Some Thoughts on Willie’s Sacking June 21, 2008
Posted by Jake Price in MLB, Uncategorized.Tags: baseball, Jerry Manuel, Mets, Omar Minaya, sports, Willie Randolph
trackback
There has already been plenty written about the sacking of Willie Randolph across the press and the net, and I don’t have much to add. Randolph spoke out in yesterday’s New York Daily News about his firing as Mets coach by General Manager Omar Minaya. In the article Randolph stated that
I have to agree with Randolph to a certain extent. The sacking of Randolph was terribly mismanaged, leading to a typically hyperbolic Daily News front page (below). Minaya doesn’t come across as the smartest GM, and although I believe he was right to keep Randolph on after the cataclysmic collapse last season, he should’ve released Randolph earlier, probably after the dreadful road trip to San Francisco and San Diego.
I bet the free Yankees DVD helped soften the blow for Mets fans!
However, Randolph can’t complain about being sacked. The Mets have been poor this season, and he has been incompetent at times (none more so than his “racist” jibe about SportsNet New York) and the team seems to be falling apart around him. Minaya, of course, deserves some of the blame - his Yankees style decision to buy big name ageing players at the expense of building up the team’s youth and reserves. The team is filled with players who are past their best - Delgado, Alou, Castillo, (and newbie Trot Nixon could well be another of those) and the bench players aren’t of the high quality that a supposed World Series team with a $140 million payroll should have. That’s not to mention trading players away such as Brian Bannister, Xavier Nady and Heath Bell.
Jerry Manuel in his first week seems to have brought some stability to the team, along with a more hard-nosed approach which the team has been crying out for in recent months. I would give him the rest of the season to see how things pan out before making a decision about a permanent appointment.
All in all, it’s very embarrasing to be a Mets fan at the moment. Even though Randolph’s departure had been coming for a long time, and had the support of many correspondents and a lot of Mets fans, Minaya still managed to screw it up big time. The Mets certainly are ‘mazin’ at the moment, but for all the wrong reasons.
Jake Price
bigtexan
I believe everyone agrees the Mets are playing below their potential. You can’t fire an entire team so Willie must go. He did deservse some dignity as to how he got fired.
I think the Mets should wait until they play a game overseas. Perhaps when they play in Japan, they should make Omar take the flight and then fire him when he lands.
Maybe they could let him go while they’re over the Pacific… without a parachute? I don’t know why Minaya is trying to follow a squad strategy that failed for the Yankees of buying ageing players on massive contracts. Even when we have good young prospects such as Pelfrey or Milledge, the coaching staff appear to have no idea how to blood them properly. John Maine coming through now seems like a happy accident rather than good management. Let’s be honest, the Mets have been on slide for a season and a half now, and not Randolph, Minaya or anyone else seemed to have a clue how to stop it. Give it to the all-star break, and if fortunes haven’t improved, if I was Manuel I’d weed out the deadwood that won’t be there in 2009, such as Delgado, Alou and probably (although I hate to say it) Martinez, and promote some prospects with a view to next season.