Bay Watch may be officially over, and it’s the worse case scenario for the Mets.

Adam Rubin’s report this morning that the Red Sox are considering getting back to Jason Bay is immeasurable in its potential to embarrass and further weaken Omar Minaya.

With the Wilpons staying in the background this off-season, and in perception they are making Minaya own the club’s future. This is potential political suicide on their part. If not corrected in some manner it will get worse before it gets better. And if Bay is lost, Minaya will have to move quickly to improve his 25 man roster. It’s the only way now.

They’ve set themselves up for this by giving the public face of trying to improve the club. If an unknown Plan B emerges because of an off-season of failure, it will not sit well with the fan base. A rebuilding plan that emerges suddenly in December will lose the Mets even more credibility in a town that doesn’t tolerate a lack of candor well. A decison to rebuild from the beginning would have been an easy sell after the last three seasons.

For an organization that’s always been obsessed with what’s on the back page of it’s city’s tabloids, they’ve never realized that they cannot have it both ways. On one hand, you cannot seek to spin the bad news while not doing enough to create good news on your own. Since the 2007 slide, this has been the Mets operational model.

Neither Minaya nor Jerry Manual have enough personal capital to protect the club from the negatives that will come from a disasterous off-season once spring training starts. There are just too many holes in the roster to overcome a juggernaut of unfavorable attention that will come with inconsistent play.

Much will be learned about the future of the Mets during the next few days.

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Jon Heyman wrote yesterday that the Mets had 3 plans. First I’ve heard about that. Maybe Heyman is able to talk to Met sources in a way that others are unable to.

During the season, the guys who cover the team on a daily basis often fall into group think, and the same storyline gets advanced. The writers are together at the ballpark. They talk. The one’s who cultivate sources best, get the best stories. A recent example is the Daily News’ Adam Rubin who first began reporting the Tony Bernazard follies.

The three NY tabloids roll the same way. Ultimately it’s all about the back page. Writers from those three probably don’t many friends among the Mets’ brain trust right now. Maybe Heyman does and it’s why SI.com got the little blurb about the three tiered plan. I’d watch for Marty Noble right now, too.

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Tepid is what recent rumors regarding Mets interest in John Lackey have been. But Adam Rubin’s story today changes all that. Aside from pursuit of catching help the Mets have been quiet. If the Mets are indeed going to be in the running for Lackey, it means that the Wilpon’s aren’t broke and that they are fully committed to competing next year.

The Mets’ historical identity of being built around strong starting pitching has always appeared to be absolute. Last year’s failure of any starter to assume the role of a #2 behind one of the game’s best necessitated the club’s turn it’s attention to acquiring one. Met fans have a comfort level when their clubs are built around it’s stating pitching.

If Rubin’s story is inaccurate, some of those tepid denials will filter it’s way into the lobby in Indianapolis. But the Mets like doing things close to the vest. How far will they be willing to go with Lackey remains to be seen. Will they get into a publoc bidding war with the Yankees?

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…from the Cleveland Indians

Looks like the waiver wire is pretty active now. we’re just a few days into August so some deals are now reaching the end of their 48 window. Mets most likely to be in waiver deals are Jeremy Reed, Fernando Tatis, Livan Hernandez, Tim Redding and Buffalo lefty Ken Takahashi.

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Adam Rubin’s well reasoned piece today speculated on the Mets dealing Billy Wagner via waiver trade by August 31.

If the Mets do this it needs to be a baseball decision that’s weighed against the talent that would come in a trade versus what the Mets would get as a compensatory draft pick next June. But the Mets have been sending signals that its about the money right now. Lets hope this isn’t a snag.

Adding a healthy Billy Wagner to a contender’s bullpen must be intriguing right now for teams and their fans. He makes sense for team like the Cubs, Cardinals and (hold your breath) the Yankees. However, a Wagner trade could be blocked by an opposing GM to keep him from going to a rival. Yesterday’s acquisition of Chad Gaudin by the Yankees isn’t necessarily indicative of the gentleman’s agreement to keep the waiver wire open. It’s early in the month and Gaudin is not a player of significant caliber.

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Wow. I guess when you are not very good and the other team is, night’s like last night happen. To put it in perspective, we won these sorts of games in 1986. Some thoughts:

* I hate wasting Santana’s starts – especially those when he leaves with a lead.

* Sean Green seems to need to put an excessive amount of spin on the ball making him more of a slinger than pitcher. It’s almost as if he’s a knuckelball pitcher. Hitting Mark DeRosa with that first pitch was evidence. He badly needs some intervention by a sinker ball friendly pitching coach.

* I still do not like the manner the Mets – or any one else for that matter configures their roster. Because of the injury to Castillo, they ran out of players – save catcher Brian Schneider. There was really only one threat on the bench at any point in Fernando Tatis.

