Rival executives describe no GM as more aggressively pursuing a trade than Omar Minaya, who is hunting for pitching. And the key word is “pitching.” Minaya sees a starting market that right now is underwhelming with Odalis Perez, Kyle Lohse and Bruce Chen. So he is also looking at late-inning relievers with the idea that would liberate Aaron Heilman to return to the rotation. Minaya, for example, has called Texas several times about closer Akinori Otsuka, whom the Mets GM has liked since the righty was with San Diego. He has been told no deal.
In fact, the majority of executives contacted said the Mets, like the Yanks, will have a difficult time trading for anyone significant because of a paucity of prospects at Double-A or higher, especially since the Mets are strongly against dealing with Mike Pelfrey or Lastings Milledge. One NL executive said, “Unless they want to get available guys with big questions like David Riske or Rudy Seanez, the Mets are going to have to handle this internally.
They just do not have a lot of bullets to trade.” One Mets prospect who has gotten major attention is 17-year-old Fernando Martinez, a lefty-hitting center fielder whom the Mets gave $1.4 million last year. Martinez was hitting .322 at low-A and one AL executive described him as better than the Yanks’ precocious Jose Tabata, saying, “Martinez is probably going to end up in right field as he grows.
He is going to have a power bat, a power arm and he can hit. Omar hit a home run with that guy.” By the way, do you think Scott Kazmir might be helping the Met pitching?
At 22 years, 3 months old, he is the youngest pitcher to six wins this early in the season since John Smoltz in 1989. And he is doing it for the last-place Devil Rays.
There has been a lot of talk about how horribly ruled and controlled minor-league games have been without the regular umps. But there is an impact on the majors, as well. Minor-league umps are summoned when regular umps get vacation or injury-rehab time off, and those being called upon are strikers not umping regularly. One AL official said, “When a player is injured, we send him to the minors on a rehab mainly to get him used to the speed of the game again. How can these umps be used to the speed of the game, when they are not even umping in the minors?” Adam Dowdy, the ump the Yanks had such trouble with a few weeks ago, falls into this category.
Mike Port, the VP of umping, said MLB is trying to deal with this problem by using 8-9 of the striking umps regularly rather than the usual 22 or so, as a way to keep them sharp. Port conceded, “It is not perfect, but is better than going with just two or three umps.”