in all he did a fine job bringing in top talent, presuming he had a big say in most of the signings.

8. Should they really be targeting the minor league personnel and scouting department. I think the real problem is the co-ordinator of this information in many cases. The coaches who fail to develop a game plan based on the scouting info. Manuel and Warthen primarily, HoJo some as well. The person who makes the call based on what the doctors and trainers are telling them about hurt/injured players. If only it were so simple as to be bad scouting, that’s a simple fix.

If the Mets owners and FO think that firing a couple scape goats while keeping the problems (Manuel, Warthen, and Minaya) will satisfy the ticket buying fan base… well sadly they are probably correct. Most of them were in line at the Shake Shack and didn’t see the problematic play anyway…