* Jose Reyes is to see the doctor again for his hamstring tendon problem and Adam Rubin understandably speculates that he might be done for the season. His injury reminds of Vince Colemen’s season long injury hamstring injury in 1991. Coleman developed a nasty ball of scar tissue in the lower third that just would go away until after an off-season’s rest. People would ask the doctor’s about surgery and they reply, “on what?’ as there wasn’t really a surgical technique that can be performed.

As it’s Reyes’ hamstring tendon – that which attaches the belly of the muscle to bone, there may be something to look at doing. Whether or not its a repair, I have no idea. As they’ve had repeated MRIs, the films they are getting are non-conclusive and why they just havent been considering some sort of corrective technique all along.

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I’m glad that Adam Rubin is back at the ballpark hopefully no worse for wear. But he makes a good point in linking the high pitch counts of Mike Pelfrey today and Oliver Perez last night.

Pelfrey (8-7) tossed 107 pitches while being charged with three runs on five hits and three walks (one intentional) in five innings. It marked the second straight day the Mets starting pitcher had reached a three-figure pitch count while failing to exceed five innings (Oliver Perez, 112 pitches on Saturday).

This is nothing new to fans and many Mets bloggers such as Joe Janish, Metswalkoffs and Baseball Crank. All three are very aware of stats. So far more than me that I rely on them.

The fact that this is nothing new means there’s something there…there….by design. Is it some sort of organizational philosophy that creates these unwinnable scenarios? Is it the habit of limiting pitch counts in the early season in the minors? Does this then enable lowered expectations for starters?

All these questions and more need to be frankly discussed around the table by their baseball people in the off-season. It may be that in the interest of protecting their investments with pitch counts has produced a pircher who doesn’t help their team win.

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Admittedly something has changed for me over the last week and I’ve been blogging about the Mets. And blogging alot ….and exclusively about them. I long ago lost the majority of folks who read my blog for baseball or Mets stuff when I plunged into politics. No doubt my right wing take turned many off. It was a plunge I took with my eyes wide open.

I know exactly when things changed for me. Adam Rubin’s stories about Tony Bernazard’s reign of terror throughout the organization during his tenure angered me. When Tom Romano told me two years ago about his run in with Bernazard it alerted me that things might not be going well with my old team. Willie Randolph’s demise and the whispers that came out in the media about Bernazard’s clubhouse meddling further signaled to me that this man was a dangerous force in the organization. The story of the abuse of the Binghampton club and the verbal assault on a front office colleague was my own final straw.

Bernazard was a tyrant and it was clear that he ruled by fear and intimidation. I just couldn’t believe that the Wilpons were either unaware or gave tacit approval to Bernazard’s management style. Either are unacceptable. They have some serious self assessment to do. Sadly it needs to begin with Omar Minaya’s dismissal and an overhall of baseball operations from bottom to top.

When I visited Port St. Lucie in 2006 I found myself drawn to the minor league complex and often spent most of the day there, only going back to the stadium to watch the game. Jay Horwitz had made the clubhouse off limits to me so I really couldn’t go there much. So I got to meet alot of the minor league staff and players. I realized just how much in common I had with them and how I identified with them as much as anyone. It was guys like them whom a bad actor like Bernazard would prey on.

I knew what kind of atmosphere that Bernazard must have been fostering. And yes, it did affect the major league club, too. One only need to realize that Francisco Rodriguez stood up to Bernazard in front of the whole team on the bus. Bernazard had entrenched himself in a way that it would take a player of that stature to take the bully on.

But the Wilpons and Minaya had to know how Bernazard operated and never lifted a finger until Rubin’s story broke. Maybe that’s what really behind Minaya’s shoot the messanger tact with Rubin. If Rubin hadn’t made Bernazard’s story public, he wouldn’t have had to fire him.

Worst for me is that this whole episode leaves the impression that the Mets are an organization that doesn’t treat its people well. It’s a curious combination of displeasure and desire. I can’t stand how things are going and badly want to see them do better.

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The Mets did one thing right yesterday. Well, two if you count beating the Rockies. The other was firing Tony Bernazard. Beyond those, everything else could not have been more wrong and sickeningly more revealing.

Not having access to the SNY feed of Omar Minya’s press conference yesterday, I linked onto Matt Artus’ excellent blog, Always Amazin’. He was going to be live blogging with an active comments section.

I followed along with moderate interest until Minaya clearly called out Adam Rubin as a source with an agenda. Minaya went straight to an innuendo that Rubin sought Benazard’s ouster to get his job.

