Omar Minaya’s Top 5 Best Moves – Countdown – #5 – Zito Denied

I felt like following in the foot steps of our Giants writer Travis, and making a bit of a countdown over the next 5 days. I will however take the opposite approach, and bring to light some of the better things Mr. Omar Minaya has done for the New York Mets Organization.

I know there are also the negatives to focus on, but I chose to shift gears to the positive for good reason…Us Mets fans need to hear positive things right now! Plain and simple…the last two years stung really bad, so let’s just stay positive for the time being.

Coming in at number 5 on the list of good moves by Minaya came in 2006 when he opten against the signing of Barry zito.

Back in 2006, Barry Zito was the most coveted starting pitcher on the free agent market. Zito was only 28 at the time and many teams believed that Zito’s best days were still ahead of him. The Mets made a good run at Zito, but intelligently and thankfully, GM Omar Minaya refused to go beyond 5 years on Zito.

Let’s take a look at what good ole’ Zito has done since:

 Year Ag Tm  Lg  W   L   G   GS  CG SHO  GF SV   IP     H    R   ER  HR   ERA *lgERA *ERA+ WHIP

 2007 29 SFG NL  11  13  34  33   0   0   0  0  196.7  182  105   99  24   4.53  4.44   98 1.347
 2008 30 SFG NL  10  17  32  32   0   0   0  0  180.0  186  115  103  16   5.15  4.38   85 1.600

Granted, besides the whole sub-par numbers in San Fransisco, I saw
little to no benefit coming out of bringing on this head case.
I mean we already have "Olly" to deal with. 

In the end, I respect Minaya for standing his ground and not going
beyond the 5 years offered. Of course Peterson felt like  he could
fix anyone, but Zito's glory days in Oakland are long  gone, and in
retrospect it worked out for the Mets.

View Jeffrey Gross's Profile      Subscribe via RSS