Major Mets Blunder: Lowe Signs with Braves

Omar Minaya is the Jekyll and Hyde of Major League general managers. It's incredible how he can look like an Einstein-esque genius with some moves, and an executive that knows very little about baseball with others.

This time, he's allowed the best free agent pitcher remaining on the market, Derek Lowe, to go elsewhere. Lowe would have been a perfect fit behind Johan Santana in the Mets' starting rotation, and not only did Minaya let him slip away, he allowed Lowe to sign with a division rival: the Braves. 

However, I shouldn't place all of the blame on Minaya in this situation, because it's obvious that the Wilpons (owners) are looking to save money this offseason. What happened? I thought we were a major-market team.

Apparently things have changed in lieu of the national financial crisis. Perhaps it's hitting the Mets harder than the media has speculated.

Regardless, I don't think three years, $45 million would have destroyed the Mets financially. In fact, I know -- actually, we all know -- that they could have given Lowe what he wanted. New York's front office was simply being stubborn and trying to acquire Lowe for the price they wanted, instead of the player's own asking price. 

That doesn't work when you're negotiating with the best remaining option.

Now, the pickings are slim. The Mets have four rotation spots filled by Santana, Mike Pelfrey, John Maine, and Tim Redding respectively, and there's room (and need) for one more. I certainly don't like the idea of Maine as a no. 3 starter, and Redding as a no. 4. Someone has to jump into that 2 or 3 hole, and push everyone else down.

As for those slim pickings, in my very humble opinion, here are the top five free agent pitchers:

(1) Ben Sheets, (2) Oliver Perez, (3) Jon Garland, (4) Andy Pettitte, and (5) Randy Wolf

Sheets is unquestionably the best pitcher of the group, but his injury history is immensely discouraging. Even though he's the top gun remaining, I wouldn't touch him if I were the Mets. He'll get hurt and either Jon Niese or Bobby Parnell will be in the rotation before we know it. Can't have one of them on top of Maine and Redding.

I guess they should just bring Oliver Perez back. He never quite blows you away with his won-loss record, and he's extremely erratic, but he has filthy stuff and pitches well against the better competition. He'd be the Mets' second-best starting pitcher, behind Santana, but would occupy the third spot in the rotation behind Pelfrey, so Jerry Manuel could go lefty-righty-lefty in a given series.

To return to Minaya, he's a seesaw GM, and sometimes he makes me seasick. It's surely not just me, it's all Mets fans. This offseason he's rid the Mets of Scott Schoeneweis and Aaron Heilman -- two cancers -- and has added Francisco Rodriguez and J.J. Putz. That's a Houdini-type trick right there.

But Minaya also resigned Jerry Manuel, a man who has been with the club for each of the vomit-inducing, last-month collapses, and the one who allowed it to happen for a second time. Jerry knows so little about baseball that he put Schoeneweis into a tie game with the season on the line. Every fan at Shea Stadium was going, "No! No!" and Jerry was like yea, Schoeneweis is my guy.

We all know how that turned out...

Schoeneweis surrendered a homerun to pinch hitter Wes Helms, and that was it for New York's season. Manuel, of course, was the one who placed him in that position to fail.

He'll be doing that with other arms this year too. We'll just have to hope that it doesn't come down to the final game, for once.