VIERA, Fla. – Among a sect of disenchanted Mets fans, the owner is disparagingly known as Freddy Coupon due to losing battles against the NL East standings and a New York rival who answers to “The Boss.”
Funny, but Omar Minaya sees Fred Wilpon as a financial mother lode. It is all perspective.
With some finagling and charm, the Mets GM pried open the Wilpon family vault this offseason to purchase the most expensive pitcher and hitter on the market. In his previous baseball life, as Montreal Expos GM, Minaya miserably recalls being tied for the wild-card lead on Labor Day weekend 2003 and being forbidden financially to make even a few Sept. 1 minor-league call-ups.
“That was the worst moment because that was a moment when I really worried about the integrity of it all,” Minaya said of his three-year term running a team funded by the other 29 major-league owners.
Minaya encountered his poor-man, rich-man resume yesterday when two organizations covered with his fingerprints opened the exhibition season against one another, both striving to define a fresh start. In their marketing, the Mets are claiming they are the “New Mets,” a reflection of Minaya’s $200 million spending spree this offseason that notably seduced Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran.
Minaya’s old team underwent a more drastic facelift, changing identities from the Montreal Expos to the Washington Nationals. The novelty of their first game drew a sellout crowd at Space Coast Stadium to see the Nationals win 5-3, an ESPN broadcast, and the realization Minaya did not leave his old team empty.
“He made a lot of good moves here,” said Jim Bowden, Minaya’s replacement as GM. “He made a lot of small trades here that have provided some organizational depth.”
In fact, it is much easier to believe Minaya’s old team will overtake his new team in the NL East than Minaya’s new team will overtake the Braves. Washington will be a consensus last-place pick, but not in the hopeless way of the Royals or the Rockies. The Nationals’ everyday lineup is no worse than the Mets’, and they have a capable, if fragile, rotation.
“The Nationals are tough,” Minaya said. “And this year they don’t have travel issues [no games in San Juan], and they will have 30,000 people a game at home.”
Minaya said any NL East team, Washington included, could finish first. Though that is farfetched, none of the Nationals’ division foes should size up those 18 or 19 games against them and be thinking 14-4 or 15-4.
So these New Mets might have an old problem called fourth place. The 2005 version is undeniably better. Arguably, so is every NL East team. All that money Minaya spent upgraded the Mets talent base, but it also bought something not obtainable in Montreal: expectations.
The Expos never were going to disappoint anyone. These Mets of Beltran and Martinez have reinvigorated a fan base, a nice perk unless the excitement is premature.
“In Montreal, few people cared what we did and how we did,” said Tony Siegle, assistant GM to Minaya and Bowden. “But in New York, if you blink twice, people will notice that. In no other city does the media influence as much as it does in New York. A lot happens because of the quality and quantity of the media. But I think that Omar worked there previously [as Mets assistant GM] means he knows it and will handle it.”
We’ll see. The Wilpons are notorious for overreacting to media harangues, and the financial outlay over the winter should exacerbate that. Minaya would prefer it this way, having the resources to tackle problems rather than scrimp on every issue.
But even as his honeymoon extends and the games begin, he must recognize the high cost of doing business in New York, where an owner could support a $100 million payroll and still be called Freddy Coupon.
