May 26, 2008
More Willie
Omar Minaya stated pretty emphatically that the Mets are going to keep Willie Randolph:
During a press conference at Shea Stadium this afternoon, Mets GM Omar Minaya told reporters, "Willie Randolph is our manager. There is no limbo. He's the manager...and I hope he is our manager for many years to come."
According to Minaya, the goal of today's meeting was to a) discuss Randolph's public comments from last week, and b) talk about the current state of the team and what they need to do to get better.
"We had a good, productive meeting," said Minaya, who noted they all share ideas on how best to make the team better, adding, "Two things, ownership is very disappointed in how the team is playing...They wanted to talk to Willie about those things...Also, about the comments, once we get beyond today, like today is over, those comments are over, and they felt it was important to talk to Willie about it, they've accepted his apology and we move on from there. It's over. Let's go on. It's over. Let's move forward now."
Right now the Mets are losing to the Marlins 6-3. If they get swept by Florida, I wonder what Omar will be saying then? I'm glad they are giving Willie a chance to win, but you wonder how low they'll let the team sink.
Posted by David Pinto at
09:31 PM
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Because firing Randolph would suddenly cause the team to rise to the top?
There may be good reasons to fire Randolph but I thought it was pretty well established by now that sacking the manager is not a panacea for all that ails a team.
Maybe they can bring Yogi back.
The problem with the Mets is simple: they're a .500 team with a huge payroll. If the winning percentage was a little better or the payroll a little less, the pressure on Randolph would subside.
Sure, firing Randolph will hardly make the team better overnight. The Mets just have too many aging and/or overrated players. By the way, the Randolph situation completely dominated Cohen and Darling's commentary last night on Extra Innings. They agreed that the sword of Damocles still dangles, as Cohen put it.
One funny side note occurred when Cohen said Uggla must be tough to survive growing up with a name like that. Darling said he could personally identify with the situation. Cohen replied that the situation might have been the same but the names were opposite.
The NYM shouldn't let Willie twist in the wind - if they think he's lost control then they should can him if not why have meetings with mgt? They should have won it all in '06 and they collapsed last year and now they're struggling. What's a guy got to do to get fired?
The record is not Willie's fault, but he has failed with the media, players, fans, owners, and in game ownership. Do the Mets get well when gets canned? No, but that's no reason to keep a failure around. He is around because they've no clue who to replace him with.
Willie needs to stabilize the lineup (and make a good decision about which lineup to go with every day) to jumpstart this offense and keep his job. Reyes has simply not hit with Castillo batting 2nd going back to last year, and the Mets simply do not win when Reyes does not hit. But hitting Castillo 8th takes too much of Castillo's value away.
Proposal (when healthy): 1. Reyes 2. Beltran 3. Wright 4. Church 5. Alou 6. Delgado 7. Schneider/Castro 8. PITCHER 9. Castillo -- which keeps Reyes in the leadoff spot to start the game but which effectively gives them this lineup after: 1. Castillo 2. Reyes 3. Beltran 4. Wright 5. Church 6. Alou 7. Delgado 8. Schneider