I quickly leaped to incredulous and found myself commenting in Artus’s comments as “Coach”. Bobby Ojeda made the remark on SNY that he hadn’t felt that uncomfortable since Darryl went after Keith before that spring training picture. I agree with Bobby O and found yesterday’s press conference equally surreal to that spring training day.

Yeterday was one of the most revealing moments in the history of the franchise and it showed just how very small it is. And not in size, but in stature. Any organization that allows and indeed condones the conduct of a man like Tony Bernazard is one without class. Omar Minaya’s childish shoot the messenger spin yesterday served to confirm it.

Minaya both hid behind and dismissed his own organizations Human Resources report. Minaya said he was shocked by some of the findings. He seemed to indicate that some of it might be innacurate, but any chance at a follow-up was denied when he made his astonsihing accusation that Adam Rubin sought to get Bernazard fired. Writing in NY Newsday today, Wallace Mathews said it best:

The Mets are the only organization in professional sports that can call a news conference to announce it has killed the Wicked Witch – and wind up running over Toto instead.

So in Minaya’s world, Bernazard never would have been fired if Rubin hadn’t been reporting on the later’s clear misconduct.

Essentially this means that Minaya and Jeff Wilpon supported Bernazrad’s thuggery around the organization. They let a man of Bernazard’s stature – both as a team VP and a 10 year major league veteran – run around the entire place treating people with vulgar contempt. No reasonable person can believe that Minaya and the Wilpon’s didn’t know about the way Bernazard conducted himself. Thus a reasonable conclusion is that he did so with their blessings.

Tony Bernazard was a cancer that everyone on the planet recognized except for the Wilpons and Omar Minaya. Allowing an employee with such power treat people that worked under him in an abusive manner does not speak well of the people who sign the checks.

All of this is in conflict with my own personal feelings and impressions about the Wilpons. Their love for the game, the team and the city are and always have been genuine. But it is perhaps their own naivete that everyone in the game is like them in that they see a team as family and a family thats working together to the common good. Were they seduced by a Rasputin like character in Bernazard whom knew how to suck up to the boss?

Perhaps my conclusions now are an effort to walk back my own initial impressions here about all this. Maybe kind of like Omar should have done yesterday when he tried to deflect the heat onto an honest reporter. I hate to think that decent people like the Wilpons would give approval to abusing people that work for them. I have great affection for organization I was once part of as it was the place I spent formulative adult years, and do not like watching them lose. But I take it in a strange personal way on days like yesterday that I have a hard time understanding myself.

This one’s not going to go away, and it probably really shouldn’t until the Wilpons do some serious self assessments. I hope that both of them start making some trips around their organization to do some damage control. Look their people in the eye and tell them how much they appreciate all they do for the organization. I believe a gesture as this best reflects the kind of people they are. Otherwise the harsh narrative that Wally Mathews advanced today will become the reality.

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Tom Romano told me two years ago about his bizzare confrontation in the Lakewood, New Jersey visiting clubhouse with Tony Bernazard. The events he described are as Adam Rubin described in his Sunday NY Daily News story. He contacted in me in 2006 after I started blogging about a subject we are both still passionate about – the late 1980s Mets. Tom was one of the young men whom worked in the Mets clubhouse and served as a batboy. We struck up a friendship after all these years because Tom became a teacher as I did.

Tom Romano earned a degree in History and a Masters in Education after his innocent days at Shea Stadium. He wanted to teach kids about history and coach baseball. He met his wife while at school in New Jersey and they have a 2 year old daughter. They’ve been together 12 years now.

Tom ran into Tony Bernazard by no choice of his own. He scored a summer job working fpr the local South Atlantic League club’s visting clubhouse when while protecting the kids and space he’d been hired to do went nose to nose with Bernazard. What’s happened since is more bizzrare than anything I’ve encountered in both baseball and the private sector.

Today Omar Minaya called out the man who broke a story about an incident involving Bernazrd in the AA Binghampton clubhouse. The incident involving Romano happened three seasons ago. Why Omar Minaya chose to shoot the messanger in Adam Rubin who covered the both stories begs more questions than it answers.

First, why did Minaya accept the Mets HR report as factual then hold Rubin accountable by accussing Rubin of wanting a job in baseball and putting a knike in Bernazard’s back? Were the Mets PR folks lying? And if they were why did Minaya feel he had to fire Bernazard?

Minaya said he was “surprised” by some of the relevations in the Mets HR report. Does that mean he didn’t know about accusations of Bernazards previous behavior and if not does he find them no big deal? If he has no trouble with Bernazard and his actions, why did he fire him then? He said it was his decision?

More questions are certainly unanswered. But its clear that Minaya’s heart wasn’t into Bernazrad’s ouster. So why did he? And why was in Adam Rubin’s fault?

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