Frayed Knot

What part of; "Omar: The decision was entirely mine", was unclear ithere?

Omar: Decision was entirely MINE Thought about it as far back as end of last season but didn't want to do so based on just the final 2 weeks. Why - Said that the cloud of this situation was hanging over the club and affecting the mood of the clubhouse & players ... so he wanted to either tell Willie that he'd be the mgr for the remainder of the year or change things up now. Wasn't prepared to commit for the entire year based on the totality of the last year. Timing - Decided after Sunday's games and then sleeping on it Sun/Mon. Manual WILL be mgr for the remainder of the year Oberkfell is 1st base coach, Alomar as bench coach, Aguilo = 3rd base coach

Does this mean Kelly Ripa is no longer a fan?

Too many relievers, reliever roles, and too much use for back of the pen guys were all arguemnts made right here. All I'm doing is pointing out that there are counter-arguments to be made in each of those cases.

So Willie joins Jeff Torborg and Art Howe as Met managers who won their last game before being canned. There may be others but I'm too lazy to look it up. Also, of the recently canned Mgrs & GMs, very few ever got their same level job within MLB GMs: Cashen - No, but that was most likely due to age McIlvane - Nope Harazin - Nope Steve Phillips - Not a nibble Duquette - I guess he did, although his title and structure in Baltimore made things a bit murky. For field managers, Bud Harrelson wound up in independant ball Dallas Green never got another mgr job. Bobby had to go to Japan and (to date) has not worked in MLB since his firing. Art Howe hasn't and almost certainly won't. Leaving Jeff Freakin Torborg as the only fired Met mgr since Davey Johnson to get re-hired elsewhere (Florida) in that same position. Willie? -- Only time will tell but I'm not sure there's going to be a path beat to his door. Doesn't say much for the hiring track record does it?

The timing and hadling of this thing also serves to make Willie a bit of a martyr - even in the eyes of some of those who long wanted him gone.

My main point about the pen is that, except for during blowouts, the thing fans want/demand from it is perfection and so any other result leads to questioning how things were done. - Using too many relievers is one complaint but so is; 'how can he leave Schoeneweis in against a righty when he has X in the pen?' ... or; 'why didn't he pull Y after he put the leadoff guy on?' - No (rigidly) defined roles is something fans usually claim to want and, except for Wagner, I think Willie held pretty fast to that. Sanchez, and occasionally Heilman, shared the 8th until Duaner got hurt. Heilman was great there for a year and a half then was pulled out of that role when he started failing. - Too many innings for the scrubs is usually what happens as they're the ones who generally throw several innings at a time in blow-out and mop-up situations, not because they're somehow being favored. I guess my overall point about the pen as it applies to Willie is that, while I can always find specific moves I disagreed with, I didn't find a particular pattern of use from him I found objectionable, nor did I believe that another manager would have done things much differently. Also that, like all managers, he's a victim of the guys he had in his pen, so when Sanchez took a late might taxi ride, and Mota was forced to work "naked", and Sosa's balloon burst, and the league saw Smith the 2nd time around, and Heilman suddenly turned south, and yadda, yadda, his "mis-use" became more pronounced.

attgig wrote: give carter the bmets. isn't that a promotion for the guy? That was the job Carter turned down which started this whole "feud" between them.

I honestly think he always had - and always would have unless a World Championship (or three) intervened - a certain portion of the Met fans against him on account of the Yanqui roots. Those feelings might go underground during the good times but they were never far from the surface and easily recalled at the first perceived slight or faux-pas. It's like there was always a glass ceiling on the height of his popularity but a bottomless pit for the critics. His rant of a few weeks ago - the one which seemed to have started this ball rolling downhill - showed a remarkable lack of savvy especially for a native New Yorker who should have known better. The guy who cares too much about what others are saying about him probably is a bit short in the CAHNfidence department the job requires. As far as in-game strategy ... Eh. Never particularly bad - just never particularly inspired even if not nearly as bad as his critics portrayed. A few too many bunts for my taste - but there were at least as many complaints from others that he didn't bunt enough. A bit of a quick hook w/his starters - but mostly had a staff which needed it and the "mismanaged the pen" charges can be hung on just about anyone for almost any reason and are as often as not code for, 'the guy he brought in gave up runs'.

Pelfrey - 2.0 Heilman - 0.8 Wagner - 0.3 Beltran - 2.1 Reyes - 1.2 Anderson - 1.1 Wright - 0.8 Sanchez - 0.5 Castillo - 1.2

Generally when an organization decides to do things (or, in this case, time things) for public relations reasons they wind up getting worse pr then they would have had they not tried to manipulate it all. Caught partial interviews (on ESPN radio) with: - Steve Phillips: who blamed an organizational structure which shuns a vertical chain of command and allows players to go around the manager (mentioning Bernazard) - and Bill Madden: who teed off on both Bernazard (never wanted Willie) and Jeff Wilpon who he claims "had it in for Willie" since he felt pressured to give him a larger than wanted raise during the contract negotiations which followed the 2006 season. The real question in all this is; Was this fully Omar's decision? I'm sure he'll say it was at the upcoming (5PM Eastern) press conference but it sounds like there was at least some pressure from above.

Well that inning sure fluffed up that kid's 0.69 ERA

Castillo didn't have much room to squeeze that hit between the line and the LFer.

Reyes has a knack for keeping those inside pitches fair better than most LHBs. His hits don't have any hook to them. Carlos Baerga also did that real well.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Translated: I'm stupid and I'm an asshole. The panel also would have accepted 'Crybaby', 'Clueless', or 'Numbskull'.

Hankenstein: �My only message is simple: The National League needs to join the 21st century. They need to grow up and join the 21st century. I�ve got my pitchers running the bases, and one of them gets hurt. He�s going to be out. I don�t like that, and it�s about time they address it. That was a rule from the 1800s.� This is always a concern of American League teams when their pitchers have to run the bases and they�re not used to doing it. It�s not just us. It�s everybody. It probably should be a concern for National League owners, general managers and managers when their pitchers run the bases. Pitchers have enough to do without having to do that.�

He probably doesn't get the DP on that but he still shoulda gone to 2nd.

Hits to the first two Angel hitters and nothing since.

Couple of hot shots handled by Delgado thus far.

Top Ten all-time Angels (acc to some fan-site I found): 1 - Tim Salmon 2 - Nolan Ryan 3 - Brian Downing 4 - Bobby Grich 5 - Garrett Anderson 6 - Chuck Finley 7 - Troy Percival 8 - Jim Fergosi 9 - Troy Glaus 10 - Darin Erstad

Beltran is clearly a better hitter as a DH and therefore should be immediately traded to an AL team for like lots of good players and stuff.

All he said was that, at some point this afternoon, he hadn't seen either Peterson or Nieto. Nothing unfactual about that.

Mets beat writer at Newsday.

Gammons reporting that the Yanx & Dodgers were discussing (I guess prior to Wang's problems) a Brad Penny for Robinson Cano swap, but Penny's recent shoulder woes have put that talk on hold.

He left Little Falls