This is old news, but it has a new twist.

When the Mets fired Omar Minaya as their general manager after the 2010 season, one of the primary criticisms of him was that after seven years in the position he was leaving the Mets with a fallow farm system. Four years later that charge deserves reconsideration.

The Mets actually showed some respectability last season, playing better than .500 post-All-Star game and finishing in a tie for second place in the National League East and matching their best won-lost record in six seasons.

But the highlight of the season came after the season:

• Jacob deGrom, a member of the starting pitching rotation, was named N.L. rookie of the year.
• Center fielder Juan Lagares won a couple of defensive awards, one of them a Gold Glove.

In what turned out to be Minaya’s last draft, in 2010, deGrome was the Mets’ ninth-round selection. Lagares was a native of the Dominican Republic, whom the Mets signed as a free agent in 2006 just after he turned 17.

They are far from the only members of the 2014 Mets who joined the organization when Minaya was the general manager.

Joining deGrom in the starting rotation were Jon Niese and Dillon Gee. The trio started 74 of the Mets’ 162 games. Niese was the 7th-round pick in the 2005 draft, Gee the 21^st selection in the 2007 draft.

Missing from the rotation because he was recovering from elbow surgery was Matt Harvey, who was the 7^th player selected in the 2010 draft. In the near future, however, the rotation could completely be a Minaya production with Harvey, deGrom, Niese, Gee and Steve Matz, the 2^nd round selection in 2009.

Moving to the bullpen, Jenrry Mejia, a Dominican native, who was signed as a free agent in 2007, was the Mets’ closer with 28 saves. Jeurys Familia, also a Dominican native, who was also signed as a free agent in 2007, was the Mets’ busiest pitcher with 76 appearances and had a 2.21 earned run average.

Minaya has a legacy of non-pitchers, too. First baseman Lucas Duda, the 7^th-round selection in 2007, was the Mets’ best hitter this year, leading the team with 92 runs batted in, 30 home runs, .481 slugging percentage and .349 on-base percentage.

The Mets didn’t have a .300 hitter, but second baseman Daniel Murphy, the 2006 draft’s 13^th-round choice, led the team with a .289 batting average. Lagares was second at .281.

Minaya can be linked to two other starting pitchers. The Mets obtained Zack Wheeler, who started 32 games for them this year, when they traded Carlos Beltran to San Francisco in 2011. Minaya signed Beltran as a free agent in 2005.

Noah Syndergaard is a top pitching prospect in the Mets’ system. A 22-year-old right-hander, Syndergaard joined the Mets two years ago in a 7-player trade in which R.A. Dickey went to Toronto. Minaya signed Dickey as a free agent in 2009, having first encountered the knuckleballer when both worked in the Texas organization. Dickey was the Rangers’ 1st-round pick in the 1996 draft.

The baseball draft does not compare with the drafts of the National Football League and the National Basketball Association. The teams in those leagues have as many as four years to scout and judge players and consider their ability and their readiness to play in major professional leagues.

Evaluating 17-year-old high school players or even 20-year-old college students and projecting their future ability is a precarious practice. Clubs often don’t even do well evaluating and judging experienced free agents. Major league teams have very likely failed more often than not in their free-agent decisions.

The Mets, for example, just signed outfielder Michael Cuddyer as a free-agent for two years and $21 million. He will be 36 years old at the start of next season and is coming off a leg injury that limited him to 49 games this year.

The signing has excited the Mets’ dwindling and depressed fan base, which will grasp at any such player move. The fans would be delighted if the Cuddyer signing indicates that the Mets are prepared to move beyond their Bernie Madoff era, in which despite the claims of their principal owner the Mets appeared to have been economically strapped.

Neither the owner nor any other Mets’ official has acknowledged the value of the contributions of Minaya and his staff to the team that some ultra-optimists see as a possible playoff contender next season.

I don’t see it happening, but whatever happens will very likely depend more on Minaya’s men than on Sandy Alderson’s. Even if the Mets prefer to believe that the Minaya products don’t matter.