Omar's biggest move is coming

Over at Mets Today, they take a look back at last year's moves and make a comparison to what might be in the works in the coming weeks:

Based on the flurry of events from the end of December 2005 to January 21, 2006, I’m guessing that Omar’s signing of Scott Schoeneweis is a prelude and catalyst to a shrewd deal or two — it’s the calm before the storm.

Maybe Lastings Milledge is finally going to be packaged with an arm (Heilman?) for someone big. Remember last year the Benson rumors began in November, before coming to fruition in late January. So perhaps Jake Peavy will soon be a Met, or Alex Rios, or one of the Haren - Harden - Blanton triumvirate. We’ve been waiting for Omar to make a move all winter, and it seems like he’s been sitting on his hands. In reality, he’s been a duck on a pond — you see the duck effortlessly gliding across the water, but you don’t see the feverish kicking of his legs underneath.

In my opinion, the Barry Zito signing was not as big a deal to Omar Minaya as it was to Mets fans, because Zito was “Plan C” on Omar’s list. I think his real #1 target — based on the amount of money the Mets were willing to commit — was Daisuke Matsuzaka, and failing at that, was figuring to get Kei Igawa. This is why Omar is “behind schedule” — he’d hoped to have at least one of the Japanese imports by now, and was only interested in Zito on his terms. Playing the waiting game with Zito would have worked, too, if it had not been for the insanity pill Scott Boras slipped into Peter Magowan’s drink one night. As it is, he’s missed out on all three, but the legs have been moving underwater the entire time — so he’s still only about a week or two behind last year’s plan.