Mets Hot Stove: One more on Cameron

On SI.com, Albert Chen wants to know What was Omar Minaya thinking?:

The Mets are off to a bad start this winter; Omar Minaya should have gotten more for Mike Cameron. Yes, Minaya may spin this into a larger deal involving Xavier Nady to net Manny Ramirez, but with such a poor free-agent pool, more teams this winter would be willing to seek deals for talent.

Omar is getting a little beat up on this deal in a few places. I'm not sure that I buy the explanation that Cameron's value dropped a lot because teams knew he wanted out of New York to somewhere he could play centerfield. He was a top-notch outfielder, a decent enough hitter, and there were quite a few teams that could use him. If you had to hold onto him into spring training to prove he was healthy -- so be it. What was the rush? Maybe this was all about the salary dump. I'm trying to move on, but something about this deal just rubs the wrong way.