Do you ever feel pride of authorship as the current edition of the Mets runs onto the field?

You put that question to Omar Minaya, the former Mets general manager, and he gives a laugh of pleasure, and deflection. “You watch Jeurys Familia throw on Labor Day and Hansel Robles strike out four in two innings, and you’re really happy for them,” he replies. “There’s a part of you that always sees them as kids.”

I give general managers a hard time; I acknowledge that. Some of that is deserved, and sometimes maybe it just looks a lot easier than it is to balance budgets, contract demands, pushy agents, egomaniacal players and owners, and a lot of ink-stained reporters.

Sandy Alderson appeared to sleepwalk through one or two trade deadlines, but he has been fully awake and quite brilliant this time around, and the Mets are pennant contenders as a result of his moves. When the Wilpons practically pushed Minaya out a window in the fall of 2010, many New Yorkers grumped that Minaya had earned his defenestration.

Image Minaya, pictured in 2006, played a large role in assembling what turned into the current Mets roster. He was fired in 2010. Credit... Barton Silverman/The New York Times

I argued against that at the time. Now the facts argue for more reconsideration. A bill of indictment against Minaya in 2010 was that he had left the Mets’ minor league system barren of talent.