OK, I have given myself some time to think about this and wanted to share my assessment with you guys and see if we can get some good chatter going on.
To begin, I just want to state that I 100% believe Willie should've been fired. I thought he should've been fired after the collapse last year and have continued to believe he should be replaced. I also agree with Peterson being fired.
Now, I have heard and even used the word "classless" thrown around by a lot of fans and media today and I want to address this. I think the way that he was fired was ill-timed and stupid and it makes the organization looks foolish. I don't think it was really "classless" to fire a manager whose team has underperformed (at least according to the payroll) so greatly. Would after Saturday's double dip have been better? On Father's Day before they boarded a bus to the airport? Was it weird to go to sleep last night watching a win and wake up with the news of Willie being canned? Yes. Does that make it classless? No. It was yet another poorly timed and poorly executed decision by an ownership group that is famous for things such as this.
I know many of you fans remember the reign of one Jeff Torborg, almost exactly 15 years ago. "The Worst Team Money Could Buy" aka the 1992 Mets were about 4 or 5 games out in August when the bottom fell out. I think they won about 5 or 6 games in September (OK, maybe it wasn't that bad, but close) and finished 18 games under .500 on the year (72-90). They brought Torborg back in 1993 only to see the team still suck and fired him on near the end of May that year after a Mets win. He was replaced by the incomparable Dallas Green and the rest is history. Now while Randolph's fall was harder and faster (from one pitch from the WS to the great collapse) I do see and feel a lot of parallels to that club and to the way it was done. Increasing the payroll to record levels and then not living up to expectations always leads to the manager getting fired. The only thing missing is firecrackers in the players parking lot. Maybe Reyes can play the role of Vince?
OK, so let's talk about this ownership group...
Across down the always brilliant Hank Steinbrenner said this yesterday:
"My only message is simple. The National League needs to join the 21st century,” Steinbrenner said in Tampa, Fla. “They need to grow up and join the 21st century.
“Am I (mad) about it? Yes,” Steinbrenner added. “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.”
Now you are Fred & Jeff Wilpon, almost NOTHING you can do can make you look dumber and more clueless to the NY sports fan than a comment like this. YET SOMEHOW, SOMEWAY, FREDDY, YOU DID IT!!
You claim it was all Omar's doing!! You dodge all the questions!! You make the fans call the organizaton classless. Let's all pretend for a second that it was all Omar's doing (clearly not the case, but let's pretend), when Omar calls you with his plan, do you not say "Hey Omar, we support you but let's talk with Jay Horwitz and see when he thinks the best time is for us to do this"??
I look forward to hear from Omar tonight because this just make no sense and actually makes the organization look bad in a move that was certainly needed in my opinion.
I can only hope Omar has a plan. I can only hope he can explain to me why Jerry Manuel, the guy everyone told us was teaching Willie how to manage in the NL in 2005, is a better choice for manager now than a fresh face from outside the organization or AAA. I hope he can explain to me why Howard Johnson, a former Mets 3B best know for his hackish swing and quick bat (something you can't teach) is still the hitting coach on a team with a .257 BA. I hope he can explain to me what Sandy Alomar brings to the table that he needed to remain as well.
As a Mets fan my entire life, I am not at all shocked by today's events. I have seen this before and will see it again. What is sad is not that Willie & The Jacket have been fired, it's the fact that the future today looks even worse than yesterday.
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5 comments:
Agree on the fact that Willie should have been fired. I don't see the big deal about WHEN it happened.
At best, it's a little curious that they'd do it after a win. That's about all I can offer to what the big deal is here. Maybe they didn't wanna do it on Father's Day and maybe there were some logistical things with the new coaches getting there, etc.. At the end of the day, WHO CARES WHEN HE WAS FIRED.
As for the Manual replacement, I am totally ok with it. Let's assume that the Mets have a 15% chance of making the playoffs at this point. Why not let Manual try his hand and try to perform a miracle? If they make the playoffs, he's a godsend and he's our guy next year. If not, we can assess the market for managers after the season. He's a stop-gap. He's an INTERIM. This is how it works. You don't bring in Buck Showalter out of nowhere, hand him the keys to a team he knows nothing about and tell him to start driving.
That's what you do in January.
Um, it was disgraceful. YOu do not fire a manager that got you to within 1 pitch of the big dance, at 3:15 in the morning via press release. It is a pathetic cowardly move. Face the press. Don't do it at a time when you know the local papers cannot print it. And have the dignity to allow the guy to be fired at home, and not make him get on a plane, fly to LA, coach 1 game, give the post-game presser, and then shoot him a press release. Cooper is right: It was the one thing could could actually be worse than Hank's stupidity yesterday.
Totally understood where Jared is coming from on the Manuel front, but let's be honest, your 15% chance is on the high side.
I can't believe I somewhat agree with Koss but I kinda do. I mean it's pretty freakin bush league
Cmon, let's not coddle the guy. It's not like he's paying for his own flights. He was fired for doing a bad job (and arguably given many more chances than he deserved, repeatedly).
Business is business; this is how the timing worked out. Willie gets, what $3-4m to have to fly to New York and not work for a while? Poor thing... he'll be fine, guys.
And it's not as if they were hoping this would go unnoticed. They are having a press conference in 5 minutes... this had nothing to do with avoiding the press.
I wouldn't have thought twice about it, but it's the media that wants to make it an issue. It's not disgraceful, it's not embarrassing. A guy got fired, and they are mad that they couldn't make it a headline today.
The way the Mets handled this entire fiasco was clueless and classless. Even if Willie did need to be fired, there are lots of better ways to have done it. I thought the Wilpons were going to be patient intelligent owners but the reality is aren't. They wanted everything fixed TOMORROW and Omar was under the gun to produce yesterday. That is why their team is a poorly and hastily assembled group of old, over-paid players (Alou, Pedro, Delgado) mostly terrible pitchers (with the exception of Santana, Pedro, Maine with occassional heroics by Wagner and Perez) and underachieving players (Delgado and Beltran). Truth is this ownership seems like the worst part of the team. Also, if anyone is to be blamed other than the Wilpons, it is Omar. He's made so many bad moves that [maybe] no manager could have turn this group into a winner.
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