Willie Earned His Extension
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by user Leslie Monteiro
New York Mets General Manager Omar Minaya has done many great things since he took over in September 2004. He did a great job of recruiting players to come to a troubled team. He had to work very hard in selling potential free agents like Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran to come to Flushing that year. They were sold on his sales pitch. This started the resurrection of this franchise.
People can talk about Omar making the best trades, building the farm system, and etc. The best move that Omar may have done for this team was hiring Willie Randolph to manage the Mets on November 3, 2004. Willie made his boss look good by having two good years with the team. Two weeks ago, he got a well-deserved extension. He is signed for three more years with a club option for 2010.
This is great news for the Mets and their fans. He is one of the best managers in baseball. He has earned his stripes. He has had success in the two years with the club. He got the most out of what was a very bad ballclub in 2004. He amazingly got a winning season with a team with relied with two good starters and average to below average pitchers. Last year, he was a game away from having his team go to the World Series. When Martinez and Orlando Hernandez were done with injuries and the factthat Steve Trachsel quit on his team, he had to rely on Oliver Perez and Darren Oliver to win playoff games. This should have made a lasting impression to his bosses and to cynical Mets fans, who wondered why the Mets hired a Yankee to manager their team.
Randolph brings so many good things to the table as a manager. He has the intangibles that make him a successful manager. He knows what it takes to win. He can lead. He is very proactive. He makes sure that his team play with a passion. He has that passion in him and it rubs off on others. He speaks with confidence, which is something general managers and owners need from their head coach or the manager if they want their team to succeed. It makes one wonder why it took so long for him to be hired as a manager. He has been available for years. He was willing to even manage a small-market team because he embraced this challenge. It is their loss sadly. All this guy has done is win as a player, coach, and now as a manager. He learned from a very good mentor in the late Billy Martin. This current Mets manager is the right guy for New York. It is not easy to coach or manage New York.
Coaching or managing a New York sports team means that he has to deal with distractions that comes with it. Guys like Art Howe, Larry Brown, Tom Coughlin, [[Herman Edwards]], Ray Handley, Ron Low, Lenny Wilkens, and several others were clearly overwhelmed with the experienced. They fought with the writers often. They let it get to them.
Willie is just not like that. He finds a way to protect his players and he is willing to shoulder the blame what goes on. He just knows how to say the right things and try not to let distraction get to the clubhouse. He has an art of talking, which is very important in this market. Fans like to hear a manager that is passionate about his job. He is the right guy for this market. It helps that he played for the Yankees and the Mets and that he served as Joe Torre’s right hand man for years.
This gentleman is a great leader. He sets the tone in the clubhouse. He demands what his team should do and the guys follow his lead. He brings that certain respect in the clubhouse. This is important because if the players respect the guy especially if he played the game, then they will play hard and listen to him. Randolph’s predecessor, Art Howe failed to garner respect in the clubhouse. The guys never took him seriously and they just looked sloppy on the field. Randolph demands his guys to play at a high level in every game and they heed his advice. A great example of his leadership came in the playoffs. When Mets had the injuries, he told his team to keep chugging along by working. His approach worked as the Mets were able to get past the Dodgers in a five-game series and then they almost ended the Cardinals season.
His best work was able to mold David Wright and [[Jose Reyes]] into great players. He taught them the value of work ethic. He taught them how to be a winner. He was able to push them to be the best he can be. He did a very good job of working with them on defense. One of the best assets about him is his teaching ability. When he worked with the Yankees, he did a great job of working with Derek Jeter and Alfonso Soriano and it paid off for them. You can talk about how they were already good, but remember those are young players with potential. These types of players need to be pushed not coddled. It would be good for them in the long run.
He does such a great job getting everyone to play. It is not easy to get the most out of bench players. Most of them do not play for weeks and some of them are affected by the lack of playing time. He just has a knack of putting those guys in to start or to pinch-hit. He is able to get success out of them for whatever reason. He has a great hunch of knowing when to put that player in. This is what makes managers successful they are. Guys like him, Ron Gardenhire, and Jim Leyland just do a good job of doing that. He has provided ample evidence that he was worthy of an extension. He has proven that he can manage.
The neat thing about Willie is that he does not self-promote himself unlike that idiot, Ozzie Guillen, who speaks his mind and picks fights with people like the Twins, Jay Mariotti, Buck Showalter, and etc. He has that opportunity to have a platform and act like celebrity in the world's biggest media market like Joe Torre, but that's not his style.
It is good to see him being taken care of by the team. It is good to see this out of the way with spring training starting in a few weeks. There is no need for this type of distraction for him and his team. It would not be a problem for him because he knows that he will get many offers if he is in the market, but it would not be a good situation for them.
Willie is touching the surface right now. He will only get better as a manager.
It is good to know that the Mets and him got something special going.
