Pathetic
If you want to know why Willie Randolph should be fired, the evidence was staring you in the face during yesterday's game.No, I'm not talking about the fluky and soul-crushing 3-5 double-play that ended the game.
I'm not talking about the well-intentioned but utterly ludicrous decision by Jose Reyes to try to take an extra base in the 8th.
I'm not talking about the Mets compiling three piddling little hits and no runs against a pitcher who came into the game with an ERA that, had it been a Richter Scale measurement, would have represented the biggest earthquake in the history of humankind.
And I'm not talking about the apparent clubhouse disharmony that Billy Wagner's post-game tirade brought bubbling to the surface.
No, I'm talking about the bottom of the third inning.
Scoreless game, Castillo on first, two out, David Wright up. He skies a lazy fly ball to right field, flips his bat aside, and proceeds to wander generally in the direction of first base. Castillo puts his head down and trots around the bases with all the the urgency of a fifth-grader running laps in gym class. Nats right fielder Austin Kearns proceeds to drop the ball, leaving a stunned Castillo on third base while a confused, suddenly awake David Wright had just barely arrived at first.
Pathetic. Disgraceful. Absolutely, completely, 100% unacceptable.
Now, I know what many of you are thinking: Well, most teams do stuff like that. And you're right.
But are most teams coming off of the worst regular season collapse in baseball history?
Are most teams getting routinely booed by their home crowd for what's perceived as a lack of hustle, effort, or interest in the game?
Are most teams sporting a $138 million payroll?
Are most teams in desperate need of being able to give their fans some reason, any reason, to believe that their players care, that they're hungry, and that they're totally and completely committed to ensuring that 2008 will not turn out like 2007?
No, no, a thousand times no.
This is the New York Mets we're talking about, a team that, after last year, has ZERO credibility and ZERO "credit in the bank," if you will, on which to draw with its fans. People have gotten on the fans with the booing, and although I'm not one to boo much myself, all the fans are asking for is this: Show me something. Show me you care. Show me you give a shit. Because we didn't see it last year, and -- shocker! -- we're not seeing it this year. So show it to me.
What does this mean?
We want to see you diving for ground balls in the infield, Carlos Delgado.
We want to see you hustling in to retrieve routine base hit singles and not letting them get stretched into doubles by Augie Ojeda, Carlos Beltran.
We want to see you not take your throws to first base for granted, and not needlessly give away at-bats, Jose Reyes.
We want to see you battle to keep your team in the game even when you don't have your best stuff, Oliver Perez.
And, most of all, when you hit a sky-high pop-up to right field in a scoreless game, a game against a last-place team that you desperately need to win, and that pop-up is dropped, WE WANT TO SEE YOU STANDING ON FUCKING SECOND BASE, DAVID WRIGHT!
Now, some will say that Wright and Castillo deserve the blame for plays like this. And it's true, they're big boys who've been playing baseball all of their lives, and they deserve their fair share of the blame. But isn't Willie's Randolph's job to ensure that there is accountability for his players' actions? Why else is he there?
I read in the News today that Willie "spoke with Wright" about this play after the game. I'm sorry, not good enough. David Wright should have been pulled from that game, no questions asked, right on the spot. Fernando Tatis should have taken his place at third base in the top of the 4th - yes, Fernando Tatis, the recent over-the-hill call-up, who looked to me like he was actually excited to be here running the bases the other night.
I don't care that this sort of laziness "happens all the time." And I don't care that it was the team's golden boy, David Wright. And I don't care that pulling him from the game would've embarrassed him or shown him up.
Willie Randolph has presided over a mediocre, lazy, sloppy, underachieving team for a year now, and what exactly is he doing about it? Nothing. "We've just gotta turn the page." "We'll get 'em tomorrow." And, my personal favorite, "I trust my guys."
Well, guess what Willie?
We don't trust you.
Get lost.
posted by Toasty Joe at 9:43 AM
17 Comments:
Well said! This is a post worth forwarding. Maybe it's time for another managerial/staff-bloddletting during the Subway Series, a la 1999.
