As disappointed as I am with how the season ended--and the manager is not free of blame--I feel in my gut like this is the right move.
Kevin Kernan of the Post made the case for retaining Willie:
OMAR Minaya made his first good decision of the Mets much too early offseason yesterday by keeping Willie Randolph as manager.
If Minaya had fired Randolph, it would have been another loss for the team that has turned losing into an art form. Plus, with Randolph gone, the bull's-eye would have shifted from Randolph's back squarely onto Minaya's. No GM wants that to be the case.
This way, if the Mets stagger out of the gate next year, Minaya still has someone to blame and Randolph will be history. But as George Steinbrenner might say in a statement: "It's on Omar and Willie."
Over the last 17 games of the season Randolph was one of the few Mets who appeared to care and when he met with his team behind closed doors after that last terrible loss, Randolph cried because of the golden opportunity that slipped away from the Mets.
If only his Mets cared as much about winning as he did.
That said, Randolph, like all the Mets has to make changes. His No. 1 challenge is to make the Mets care more about winning. He has to make them understand there are consequences for their childless actions. They need to worry more about the game than their dance routines...
...It wouldn't hurt either if Minaya helped Randolph out by acquiring the ace the Mets desperately need. That player is sitting out there in Minnesota.
If you want to make Willie Randolph a better manager Omar, trade for Johan Santana. That would also make you a better GM.
Santana said he would waive his no-trade clause for the right deal so this should be the Mets No. 1 priority. Not looking for scapegoats when the reason they failed is simple: the players choked away the season.
Essentially the Mets did not adhere to the most basic premise of pro sports: Don't fear your opponent, but respect him. The Mets thought they were so much better than everyone else.
What Omar has to do now that he has retained Randolph is get out of his way and let Willie run the club. Get out of the way and get players. There has to be fewer visits to the clubhouse from Omar and his top aides.
Minaya is a nice guy who tends to be too friendly with his players. He has to draw the line. He's management. They're players. He has to remember that and cannot undermine Randolph's authority by being everybody's buddy. If Randolph gets all over Jose Reyes, the GM has to back him up. Players like Lastings Milledge should not come up to the majors thinking they can get away with antics that would not be tolerated in other organizations.
But they do get away with them. The organization has to believe in tough love.
The challenge will be difficult for Minaya, Randolph and the Mets. Because now the only question that matters is this one and it will be asked every day: What did you do today as a team, as an organization, as a GM, as a manager, as a player to prevent another epic collapse?
No one will care about anything else. The Mets don't need scapegoats right now, they need to change their way of thinking and bring in a No. 1 pitcher.
Problem solved.
3 comments:
That's pretty much it in a nutshell- if you have good players and good coaching to keep them focused and honest, you should win.
I tend to agree that Willie has some good qualities (and as I mentioned in an earlier post I don't really see any "great" MLB managers available anyway), so canning him is not necessarily the answer. Especially since I think Wilpon and Omar are also to blame and team attitudes start at the top, so s-canning Willie doesn't necessarily address the problem of discipline.
That said, I feel that it needs to be made to clear to everyone on this team from Wilpon down that not disciplining players is unacceptable, and that it is up to the coach to make sure the team is behaving and playing properly. The Mets have now faltered terribly for two Septembers in a row; I don't know why this message wasn't driven into Willie at the end of '06 and used to modify his approach in '07.
And I'd also like to see some recognition from Omar in this offseason that if you stack the team with old vets, you are playing with injury fire. We have now gotten burned with this two years in a row, I really can't stomach a third.
The Mets have now faltered terribly for two Septembers in a row
You've made this point repeatedly and I'm gonna have to pick a bone with you on it. The two situations are pretty much apples and oranges, as far as I'm concerned.
Would some momentum at the end of '06 been nice headed into the playoffs? sure. Necessary, no.
The Cards won the series with every bit of nomentum imaginable. The last time the Yanks won the series they were 2-15 in their last 17 regular season games. It's not how you want to go into the postseason, but once you've punched your ticket, there are a lot more considerations that come into play than purely momentum: keeping your guys healthy, setting up the rotation, resting key arms, etc.
This year's collapse does not represent a differnce in magnitude from the '06 nomentum. It represents a difference in type. A completely different sort of situation. There was never a question the '06 Mets were making the playoffs. There was never a sense that the '07 Mets had it locked up. The approach of the manager, GM and, most importantly, players, should have been fundamentally different. The "we're so good we get bored" quotes should never have even entered the equation.
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