When will Willie be fired?

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I know the question is "when will" but I think the results reflect "when should"

[Benjamin Grimm]

Our previous discussion of this hot topic:

Willie's Seat ... and How Hot it Might Be

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Really interesting look back. I'd forgotten all that backroom Bernazard stuff and wonder how much still is out there.

[Willets Point]

Willie brings Yankee class and a winning tradition to the organization.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

answering my own question: From Newsday 4/20:

Once again, Mets vice president Tony Bernazard treated Nationals manager Manny Acta like a long-lost brother this past week at Shea Stadium, talking with Acta at length during batting practice. Given the tensions surrounding Willie Randolph's job security, Bernazard should cease and desist.

[HahnSolo]

Wally Backman might be a candidate to appease the fans who are looking for a manager who shows a little fire. Or at least displays a pulse.

I think a team will give Backman a chance one day and will get results.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Hiring a candidate to appease the fans is not a good idea.

Hire someone who'll make the team win. Then the fans will be happy. But the goal should be winning; the fans shouldn't be a factor.

Oh, and here's my prediction from that other thread, made on October 3:

If, in May, the Mets find themselves around .500 and in third place (which is not at all far-fetched) Willie will probably be fired anyway.

[Frayed Knot]

Bernazard should certainly "ceast and desist" if for no other reason than simply for the image it portrays. But extrapolating from his personal affection for Acta to thinking there's something afoot is probably stretching a bit.
Besides, I saw more goofy in-game moves from Acta in just the few games we played them this year than I've seen watching Willie every night. Plus it's not like Acta's got an unexpectedly good record to fall back on at the moment.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Nor is he available. Acta currently has a managing job, and I doubt the Nationals would grant the Mets permission to steal him away.

[MFS62]

Here's a sportswriter who thinks it should be now:


http://www2.nysun.com/article/75689

Later

[batmagadanleadoff]

MFS62 wrote: Here's a sportswriter who thinks it should be now: http://www2.nysun.com/article/75689Later

I suppose that Marchman would join the "not soon enough" camp from this thread. Marchman continues:

TimMarchman wrote: "Unless a manager is a genius, all one can ask him to do is not actively harm his team's chances. Randolph doesn't pass this test."

I've always believed this, myself. A manager, except maybe a great one, couldn't coax more than a tiny number of wins from a team, over and above its' potential. Instead, a manager excels by not harming the team's chances. And this is where I think Randolph has failed.

Willie debuted in 2005 ... the New Mets ... Willie's Kids ... Willie's Mets. Yet Randolph's first year legacy, now that it's all over is that the 2005 Mets, from a tactical standpoint, were probably the most mismanaged Mets team in franchise history, accounting of course for the team's ability to contend because who cares whether Salty Parker batted this guy fourth instead of that guy. It would've been more palatable, as just one example, to see Reyes hack away without a clue more than 700 times in 2005 from the leadoff spot if that team was hopeless and going nowhere. But the 2005 Mets contended. Despite Willie Randolph. And if Randolph says he was surprised by his team's competitiveness, well it was his job to know otherwise. We'll never know if the 2005 Mets would've made it to the post-season with a different manager, but they weren't better off with Randolph.

In 2006, the Mets obliterated the competition, again in spite of rather than because of Randolph. One can argue that the Mets should have clinched the division even earlier than they did. And then there is last year's embarrassement where in the end, the difference between a historic collapse that will never be forgotten for the rest of all of our lives and the post-season was just one game.

Willie Randolph can't get fired soon enough.

[metirish]

Hard for me to disagree with Marchman here , excellent article.

[Guest AG/DC]

I think we're declaring a lot of things without supporting them adequately. The most mismanaged Mets team in franchise history?

[batmagadanleadoff]

AG/DC wrote: I think we're declaring a lot of things without supporting them adequately. The most mismanaged Mets team in franchise history?

We? It's only my opinion and I respect your right to disagree with it, just as you can disagree with anyone else's opinions, including those that belong to persons far more knowledgeable than me. Although I don't know how far off from worst you'd improve the 2005 Mets. Again, I'm only talking tactics here. I wouldn't , for example, call Stengel's Mets tactically mismanaged; Casey was simply stuck with too many bad players. (Although he did bat McMillan second in his last season - an ineffective strategy that Westrum followed through to the end of '65).

