Heyman: Peterson, Johnson May Be Fired With Randolph
I’ve written about my displeasure with Mets pitching coach Rick Peterson a couple of time recently. Apparently I’m not the only one feeling this way. In an article for SI.com Jon Heyman says that manager Willie Randolph may fired this weekend but possibly as early as today. Heyman’s sources say that if (when?) Randolph is fired Peterson is likely to be fired with him. Hitting coach Howard Johnson, a fan favorite as a player on the 1986 Mets and beyond, could be fired as well.
It’s beginning to look really bad for Randolph. In this post at Metsblog Matthew Cerrone says he still thinks that Randolph will have until the All Star break to turn things around. I’m not so sure about that. The All Star break is only about a month away so the turning must start now or the weekend may sound like a fair time table. I think Randolph is at a point where the team must reel off a really good streak (like 17 of the next 20 games) to save his job.
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Cerrone Talks With Seaver
Matthew Cerrone at Metsblog lives every Mets fan’s dream. See his interview with the great Tom Seaver here.
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Mets Win In 13th
I sat down to watch the game last night at about 10 minutes to 8:00 pm. The game was already into the fourth inning. I saw Mike Pelfrey retire the last batter of the half inning then SNY cut to a commercial. When the bottom half of the inning started I got comfortable and was ready to settle in for the rest of the game.
Jose Reyes led off with a bunt single. The replay showed he was out but this excited me because it’s the kind of break that can turn a game. Then Luis Castillo came to bat. As Brandon Webb started his motion I edged up on my seat and…. that was all. The power in my house went out for the second night in a row.
The Mets went on to score 3 runs in the inning and managed to take a 3-0 lead into the 9th. Then Billy Wagner gave up a game tying home run. It was the second chance in a row that Wagner allowed a homer. Is he fading? Hard to tell. It’s the second game in a row he’s done this but it’s not enough games to call it a trend.
Anyway, Carlos Beltran won it on a walk off homer in the bottom of the 13th inning.
This was just the type of game the players like to have. An extra innings game that ends late at night when they have a day game the next day. (I’m being facetious, of course.)
This was Pelfrey’s third consecutive good start. He allowed 5 hits and walked 2 while striking out 8 in 8 innings of work. Over his last 3 starts he’s allowed 20 hits and walked 6 while striking out 15 in 21 innings of work. He has a 1.71 ERA over the 3 games. If he’s not careful he may actually win a game.
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Alou To Have MRI
Moises Alou will not be in the lineup tonight. That’s right. Two at bats after coming off the DL Alou will be undergoing an MRI instead. Alou was never expected to play every game but this is ridiculous.
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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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Carter Blames Media
It seems like Gary Carter is taking a lot of heat for campaigning for the Mets managerial job. People are saying that it wasn’t right of him considering that the job is still occupied by Willie Randolph. I say the opposite. If someone is interested in the job then now is the right time to step forward. When (if) Willie is fired I’d expect the replacement to already be picked. That is as long as the Mets are realistically in the race. If you wait for Willie to be fired it will be too late.
What I do blame Carter for is saying something publicly. Carter is blaming the New York media for blowing this out of proportion but that’s what the New York media does. So if you want the job you call the Wilpons and say something like “if the job opens up I’d be interested in discussing it with you”. And blaming the media, by the way, is exactly the wrong thing to do if you want the job. It shows a thinner skin than the manager needs to have.
So while people are raking Carter over the coals they should be sure they are doing it over the right issue.
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Willie Not Only One Who Needs To Go
Looks like Willie Randolph survived the weekend and even got lukewarm votes of confidence from GM Omar Minaya and ownership. That should buy him at least a little time. I’m sure he knows that a vote of confidence with the current feelings around Shea are not much more than a momentary thing. He knows it only buys him a few weeks and that he much get this thing turned around. The Mets are 6 1/2 games out right now and we’re about a third of the way through the season. There’s still time to get this thing turned around. And while Willie is the main target of fans contempts there are other people to blame as well. Here’s a short list.
- Omar Minaya – Minaya has assembled a team with limited depth at all positions. Sure the starting lineup is a good one at face value. But they are also a fragile bunch. Luis Castillo, who had knee surgery in the off season, was signed to a 4 year, $25 million deal and has been hobbled by his knees all season long. The team is left with Damion Easley playing second base half the time. There’s no decent option at first, third or short if Carlos Delgado, David Wright or Jose Reyes get hurt. The outfield is even worse where Moises Alou, currently on his second DL stint of the season, is expected to play in 100 games or less at his healthiest. And don’t get me started on the bullpen.
- Carlos Delgado – After last year’s failure I figured that maybe he just had an off year. A terribly off year. I took a wait and see attitude toward him this season. Now the waiting is over. With his average down at .215 so far this year I think we can safely say his best years are far behind him and it’s time to move on. He was the right guy when he was acquired and the team was able to bear the burden of his bad bat last year for most of the season (before the break down) but he no longer belongs and is just bring the team down around him.
- Rick Peterson – He was hailed as a pitching guru when he was first brought to the Mets under Art Howe and has managed to stay on long after Howe was shown the door. But looking at some of his projects that haven’t panned out is enough for me to think that he’s not all he’s made out to be. Look at Oliver Perez who is still wildly inconsistent. Didn’t Peterson say he could fix Perez in a month?
- Jose Reyes – How Reyes goes so goes this team’s offense. He’s only hitting .276 and has an OBP of .335. He simply must hit better and be more consistent if he’s going to lead this team anywhere.
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Willie Isn’t Dumb
Willie Randolph sounded less than confident about his status as the team’s manager when speaking to reporters yesterday. He referred to Omar Minaya “sharpening his machete” in Colorado. Willie’s no dummy. He should know from experience that just because someone gives you a vote of confidence doesn’t mean your safe. How many times did Willie hear George Steinbrenner say Billy Martin was his manager before Billy got the ax?
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Minaya Going To Denver
Omar Minaya is heading to Denver to watch the Mets play the Colorado Rockies. Prelude to a firing?
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Unemployed
I posted about a week ago about how my real job was keeping me too busy to post here at MostlyMets. I didn’t have very much free time to post during the day due to a big project I was working on. The thanks I got from the company for pushing the project forward was that they laid me off. So now I’m looking for a new job. The only positive is that it will give me more time to post here.
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