How’s that champagne taste now, Willie? (Or how I learned to stop worrying and love that the Mets lost)
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by Joshkross
This was not a team of destiny. Last year we might have thought that, and look where it left us. At the end of the 2006 season, the Mets were an old, aging team with a few bright young spots. At the end of the 2007 season? An old, aging team with a few young bright spots.
So why is losing good for this team? Simple. The entire organization now understands that what the team is, as currently constructed, and that it can not and will not win a championship. Do they need to blow it up? No, but the building of this team is no more complete than the building of the new park.
Maybe Omar Minaya and the Wilpons understand that. When Citi Field opens in 2009, this will be a very different team. There will be new starters at a minimum of four defensive positions. (Five if you don't count Lastings Milledge as a current full-time starter) Perhaps two of the current starters pitchers will remain.
So maybe, just maybe, Minaya understood that when he did close to nothing this offseason, whereas the previous year he went crazy, in a good way. Let the team struggle, as there was no way this team could win it all. That or he is a fool, deluded by last years "success" into thinking that the team was good enough. And to think that a team patched together like the Cards could be relied on to win with some certainty.
Frankly, Minaya isn't what I was intending to write about. This is about lessons learned and thoughts for the future. Let me start with the first culprit of the two whose ticket put of Dodge should already be punched.
Willie Randolph's management, or lack thereof, is the single greatest reason this team failed to succeed. And it’s Buck Showalter's "fault." Showalter built, along with talented management, the Yankees dynasty team of the late 90’s. But he’s a loud mouth angry jerk, and isn’t good at assuaging the feelings of old players. So once the team was built, he got axed, and in comes Joe Torre, and lo and behold, the molly-coddled Yankees win a pile of championships.
Suddenly, Joe Torre, a former MVP and mediocre-at-best manager of the Cards and Mets, is Manager Jesus. He’s the greatest coach since Vince Lombardi. Except he’s not. He can’t manage youth. He certainly can’t manage a bullpen, and frankly, without Stottlemyre, it’s been shown he can’t manage starters. So what can he do? He’s friendly with vets.
Willie Randolph IS Joe Torre, take away 80 pounds, that bulbous alcoholic nose, and pasty white skin. He doesn’t get emotional, he has “his guys,” and just generally does not show the fire a team that is necessary to whip the players into a driven fervor.
How’s that champagne taste now, Willie?
All the NY radio and papers today talk about the fact that the Mets didn’t have the winning attitude. That Reyes wasn’t running out hits because of attitude. That the team played like it felt, lackadaisical. If that isn’t the fault of the manager, whose is it? Put another coach on this team, and their head would have exploded at the lack of effort. Instead, we get the same calm sitting, nose-picking, relaxed coach that the Yankees have. How’s that worked out for the Yankees since the team Showalter built disappeared? How many rings?
The Mets showed zero character in the collapse, and it reflects directly on Willie. He and Peterson should be gone. Soon. Wagner’s comments about Peterson say all I need to hear about that. (That and most scouts indicate he’s decimated the minors with his program).
And just because it needs to be said again, Tom Glavine was in there WAY too long on Sunday. Way too long. Should have been pulled after 3-4 batters (it was clear by then he didn’t have it).
All of that said, I’m optimistic. The loss shows that there is work to do, and if the Mets had snuck in, perhaps there wouldn’t have been as much urgency to fix things. Things have to change, but at least its apparent now.
