Omar’s Wasted Cash

No, this is not another article about Oliver Perez’s $12 million or Luis Castillo’s $6 million. This is about Omar Minaya’s wasteful ways that slipped under the radar. That’s because individually, these signings are relatively insignificant. But put them together and they add up. Here are six absolutely useless deals Minaya made in the off season:  

Alex Cora: $2 million
Kelvim Escobar: $1.25 million
Gary Matthews, Jr.: $1 million
Sean Green: $975,000
Mike Jacobs: $900,000
Fernando Tatis: $850,000

That adds up to $6, 975,000 (we’ll round it up to $7 million for easier arithmetic). Instead of these players, Minaya could have filled out the roster with six minimum wage players (who, incidentally, filled the roster spots when these guys were jettisoned). That adds up to $2.4 million, so Minaya wasted $4.6 million.

Minaya could have put that money to good use. Here are three players who were available as free agents in the off season, and what they ended up signing for:

Jon Garland $4.7
Orlando Hudson $5 million
Bret Myers $5.1 million

Any of those three would have greatly helped the Mets this season, much more than those awful players Minaya put on the team. Just another example of Minaya’s poor decision making as GM, and why he’s got to go.