Jays offer scouting position to Omar Minaya

According to Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated, the Blue Jays have offered a scouting position to former Mets and Expos general manager Omar Minaya.

If Minaya accepts the position, he will become the 4th former GM in the Jays front office. (Jim Beattie: Expos, Orioles; Chuck LaMar: Rays; Ed Lynch: Cubs)

Personally, I was shocked by this news. This is probably because when I think of Omar Minaya, the first thing that comes up is one of the most disasterous trades in baseball history:

June 27, 2002 Expos sent Cliff Lee, Grady Sizemore, Brandon Phillips and Lee Stevens to the Indians for Bartolo Colon.

Of course, Sizemore, Lee and Phillips weren’t the Sizemore (3x all star, 2x gold glove, silver slugger), Lee (3x all star, Cy Young) and Phillips (2x all star, 3x gold glove, silver slugger) that have flourished in the bigs when the deal was made. But I would be wary of hiring a scout who could swing in miss so badly on 3 players of that calibre.

With that said, the offer to Minaya doesn’t come entirely out of left field. There is the Expos connection- Alex Anthopolous and special assistant to the GM Dana Brown both worked under Minaya in the early 2000’s.

The move also fits with the Jays increased focus on Latin American scouting. Minaya began his career as an international scout with the Rangers in the mid 80’s and was involved in the signings of Sammy Sosa and Juan Gonzalez.

Minaya has also been responsible for a number of decent moves during his career as a GM. A few that stand out to me are:

11/24/05: Traded Mike Jacobs, Yusmiero Petit and Grant Psomas to Florida for Carlos Delgado

8/3/06: Signed Jose Reyes to a four year, $23.25 million contract

2/2/08: Traded Carlos Gomez, Philip Humber, Kevin Mulvey and Deolis Guerra to Minnesota for Johan Santana

Along with the unmitigated failure that was the Colon deal, Minaya was also at the helm for these awful deals:

3/24/02: Traded Jason Bay and Jim Serrano  to the Mets for Lou Collier

11/15/06: Traded Heath Bell and Royce Ring to the Padres for Jon Adkins and Ben Johnson.

2/2/09: Signed Oliver Perez to a 3 year, $ 36 million contract.

12/29/09: Signed Jason Bay to a four year, $66 million contract.

I think it’s fair to say that Minaya’s judgement has been questionable during his time as a GM. Is he someone you would like to see join the Jays front office in a scouting role?

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