Omar Minaya may get into trouble for a conversation he had with Miguel Cabrera.
While the Mets were taking batting practice and the Marlins were stretching, Mets General Manager Omar Minaya engaged third baseman Miguel Cabrera in about a 10-minute conversation.
What’s interesting to me is that Cabrera’s not a free agent until after 2009 — three seasons down the road. It’s possible that Minaya was making a long-term pitch (“I’ve always been a huge fan, and we’d love to have you here”) trying to get a foot in the door, hoping that if Cabrera does reach free agency, he’ll say “I’d like to make sure we talk to the Mets.
But really? Three years ahead of time? It seems unlikely.
These complaints do get taken seriously, too — Pat Gillick got fined when he made a phone call to John Olerud (by all accounts innocent but which, the story went, might have endeared Olerud to Gillick and made him more likely to sign with the M’s), who later signed with the Mariners. This is amusing because the Mets, subject of this complaint, were the complainers then and the subject of the complaint now.
Still, as unlikely as it was that Minaya was making a super-quick pitch for the Mets as the free-agent destination of choice, if you’re the Marlins, no harm in complaining. The worst case is you protect your players against more threatening conduct by being aggressive.
(hat-tip to Joe Aiello for the Sun-Times link, and everyone else who sent in other articles)
2 comments ↓
Still, as unlikely as it was that Minaya was making a super-quick pitch for the Mets as the free-agent destination of choice, if you’re the Marlins, no harm in complaining.
Even if he wasn’t making an explicit pitch, I think the Marlins have a legitimate complaint. I wouldn’t want my franchise player making friends with any other team’s GM, especially one who works for a team with so much money.
I think the Gillick/Olerud thing was more serious than that. If I recall correctly, it was at the press conference when Pat Gillick was being introduced that he said the first person in Seattle he called was John Olerud Sr. There was no point of him saying this except to indirectly inform the press that he would be pursuing John Olerud. So he really dug his own ditch there. But since he didn’t directly say it, I guess MLB didn’t take too much action.