The Wilpons are going to have to do some hard thinking about the realities of this team, and decide whether Omar, Willie, or the players are mostly to blame. IMO, unless you are talking about a situation where you have a team with just one bad player or bad apple (e.g., Nomar, Bonilla, etc.), then it has to fall on the GM or manager. Either the GM assembled a team with overrated talent, declining talent, or poor attitudes, or the manager has failed to properly utilize and motivate that talent. When an entire team underperforms, I have to look squarely at management.
So for the Mets, which is it? Is it mostly on Omar or Willie? Not entirely clear-cut, IMO. Take Omar first. He has certainly made some very impressive moves as GM, including the trades for Santana and Church. I'll even throw bringing Pedro over here in there, since he was solid in '06. On the negative side, however, Omar has shown a propensity to pursue declining talent on the downside of their careers (Delgado, Green, Valentin, Castillo, Alou, El Duque, ...) Furthermore, I found his unwillingness to re-sign Bradford and Oliver as two of the most bone-headed moves of all time. Both of those players continue to perform very well to this day, and quite likely would have been the difference between a collapse in '07 and playoffs.
In addition, I think it's important to keep in mind that Omar hasn't exactly had the toughest job in the world: he has essentially been given the largest budget of any NL team over the past 4 years. It's not like he's been asked to assemble a WS-class team with the budget of the Rays or Marlins. Omar also apparently doesn't seem to understand the need for a few vocal leaders in the clubhouse, since he has assembled a team of veterans who do not want to lead.
On the other hand, I think you can easily make a case that despite all the injuries, there is no reason this team should not be in 1st place in NL East. The core of the team - Reyes, Wright, and Beltran - have all remained healthy. The collapse at the end of '07 was inexcusable, due in large part IMO to Willie's overuse of bullpen during regular season. I also think Willie needs to take a more pro-active stance in developing Reyes, whose talent is still very raw. I think Willie's unwillingness to show emotion during a game and argue with umps is also a problem. I especially don't like the way he manages the bullpen, pulls starters early, and juggles the lineup.
At the end of the day, I'm not sure whether more of the blame lies with Willie or Omar, but I can say that the present team is not responding well to Willie. I can also say that even if Wilpon replaces Willie, he ought to put Omar on notice that his job is also on the hot seat, and he needs to re-consider the type of players the team really needs going forward.
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After Girardi's ejection-worthy tirade last night, here's what his players had to say:
"It means a lot to see your manager fighting for the team, especially in that situation," said Cano, whose single to left brought home Hideki Matsui with the game winner.
Derek Jeter was more succinct: "I think [Girardi] fired us up," he said.
Even professionals like Cano and Jeter like to see some life out of their manager on the field. Willie could take a lesson.
This is how I would dole out the blame:
1) Players
Yes. Having a manager in your face or the umpire's face helps get your blood up.
No. As a professional athelete making millions of dollars to perform, you shouldn't need to rely on a manager to get you going.
Beltran/Delgado/Castillo/Reyes have clearly "cliqued." As a group, they like to look disinterested, "cool under pressure." When things are going bad, they retreat from competition into their imaginary boys club of pat-a-cake or whatever-the-heck that nonsense they do on the bench is. It's not strictly a "latino"/cultural issue, although there is a component of that, since Wagner and LoDuca have both commented on the Latino players having me-first attitudes. It's a problem in the clubhouse even if we want to pretend it's not for PC reasons. If PLD and Wags feel that way, they're just the loud d-bags voicing the same opinion that others are scared to voice. That said, there are latino players like Sanchez and Perez who clearly care whether the team wins or loses, so the real issue is bringing some fight to the field, not the ethnicity of the player.
2) Manager
Willie is doing the things winning managers do, or rather, I should say the things that managers of winning teams do. Play each game to win (hence burning the pen and driving SHK crazy). Keep an even keel. Let good players hit or pitch through their slumps.
