Time for a change?

By issuing general manager Omar Minaya a vote of confidence Monday, Mets COO Jeff Wilpon put to bed any talk of his fledgling franchise making immediate changes within its front office.

On one hand, it's hard to fault Wilpon for his willingness to stay the course. Expected to be one of the top teams in the National League this season, the Mets have been plagued by a host of crippling injuries, silencing their offense, weakening their bullpen, and landing their team in fourth place. New York hasn't had its top four hitters -- David Wright, Jose Reyes, Carlos Delgado, and Carlos Beltran -- all in the starting lineup since May 10. It has been without top setup man J.J. Putz and starter John Maine since the beginning of June. And within the last month, outfielder Fernando Martinez and starter Fernando Nieve, two players called upon to fill some of the voids left by all the injuries, also went down.

In his willingness to keep Minaya around even after an extremely disappointing season, Wilpon certainly took Mets' unfortunate injury situation into account. What team could possibly overcome the losses of so many key players? No general manager can be expected to plan for so much bad luck, so it's perhaps unfair to blame Minaya for the Mets' disastrous '09 campaign. Once the team has a chance to get healthy in the offseason, they'll surely be competitive again in 2010, so why should Wilpon bother shaking things up so drastically at this point?

But while it's true that Minaya can't be blamed for the number of injuries the Mets have suffered, he can be blamed for the way he's handled them. While players like Mark DeRosa and Matt Holliday have been dealt and names like Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee have been bandied about the rumor mill, Minaya has largely sat on his hands, making just a minor move to swap right fielders with the division rival Braves. He has done nothing to address the Mets' lack of depth behind Johan Santana in the starting rotation and nothing to replace the free-agent-to-be Delgado's production at first base, both in the short and long term. The only piece they've added via trade is Jeff Francouer, who was so disappointing in the eyes of the Braves front office that it actually dealt him within its division for nothing more than Ryan Church.

What does the Mets' lack of activity on the trade market suggest? Perhaps they simply aren't willing to take on more payroll after the Wilpon family reportedly lost hundreds of millions in the Bernard Madoff scandal. Perhaps they're optimistic that Beltran and Reyes, in particular, can return by August and help the team make a late run at a Wild Card berth. Or, most likely, they simply don't have the goods to get a deal done.

The proof of the latter point is in the way Minaya has responded to the Mets' injuries compared to the way other teams have handled theirs this season. The Phillies, for instance, summoned J.A. Happ from the bullpen to fill a need in the starting rotation. The Yankees have used homegrown products like Phil Hughes and Phil Coke to replace oft-injured relievers Brian Bruney and Damaso Marte. The Red Sox overcame the loss of Mike Lowell by moving Kevin Youkilis to third base and using AAA call-ups like Aaron Bates and Jeff Bailey at first base. All these teams found adequate replacements from within -- either by making adjustments to their major league rosters or finding reinforcements from the minors -- in a display of their organizational depth.

The Mets, on the other hand, have tended to cherry-pick whoever is available off the free agent market or the waiver wire. To plug holes in the outfield, Minaya has looked to Gary Sheffield and Fernando Tatis. To add depth in the infield, Minaya has brought in the likes of Angel Berroa and even took a look at Julio Lugo. To overcome some of the team's pitching deficiencies, Minaya has turned to Tim Redding and Elmer Dessens.

Meanwhile, the few organizational options the Mets have turned to clearly did not belong in the major leagues. Martinez, the Mets' most highly-touted prospect, was the ripe old age of 20 when he was called up in April, struggling to a .242 on-base percentage before getting injured. Among the other youngsters counted on to fill holes on the Mets were Nick Evans (.131 career average in AAA) and Bobby Parnell (18 runs in 25.1 innings last year combined AAA and major leagues).

All of this -- the Mets' inability to make trades, their tendency to give a roster spot to whichever washed up veteran is available, and their lack of suitable replacements at the minor league level -- is indicative a team with absolutely no organizational depth. That is 100 percent on Minaya. In five years as general manager, he has done a great job attracting premier talent to Queens, bringing in the likes of Pedro Martinez, Beltran, Delgado, Johan Santana, and Francisco Rodriguez. But at the same time, he has completely failed when it comes to developing talent within the organization, making the Mets so dependent upon a handful of star players that an injury to any of them would be crippling.

The roof caved in on the Mets' 2009 season when they could do no better than a bunch of aging has-beens to patch the holes on their team, mainly because no one from their AA or AAA affiliates -- a combined 45 games under .500 -- could serve as either an adequate fill-in or a major piece in a blockbuster deal. It's the reason why the Mets are a fading laughingstock, instead of a club that can compete in spite of its injuries. It's also Minaya's single greatest failing as a general manager, one that, perhaps, should cost him his job.