SNY: Berg: P.R. gaffe shouldn’t get Omar fired, his tenure should

Rough goings. Les Paul dies, Matador/Primate Gerard Cosloy’s house burns down...and then there is the Minaya nightmare.

Now, I don’t think Minaya should be fired for the events of that press conference. Not by a long shot. Sure, it was an embarrassing gaffe, but for all I know Rubin really had lobbied for a job. The thing is, in this instance Rubin showed why he might deserve one; he knew more about what was going on in the Mets’ farm system than Minaya did.

Add that to Minaya’s frequent inability to read baseball’s marketplace, his tendency to fix the last year’s problem instead of anticipating the next year’s, and his predilection for distributing guaranteed Major League contracts where they’re not necessary and you’ve got a pretty strong argument that the Mets could find a better GM. Throw in how he counted on Moises Alou, missed the boat on Adam Dunn, gave a Major League roster spot to Abraham Nunez, drafted to slot (until this year, at least), bought high and sold low, failed to fully grasp the concept of sunk cost and signed so many old men and firing Minaya looks like a no-brainer.

...Color me skeptical, though. A sweeping look at the Omar Minaya Era in New York shows a team that too often failed to live up to expectations and too frequently tried to fix its problems with inadequate solutions irresponsibly acquired. I’m just not certain how that justifies keeping him around, especially knowing what I do about sunk costs.

The Bernazard thing and the Rubin thing boil down to little more than nonsense and are not unlike the territorial howls of the monkeys outside my hotel room, prompting unrest but signifying very little. They were merely noise that initially distracted us from but ultimately alarmed us to the failures of Minaya’s stint in Flushing.