Sunday, June 22, 2008

The Special Assistant: Baseball's "Other Woman"

Soothsaying is a curse.

As I've been discussing the possibility of Omar Minaya losing his job at the end of the year if the team he has assembled remains a .500 squad (or under ... where the Mets returned to Saturday night as Pedro Martinez had some predictable problems with the spacious outfield in Coors ... pelted with the silver bullets of Garrett Atkins, Brad Hawpe, and the Colorado Rockies), then the guy I would want to come in and replace him was the recently disposed Reds GM Wayne Krivsky. After all, Krivsky has been the guy to bring guys like Edinson Volquez (albeit at the price of Josh Hamilton) and cultivate pitchers like Johnny Cueto ... he would be the perfect guy to have one eye on improving the farm system while at the helm of the New Mets, which have become the old Mets (and breaking down Mets as ... hey guess what, Jose Valentin is Alou'd for the season).

Well, whaddaya know! Guess who is now a proud member of the New York Mets organization as the ... ahem ... "special assistant" to Omar Minaya? That would be Wayne Krivsky. Needless to say, I got a good laugh about that one.

Krivsky started the season with a "special assistant" in Cincinnati. You know him as Walt Jocketty. Since a baseball special assistant exists to assist in replacing the general manager if he can't right the ship fast enough, it couldn't have been more transparent that Jocketty was brought to Cincinnati to provide that "special" assistance to Krivsky ... as in: assist in heating the hotplate being occupied at the time by Krivsky.

Krivsky has obviously learned the trade, as he is now the "special assistant", and now he will show us all what he learned from Jocketty as he "assists" Minaya. Of course, Krivsky isn't out for blood, same as Jocketty wasn't out for blood in Cincinnati. But Krivsky is brought on by the ownership to provide that friendly little reminder to Omar he shouldn't hang any more posters in his office with super glue.

Remember Omar, as I always like to say: just because you're paranoid doesn't mean somebody isn't out to get you.

(Of course, as I head to sleep, I do so with the full knowledge that I will probably have a nightmare that I'm reading the first official press release of Krivsky's tenure, which includes the quote "We feel that Gary Majewski's injury problems are behind him and that he can be an important part of the Mets bullpen." Sigh.)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Minaya and Krivsky go back to their Ranger days together. I don't think Omar is paranoid, or else why would he keep Bernazard around?

The paranoid guy is the one that just got fired.

Kudos to Omar for bringing in another baseball guy.

Anonymous said...

I heard Brennaman on with Russo the other day saying Krivsky deserved to be fired. He apparently did not get along with too many people. Omar now has surrounded himself with two guys that people do not like. Shrewd there, Cisco. Layers of protection.

Anonymous said...

My wife made me fire my "Special Assistant" or she would "fire" me.