For Fox Sports, Dayn Perry gives us his list of the top 10 GMs in baseball where he ranks Omar Minaya #7, writing:

In the three years prior to Minaya’s arrival in Queens, the Mets endured a losing season each time out; in Minaya’s three years on the job, the Mets have one division crown and three winning seasons to their credit. And in his relatively brief tenure, Minaya has proved to be a master of the trade. Thus far, he’s pulled off plainly one-sided deals for Johan Santana, Oliver Perez and John Maine. Despite the late-season collapse in 2007, Minaya’s Mets enter the upcoming season as the team to beat in the National League.

A few days ago, Jon Heyman of SI.com did his list of the top GMs, placing Omar at #8, writing:

His brilliant 2006 season in which he pilfered Oliver Perez from the Pirates and John Maine from the Orioles, two teams that could have used their services, was followed by a 2007 that featured some costly mistakes — trading Heath Bell, Brian Bannister and Matt Lindstrom and getting practically nothing for them in the offseason, and then doing little to help prevent a late-season collapse that left the Mets one game short.

Before the Santana trade, I was really down on Omar but he really played his cards right.  Granted he took a risk waiting out the Santana sweepstakes, but he traded much less than anybody expected by waiting out the Twins’ rookie GM.  Naturally, he made all of us go crazy for a winter, but the prices we pay as fans….