If you couldn't care less who gets the NL Wild Card, you can skip this one.

Okay, okay, so I know I swore off being a Mets fan back at the end of July when they mortgaged their future for some mediocre (and, in one of two cases, pretty darn injured) middle-of-the-rotation pitchers. And I know Scott Kazmir's dominating performances against the Red Sox, and Johnny Damon's recent comment that he doesn't know how anyone could have traded Kazmir, certainly haven't done anything to make me want to come back into the fold. The Mets' late-season swoon made me happy; that they've won a few games recently hasn't. But my newly-adopted San Diego Padres have played themselves just about out of wild card contention (although a miracle could happen -- can Jake Peavy start every game? Please?), the A's are about to blow their shot at the playoffs if they don't start winning some games, and the Cubs -- well, they lost 2 of 3 to the Mets, so clearly they're terrible. So, despite swearing off the Mets, I still read the NY sports sections every morning, and this morning every paper has an article about how the Mets are about to hire Expos GM (and former Assistant GM for the Mets) Omar Minaya to be their head of baseball operations, above current GM Jim Duquette. Come on, Mets, figure this out -- you don't need *more* people making decisions, you need fewer people. Find one person to be GM, fire everyone else, stop having ownership and the players and whoever else is influencing personnel decisions have any say, and trust one smart guy or girl to do his or her job. Maybe it's Minaya. But not if you're not going to fire Duquette, and not if you're going to keep your "superscouts" and not if the owner is still going to get in the way. Maybe it's not Minaya. Minaya doesn't have a great record with the Expos as far as making good trades and growing good minor league prospects -- although he's been hamstrung by MLB owning the Expos and who knows how much of what he did he was forced to do, so I don't really have anything against Minaya... but he doesn't inspire a ton of confidence.... They should have hired Bobby Valentine to manage and run the whole organization. I'm a fan. At least hire him to manage again. Him, or Larry Dierker, or Davey Johnson. Not Jim Fregosi. Not Larry Bowa. Not Gary Carter. Gary Carter? Gary Carter? Come on.

Okay, rant done.