Who Else Should Go When Randolph Is Fired
“It’s not the heat. It’s the humility.” – Yogi Berra
Those words must be going through Willie Randolph’s head these days. His team is 30-33, 7 1/2 games out of first place and fading fast. The team has been struggling all year but gave a glimmer of hope with a 7-3 run after Memorial Day. But now they have dropped 5 in a row and it’s becoming apparent that something needs to be done to shake the team out of its doldrums.
The obvious answer, and the one most fans seem to want most, is to fire Randolph. To be fair the fans have been for this since before last seasons collapse. They have always felt that he is too calm and not very strategically savvy. He’s a bit too much like Joe Torre for a guy whose team is not as strong as some of Torre’s Yankees teams were.
But is firing Randolph really the answer? Ownership already sent a shot past Randolph’s bow last season with a coaching shuffle during the all star break. In that move the Mets fired Rick Down, who came over from the Yankees with Randolph, moved Howard Johnson from from first base to hitting coach and brought Rickey Henderson in to coach first base. Could it be that they’d make some coaching changes again before finally letting their beleaguered manager go? And if they do which coaches will be in danger this time?
Personally I’m ready to let Rick Peterson go. He’s been around long enough and has not fulfilled the expectations of being a pitching guru. He hasn’t fixed Oliver Perez as promised, hasn’t been able to straighten out a bullpen that actually has a few good arms and relies entirely too much on pitch counts. I can’t blame him much on the pitch count issue because that seems to be going around the league these days. But a guru needs to know when to eschew popular conventions in favor of what’s right. He needs to deliver on promises too.
If we’re citing the bullpen as a reason to let Peterson go then we must also consider bullpen coach Guy Conti as a possible candidate to get the ax. Though he has a solid resume someone must be accountable for the demise of the bullpen.
How about general manager Omar Minaya? Should he be immune? He assembled this team of under achievers and his hesitance to put certain players on the disabled list has cost the team many times. The latest example of DL hesitance is the current Ryan Church situation. Church suffered a concussion about a month ago. He was back pinch hitting after only a couple of days and was starting again a couple of days after that. Last week he was put on the DL due to post concussion syndrome. Minaya said he kept Church active because the outfielder said he was fine. But don’t we know enough about concussions by now to know they need to be treated more carefully? Even if Minaya trusted everything was OK within a few days shouldn’t the dizziness Church felt after flying to Colorado over 2 weeks after suffering the concussion have been enough for Minaya to DL Church even if it was only a precautionary move?
I’m not saying to keep Randolph. As much as I preach patience I think it’s about time for him to go now too. I’m just saying that there’s enough blame to be passed around here that Randolph should not be made the sacrificial lamb and be let go for other people’s lapses.
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