The Mets Organization is an absolute joke. Today they fired Manager Willie Randolph at 3 in the morning. After this move, the Mets management makes the Yankees look like they're run by Albert Einstein instead of Hank Steinbrenner. I never thought I'd say this, but maybe the club was better off with Steve "Bum" Phillips. To fire the man running your team in the middle of the night is a cowardly act that shows why the Mets are going nowhere fast. Why do this now? What do they have to gain?
By making this move, they've pretty much ensured that they won't make the playoffs this year. Sure, they're underachieving big time. Most people thought that with the addition of Johan Santana in the off-season, the Mets would be the front-runners to win the NL Pennant. They've got the second-highest payroll in baseball at just over $137 Million and are one game under .500 on the season. Still, they weren't out of the race (just 6.5 games back in the NL East) and with the talent on the roster, they had a good shot to turn it around. In fact, they had won 3 of their last 4 games including a 3 run victory over the AL Powerhouse Angels last night.
Randolph wasn't exactly Tony LaRussa over his past 100 games, but overall he's had much success since taking over as manager about 3 and a half years ago. He's the second most winningest coach in Mets history with 302 victories. In this day and age though, it's all about what have you done for me lately. In my opinion, he hasn't done the job that he should be doing, but the blame can't all be placed on his shoulders. The pitching has greatly underachieved (led by the dinosaur that is Billy Wagner) and injuries to Pedro Martinez and Ryan Church haven't allowed them to fully gel as a team.
Clearly this move has been in the works for awhile. ESPN has covered the shit out of this story for the past month now, and most people knew that it wasn't a question of if, but when. When it comes down to it though, unless your team is dead in the water (aka the Seattle Mariners), you stick with your coach through the season. That's why if GM Omar Minaya didn't have faith in Randolph, he should have axed him at the beginning of the season. After the Mets epic meltdown caused them to go from playoff shoe-ins in August to Post-season dropouts by late September, it appeared that Randolph was on the way out. However, when they kept him on at the beginning of this season, they made a commitment to stick with him.
Now the team is setting themselves back, and with a veteran club, they can't afford to waste time like this. Right now, this team is the baseball equivalent of the Knicks. I still have to cover them though, so I might as well suck it up.
