In Omar We Trust?
While the hot stove is heating up, let's take a look back to the moves made by Minaya this time last year. The '06-'07 offseason was a pretty mild one for the Mets. There were no flashy signings like Pedro and Beltran. The only big free agent addition was Moises Alou. The rest of the moves were made to fill out the last few spots on the roster. There were a few cheap useful pickups, like Damion Easley and Jorge Sosa. There was $10.8 million wasted on Scott Schoeneweis, which looked like a stupid move at the time and looks like a stupid move now.

And there were three trades, all of which look terrible now:
- Traded Henry Owens and Matt Lindstrom to the Florida Marlins for Jason Vargas and
Adam Bostick.
- Traded Heath Bell and Royce Ring to the San Diego Padres for Jon Adkins and Ben
Johnson.
-Traded Brian Bannister to the Kansas City Royals for Ambiorix Burgos.

Here are the 2007 stats for those players (except for the ones who didn't play in the majors):

players traded away:
Bell 93.7 IP, 2.02 ERA, 102/30 K/BB
Lindstrom 67, 3.09, 62/21
Bannister 165, 3.87, 77/44
Owens 23, 1.96, 16/10
Ring 20, 2.70, 21/17

players received:
Burgos 23.7, 3.42, 19/9
Vargas 10.3, 12.19, 4/2
Ben Johnson 27 AB, .185/.233/.222

In other words, the Mets got pretty much nothing out of any of the players they acquired. The pitchers they traded away combined to pitch 368.7 innings with an ERA of 3.08. Considering that the Mets bullpen had a complete meltdown in September, it's pretty sad to see that some of the relievers they traded had such good seasons. Heath Bell turned into an upper echelon setup man in San Diego. Lindstrom had a solid season with the Marlins. He had a particularly impressive second half, posting a 2.35 ERA with a 31/8 strikeout to walk ratio. The bullpen is a weakness right now; it would be a strength if we were going into '08 with Wagner/Bell/Heilman/Feliciano/Lindstrom.

And while a series of #5 starters (Mike Pelfrey, Brian Lawrence, Jason Vargas, Chan Ho Park, Dave Williams, and Phil Humber) combined to put up a 7.43 ERA over 24 starts, Brian Bannister was having a solid, if unspectacular, season in the Royals' rotation.

Minaya's done a pretty good job over the last three years, but he had a pretty horrendous offseason last year.