[metirish]

Yeah I should say I agree with the general theme of the article..

[Guest AG/DC]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: AG/DC wrote: I think we're declaring a lot of things without supporting them adequately. The most mismanaged Mets team in franchise history? We? It's only my opinion and I respect your right to disagree with it, just as you can disagree with anyone else's opinions, including those that belong to persons far more knowledgeable than me.

I'm talking about that article also. Mostly actually.

I'm not talking about rights.

[Guest AG/DC]

Oh, man, infield in with a three run lead in the second?

Maybe this is the most mismanaged team.

[batmagadanleadoff]

AG/DC wrote: I'm not talking about rights.

Fine. So then you don't have the right to question my opinions. Have it your way.

[Guest AG/DC]

Don't be that way.

I'm just trying to get these things supported.

[batmagadanleadoff]

AG/DC wrote: Don't be that way.

That was a joke. Obviously an ineffective one, but a joke nevertheless.

[Guest AG/DC]

Well, I'm clearly not impressed by Willie.

Can anybody explain infield in, in Arizona, in the second inning, with a three-run lead?

[G-Fafif]

Department of useless qualified predictions colored by frostbite and frustration from last night: June 10 vs Arizona sees a new Met manager (Manuel's my guess, followed by Oberkfell, dark horse is Jose Valentin). As mentioned upthread, I believe Willie gets May out of fairness and gets the Dodger series so as not to make Torre's return to NY extremely circuslike. That sends him on the West Coast trip. And then he gets it IF the Mets are a sub-.500 team by then and IF they slip let's say seven out of first. The record is a distinct possibility, the margin maybe not as much since it would take a hot streak by Philly or Atlanta to distance themselves from a floundering Mets team that much...or it would take the Marlins, three up at the moment, being for real.

This season is beginning to feel very 1991ish.

[Willets Point]

I think Willie is going to get a fired, hot and toasty sammich from Subway.

[Guest Mets Guy in Michigan]

Once the sharks start circling, they don't seem to swim away. And they're certainly starting to circle. The team would have to go on a massive tear and create a fat division lead for them to go away at this point.

The danger with lopping him mid-season is that you're throwing someone right into the fire, and it's tough to pull someone away from another system -- unless it is from within you own -- in mid-season, so we'd get something like Jerry Manuel taking a looooong interim post through the end of the season. Unless you have a real firebrand who can turn things around ASAP, it's like you're waving the white flag on the season.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Thought I'd bump this, since the vultures are circling.

This surprised me: The thread had drifted all the way back to Page 4, and it had its last post only ten days ago. We've really been churning out the threads lately, haven't we?

[metirish]

Fred and Jeff are acting like spurned lovers and not returning Willie's calls , instead letting Minaya act as the go between . I feel like I'm thirteen again.

[batmagadanleadoff]

I posted this in the new managerial candidates thread, temporarily forgetting that this (more appropriate for my post) thread exists.

I have one theory (among others) that Willie's already done and that the Wilpons just need the time to finalize whatever contingency needs to put in place to replace the manager. The Wilpons strike me as very conservative people that would be deeply bothered by the idea that Randolph might have played the race card, even more so than others. If the Wilpons believe that Willie did in fact play the race card, than that might've been the last straw, barring some miracle. Under this theory, he's done. It's official. But it hasn't been disclosed yet. Under this theory, Willie would need SteveJRogers' 20 out of 25 game run to wriggle out of this one -- only he'd need to get these 20 wins over this weekend because he no longer has 25 games to fix (t)his mess. Under this theory, Willie needs to win 20 out of the next four games to save his job.

[metirish]

Minaya gave Willlie the dreaded vote of confidence last night.

[Guest Grote15]

I'm one of the two May voters and my birthday is 5/31..Think Willie will be gone by then if not overnight..

[Willets Point]

Randolph doesn't need to be fired. He just needs to get ejected from a game and return to the dugout in disguise.