I woke up this morning to learn that the New York Mets had fired manager Willie Randolph at midnight Pacific Time after a game against the Dodgers (that's 3 a.m. Eastern! Think of the shock of the ballclub's fans!). New York Daily News writer Bill Madden called the Mets handling of the Randolph severance "the most disgraceful, atrocious and cowardly" canning he had ever seen, saying that it was even worse than some of the monkey shines of NY Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. I concur.
Randolph, one of the classiest and most dignified individuals in all of baseball who shouldn't have had to wait as long as he did to lead a team, deserved far better than this abomination. The Flushing Meadows nine had won three of their last four and fell just short in that one loss and were one under .500 for the season. GM Omar Minaya, also one of the nicest men in the national pastime, had tried to protect Randolph, who took the team to within one game of a World Series a couple of years ago., but their huge payroll, the historic collapse they had in 2007 and the mediocre beginning this time around was just too much for the ownership and fan base to swallow.
It is ironic that Randolph has that record and is now looking for alternative employment while Seattle is holding on to Lou Piniella disciple John McLaren despite that team having the worst record in all of baseball.
On paper, the Mets should have been a formidable aggregation,. especially since they were able to pick up arguably the greatest lefthander in the game, Johan Santana, during the offseason. However, the Philadelphia Phillies have been beating the living crap out of National League pitching and are currently well ahead in the NL East while the Mets are mired in fourth.
The only gamers on the Mets right now are third baseman David Wright, closer Billy Wagner and Santana. Centerfielder Carlos Beltran, who, during his final season in Houston, appeared as if he was blossoming into the Puerto Rican Willie Mays, has largely been disappointing in relation to his salary and God only knows what is going on with Jose Reyes, who has gone from one of the most two or three most exciting players in baseball to an enigma. First baseman Carlos Delgado just flat hasn't hit.
It will be interesting to see if moving into a new ballpark next season will energize what looks to be a floundering collection of lost souls. Bench coach Jerry Manuel, who had a forgettable managerial stint with the Chicago White Sox, has been named interim manager while minor league manager Ken Oberkfell brought up to join the big league coaching staff. Manuel will almost certainly not be retained once the schedule concludes. Indeed, Oberkfell, who was a gamer himself during his days as a St. Louis Cardinal , would be a good candidate to succeed Manuel.
Minaya has one more year left on his deal and if they don't show vast improvement after the all star break and in 2009, he could very well also find himself an outsider. I would expect, though, that Delgado will be disposed of in the interim, along with outfielder Moises Alou, who has seemingly moved into the disabled list fulltime this year.
Here's to hoping that Randolph finds a coaching position soon. This was a bad case of bad things happening to good people.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Randolph was a shitty manager and should have been canned 2 years ago. Better late than never. Hopefully the Wilpons will grow a sack and fire Minaya, too, and get somebody who knows who to use a spreadsheet in the front office, and someone other than Yankees' table-scraps in the manager's uniform.
Good for people to know.
Post a Comment