Omar Minaya and the search for the next Jose Valentin

Omar Minaya started the season with a roster that included Gary Matthews Jr., Mike Jacobs, Frank Catalanotto, Fernando Tatis and Alex Cora. No wonder he ended the season out of a job.Much has been written about Minaya's big-ticket acquisitions, but the small ones are just as important. You can't win a pennant with a few stars and a bunch of scrubs. Yet that's what Minaya increasingly seemed to try to be doing.It's one thing to have one or two such players. Tatis was a valuable complementary piece in '08 and Cora held down shortstop for a good part of '09. But when you are hoping to squeeze one more year out of a full one-fifth of your 25-man roster, you are asking for trouble.Minaya learned the wrong lessons from one of his best moves, signing 36-year-old Jose Valentin for the '06 season. In 2005, Valentin hit .170 for the Dodgers with two homers in 147 at bats. But in 2006, Valentin took over the Mets' second base job, hitting .271 with 18 homers an...