Yesterday, Willie Randolph remained the Manager of the Mets and the Mets remained a lifeless team. According to Adam Rubin of the Daily News, had Willie been defiant about his comments regarding race and the SNY coverage, he would have been fired. Willie apologized face to face and Fred Wilpon granted him a stay of execution. The Wilpons then wanted to know why the team was not playing up to expectations. We have not heard much about Willie's answer to that question.
It is pretty clear from all reports that Jeff Wilpon is not supporting this move. Omar Minaya has reasons to keep Randolph around since Willie provides a shield that protects the heat from shifting to Omar. Fred may just not want to pay someone a year and a half for doing nothing. I'm sure it galls him that he had to pay Art Howe for having to do nothing. Perhaps, Fred had July 4th rather than Memorial Day as the arbritary date that he would evaluate the Manager's performance.
Again, the monkeys are not putting all the blame on Willie. Players need to perform. The GM needs to give him more players in their prime rather than many that are either too old or too young. But, Willie just has not been able to get his players to give their best effort. Some have supported him, some have said it's up to management to decide and some have even hinted a new voice might help.
It doesn't really matter what they say. Actions speak louder than words. It's not only that nobody is running through a brick wall for Randolph. Nobody is running hard 90 feet for him either.
Mets Management didn't say Willie would stay all year which means this will continue to be an unnecessary distraction. Carlos Beltran even said it was yesterday.
Still, Willie does have a short time to save his job. Many newspapers have equated his situation to Tom Coughlin who wasn't reaching his players and was about to be fired. Now Coughlin is the toast of New York.
So the monkeys say this to Willie. You've been given a little longer than you deserve .... Earn This
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment