Watching Mets games these days you can’t help but feel for Willie Randolph. You can’t help but think of his current predicament and just say “damn, that really sucks.”
Imagine working for an employer who you know will fire you any minute. But worse still, is hearing about it everytime you turn on a radio or open up a newspaper. As a matter of fact you don’t even have to open the newspaper, you just have to read the headlines these days.
That is the current state of Willie Randolph’s job. 2006, though it was just two years ago, must seem like an eternity ago. He was the toast of NY and was one swing of Carlos Beltran’s bat from making it to the World Series. From the high came the very very low of collapsing last September. It seems that all the good of two years ago was undone by last September’s disaster.
Now it just seems that blaming Willie is the best thing to do in this situation. We lose 2-1 games against the worst offensive team in the NL, blame Willie he didn’t do enough to get runs on the board. When Billy Wagner serves up 3 run home runs in consecutive games and blows three in a row overall, let’s blame Willie because he clearly threw the pitch. When Aaron Heilman can’t seem to make pitches in meaningful spots in the game, let’s point the finger at Willie. When his pinch hitters are hitting .100 let’s also blame Willie because he’s not doing enough to get these guys pumped in key spots.
Unfortunately the rule of thumb of blame in sports goes like this: manager, upper level management and then somewhere way down the list, the players. But it’s the players who go out and decide the manager’s fate. It is the upper level management who provides the players that the manager is forced to use in those situations. So the argument can be made that perhaps using simple logic that the pecking order should be reverse. But who said logic is involved in these situations?
I feel sorry for Willie but I do agree that change is needed in this case. Not only Willie but Omar needs to get the boot as well. As bad as this team has underperformed considering the expectations, it was never constructed to play from behind. We don’t have a single clutch hitter that is capable of putting runs on the board and strike fear in the hearts of opponents or get fans to rise out of their seats in anticipation that something big is going to happen. Funny thing is, in 2006, you got that feeling every time a Met came up. Who knows what kind of mindset they had back then but it was better than what they have now.
But the change would be beneficial for a team that is clearly lacking that loud voice that screams at them to make plays because the quiet leadership way of things is not working. Everyone is so quiet, you get the feeling that everyone is following their own lead which is getting them no where. Minaya’s biggest fault here is that he traded away every single developmental asset they had to bring a player who can come in every five days. He also brought in players who played inspired in a room full of leaders and were not ready to be leaders themselves. As much as I love Pedro, he brings humor and looseness to a clubhouse, not leadership. If looseness is leadership than Manny is Napolean the emperor, not Napolean Dynamite.
But its not to say that the Mets don’t have a team capable of winning. This team is still salvageable. That’s the good news. But for Willie, the bad news is, they stopped listening to him a long time ago.
Sorry Willie, its time for a change.
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