Willie got ripped off

[Guest Edgy DC]

Brilliant!

[nymr83]

bang your guiness bottles together folks, that one takes the cake.

[Guest patona314]

sorry willie lovers (i like him too) but joe did one heck of a job w/the marlins this year. too bad he won't be around when those saplings blossum.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

iramets wrote: ="metsguyinmichigan"]Maybe the projections were wrong. Just because the pre-season prognositicators picked them to lose 100 games doesn't mean they were going to. YEAH!! And just because those same prognosticators said Willlie's team looked strong didn't mean squat, either. Willie should get full credit for managing a weak, pathetic squad of losers deep into the playoffs. A miracle! The skies part! How he ever did it, no one will ever know! Working with nothing, Willie got 97 victories! Who could have foreseeen that the Mets were a good team? Or maybe you don't like that reasoning? Maybe you even felt that the Marlins were a weak squad with a low payroll and the Mets were quite the opposite? Maybe you're even one of those lameass prognosticators?

I don't have a problem with disagreeing, but I don't understand being nasty. Debate is a good thing.

Yes, the Mets were supposed to be good. But then the pitching fell to pieces and we had the likes of Jose Lima out there and a bunch of rookies.

Using your arguement, Torre didn't deserve his votes -- didn't he come in third in the AL? -- because his team had a $200 million payroll and was expected to win.

[nymr83]

Torre came in 4th. he received no 1st place votes and only 1 2nd place vote (likely from the NY writer) i see no problem there.

[Guest iramets]

metsguyinmichigan wrote: [Yes, the Mets were supposed to be good. But then the pitching fell to pieces and we had the likes of Jose Lima out there and a bunch of rookies.

Yes, and the Mets had the payroll and the lineup and depth to weather their rotation problems, which is a big reason they were picked to win their division.

It wasn't just a few oddballs who figured the Marlins to be a weak team, It was pretty much a concensus that a team with no payroll would not win a lot of games. If the baseball world sees them a very weak club and they manage to eke out a better record than ALMOST EVERYONE AGREED they would, then what's your point? Someone gets the credit for that improvement, and the manager is an excellent candidate for causing that improvement. If two clubs win a lot of games, and one of them is widely perceived as a weak team and the other as a strong team, then the MOY is going to go to the manager of the weak team 99 times out of a hundred, and that's how it should be.

Unless you're saying that every team begins the season with not only a theoretically equal shot at the division but an actual equal shot at winning the division.

[Guest cleonjones11]

metsmarathon wrote: ="metsguyinmichigan"] 3) Couldn't get a job managing this season, heading instead to the Yankees' booth? did he even try? it looks like he's just waiting out joe torre for the yankees job.

He'll have to Kill Mattingly first

[metirish]

] Geffner: Randolph was robbed This was back in the first weekend of July, at Yankee Stadium during the Subway Series. The Mets were already running away with the NL East, up by 11, and I was sitting in the visiting dugout before the game, as the Yankees were taking BP, when suddenly Willie Randolph, with that purposeful step and stone-cold game face, crossed right in front of me. "Hey "� hey, you!" I called out to him, trying to get his attention, which isn't always the easiest thing � him and that famous focus of his. "Hey, you, manager of the year." It was a playful line, of course, attempting to do two things: bring a smile to his face and let him know, without being mushy about it � he absolutely hates anything mushy � that I thought he was doing a great job. Mind you, I've known Randolph since the day he broke in with the Yankees in 1976. Used to hang by his locker just shooting the breeze nearly every day of the season for years. So I can't help but have a special fondness for him. He quickly snapped his head around, looking to connect that disconnected voice, and indeed gave me that smile. A big one too. Then he slowly came right up to my ear and in a low voice gave me something I didn't expect. "Nooooooooo!" he said, holding that smile, "Joooooooooe Girrr-raaaaaarrr-di. He couldn't have stretched the syllables any longer, couldn't have been more lathered with sarcasm, couldn't have made his point any clearer. He already sensed that the wave of positive vibes � and votes for the NL Manager of the Year � was moving unstoppably, irretrievably, against him and in the direction of the then-manager of the Marlins. A guy who, unlike Willie, unlike him by a long shot, needed a scant two years after his retirement as a player to be in such a supreme position with a big-league baseball team. Funny how I thought at the time that Randolph was merely being paranoid, still gun-shy from all the rejection he suffered for a decade trying to so desperately to land that managing job, simply bracing himself early, out of habit, if nothing else, for another round of disrespect. Little did I know that he had the whole thing nailed. In the end, he got beaten out by a guy who'd led his team to, of all things, a losing record, who didn't even capture so much as a wild-card spot, who was fired right after the season. In fact, in the 23-year history of the award, the thing hadn't ever been given to a losing manager. Until yesterday. Until baseball, with its great wisdom, decided to give it to a guy who'll spend next season not in the dugout but in a TV broadcasting booth. Way to go, guys. Nice job. The final tally: Girardi � 18 first-place votes, 111 total points, Randolph � 8 first-place votes, 81 total points. It wasn't even close enough to demand a recount. Leave it to baseball and its association of writers to find another way to stick it to Willie � despite him winning his division going away and tying with the Yankees for the best record in baseball. And doing all that pretty much without his ace (Pedro Martinez) and two of his other starters (Brian Bannister and Victor Zambrano) and his meat-of-the-order left fielder (Cliff Floyd) and maybe his best pitcher in the pen (Duaner Sanchez). Let the writers who didn't cast a first-place vote for him, who only followed the team from a distance � in the newspapers and on TV � talk about the Mets' huge payroll and all the superstar talent and how it gave Randolph an unfair advantage. Those who saw the club day in and day out at Shea know differently. They know he performed something of a minor miracle to get this hobbling-from-the-start team within a single game of playing in the World Series. They know that, in the tiny space of two seasons, he has turned around the entire mindset of this franchise. Made these Met players not only into winners on the field but also in their collective heads and bodies and souls, molded them in his own image into nothing less than the Yankees by the Flushing Bay. And for all this, he's handed the wonderful Thanksgiving gift of Joooooooooe Girrr-raaaaaarrr-di. I hope he can still smile about it the way he did back in July. Michael P. Geffner's column appears regularly in the Times Herald-Record.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Wow.

Dude, if you disagree, that's fine. But it wasn't about sticking it to Willlie. It's nothing so personal.

[metirish]

Seems very personel to Gaffner though.....

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

I'd have guessed Jerry Narron at the halfway point.

[metirish]

From Newsday

] Notes & quotes: Randolph expressed disappointment over finishing second to Joe Girardi in the NL Manager of the Year balloting. "I'm just totally dumbfounded on how it works, obviously," Randolph said. "If we start trying to figure out what the criteria is and why people vote for what they vote for and what they see, that's not my concern. I feel like we deserved it." ...

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Is that the royal "we" that Willie is using?

[Guest Edgy DC]

Only one piece of hardware that matters, Willie.

Somebody get a satchel of cliches over to that guy, STAT!

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

Translating Willie's remarks for Ricky Henderson and his fans:

Randolph expressed disappointment over finishing second to Joe Girardi in the NL Manager of the Year balloting. "Willie's totally dumbfounded on how it works, obviously," Randolph said. "If Willie starts trying to figure out what the criteria is and why people vote for what they vote for and what they see, that's not Willie's concern. I feel like Willie deserved it. ..."*


*Quotes have been edited for fun and are not directly attributable to Willie.