The main problem is that the Mets, at this point in time, are not a good team. Letting players play through their slumps works when they are, in fact, good players. But is Delgado still a good player, or is he finished? Can Castillo still play, or have his joints turned him into a shell of himself? Is Beltran a superstar, or merely a good CF who happened to get ridiculously hot in the post season before he became a free agent? And just how good IS Jose Reyes, really? Are these guys "gamers" who can be afforded the space to work out of their own slumps, or do they need to be prodded?
Willie is a decent manager, IMO. I just think he's in a bad spot now and not a great fit for the group he's managing. Ironically, I think he'd be perfect for the Phils club. With all their fight and the way some of the guys get on the emotional-roller-coaster (Burrell/Myers/Rollins come to mind), he'd be a great tonic for them.
Willie does take some blame for not adjusting to the circumstances he finds himself in, and just going to the playbook as he's learned it. So he gets rightly dinged for failing to learn that his bullpen is not reliable, and adjusting the rolls of the guys in the pen when they need it (e.g. Heilman, Sosa). He gets dinged for not sitting Reyes when he's doing more moping than playing (e.g. his lax play in the field over the past week, which has been costing us games). He gets dinged for not getting Wright an inning of rest when he clearly could use something to break up his routine and re-set himself. He gets dinged for not mixing things up, or starting a set-to with a reporter as Charlie Manuel did last year, or something, ANYTHING, to rattle the teams cage and try to break them out of this rut.
3) Omar
Say what you want about Omar, but he's met the primary goal that any GM of a New York team should meet: he's a assembled the core of a team that has the ability to win a championship, and the core is still young, and the core is not so cost-prohibitive (considering NY revenue) that he's got to go after bargain basement supporting players. Instead, he's gotten fairly solid supporting players (Schneider/Church/Alou when healthy) to support the core. This is a team that certainly could be in the running for the pennant, as even a cursory scan at this or any other blog during Feb and March would reveal.
That said, he's not blame free. He's handled this situation with Willie badly. He's undermined the manager, further weakening Willie's already weak hand in motivating hard-to-motivate players. He's made mistakes (Bannister-for-Burgos, not resigning Bradford, etc.), but, on net balance, this team is much more likely to be a threat to win it all than the team he inherited. Does anyone really believe this should be a sub-.500 team?
This situation is one where Willie is going to have to change the dynamic himself by making himself the story, and therefore earning some cred for fostering a turnaround himself. And that hardly seems to be in Willie's nature.
Otherwise, Omar's going to have to can the guy to turn the page, whether it's Willie's fault or not.
I give Omar a little less credit, because I think he went to his well one too many times. I think the idea of picking up a few guys near the end of their career, to plug a hole or two on the way to a WS, is brilliant execution if you find the right guys.
The problem is, Omar has assembled a team that is way too reliant on these types of guys. Over the past three years he has depended on huge uptime and premier production from: Pedro, Duque, Alou, Delgado, Castillo, Glavine, Green, and Valentin. It's unreasonable, and a poor plan.
Granted, along the way he ran into bad luck with unexpected injuries (Church's two concussions; Pedro's leg; Sanchez x2; Schneider). So I think things are worse than he reasonably would have expected.
But beyond the problem of fragile, aging vets, I also think he placed WAY too much stock in the upside of Perez, Maine, and Pelfrey. It's unreasonable to anticipate that all three of these guys would be playing at a high-enough level to get us to WS. I recognize that in his mind both Pedro and Duque would be available, such that Pelf wouldn't start and Perez is #5 guy, but again I think it is poor management to believe you would get high-quality, full seasons out of both Pedro + Duque.
As to some of our Latino players, I agree it is definitely part of the problem with the Mets. Omar clearly has a strong preference towards Latino players, but the particular ones he has chosen for the most part don't like to talk to media, don't like to lead, and don't exude the right attitude. As you say, Fredo, I do think this is more related to the specific players (Beltran, Delgado, Alou) than being Latino, since clearly we have Latino players without these problems, and you can find tons of other examples around the league who want to lead and play hard (A-rod, Ortiz, Hanley Ramirez, etc.) that I would love to have on the Mets. Unfortunately, our players have the lazy attitude of Manny Ramirez, without the talent and production of Manny Ramirez. Bad place to be.
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