12:46 PM
I remember that well, and I also remember Mike and the Dog saying what a stupid idea it was at the time. Worked out pretty well, though, didn't it?
1:07 PM
Here Here!
This should be printed out and placed on every locker.
I do have to say that I was the founding member of the "Fire Coughlin" bandwagon 1/4 of the way in to the season last year, but I can't imagine the Metsies season turning around the way Big Blue's did.
1:46 PM
I, too, was on the "Fire Coughlin" tip - but who in the world could have predicted that Coughlin would completely reinvent his whole personality the way he did? He deserves mass kudos for recognizing that his style was not working, and, as Giuseppe Franco would say, "doin' somethin' about it."
1:53 PM
I actually never thought Coughlin, should be fired, I blamed the players. Coughlin has a warm place in my heart for the 41-39 upset of Notre Dame on national tv when we were in college, so he is a sacred cow in my book.
I was actually jealous when Willie got lured away from the Bronx. If things don't work out, we can always put him back on third base...
4:20 PM
Woo hoo! The return of "Wave 'Em In, Willie!" You're welcome to have him.
4:24 PM
Who do you want to replace him?
7:23 PM
Good post Toasty. I agree.
One of the storied episodes of the '69 season came when Gil Hodges calmly strode to left field to inquire of the physical well-being of Cleon Jones, who failed to hustle for a fly ball.
When Cleon -- who was, incidentally, leading the NL in batting at that point -- told him he was not injured, Gil walked calmly back to the dugout . . . with Cleon following.
He was replaced in the field.
For Willie to have yanked the Golden Boy would have served as a monumental shot across the bow. Missed opportunity. I say we let HoJo take over.
8:28 PM
From what I understanding Ken Oberkfell is a rising managerial star in the minors. I'd give him a shot.
10:39 PM
David Wright is a professional baseball player playing in a league full of professional baseball players. He is not in Little League. He doesn't run that out because that ball is caught 9,999 out of 10,000 times in MLB.
And if Willie were to have pulled David Wright out for that play, he would have to, for consistency, pull out every one of his players on every lazy fly ball ever hit, because that is what they do. Every player in the majors does that all the time. Had he pulled Wright out, he would have lost the respect of all his players immediately. Do you think Beltran and Delgado are going to start running out every lazy fly ball as though they were in pee-wee league? They would, in their minds, look silly, and it borders on being an insult to the opposing players that you think there is a chance in Hell that they would miss that ball.
(And by the way, Beltran's defense alone has probably been directly responsible for 2 wins already. He is the most valuable outfield glove in the National League save for our own Endy Chavez.)
There is plenty to dislike about Willie Randolph's managerial performance. This, however, is ludicrous. You're not going to make professional players play like little leaguers any more than you can expect Dale Earntheart to make a left-hand turn signal over the entirety of a NASCAR tournament.
11:17 PM
To respond to Brian, it is the manager's job to make major leaguers play like major leaguers. It is not ludicrous because, as was stated by Toasty, and reinforced by Mike Lupica, the Mets have NO credit. They have a less than .500 win percentage in their past 100 games.
That is a shitty team. I am a Metropolitan fan and I pay good money for tickets (which are going through the roof next year) and I expect to win or at least act like they are trying. Sure, shit happens, and all baseball teams lose, my gripe is with effort or perceived effort. I want to see their frustration. I want to see water coolers fly, and fist fights break out. I want to see managers get tossed and players get reamed. The performance last year, and the start of this year must go on a new course. No more excuses or "thats just baseball" bullshit.
I was at the last regular season game of the New York Football Giants last year. They wanted to win, and just barely lost. Maybe it is because of the shorter schedule, or maybe it is because football is not a game dominated by failure, but those guys were pissed they lost. None of them werw like, "its ok, we still made the playoffs." And, they played very very hard for a game that had no playoff consequence statistically, but, as I felt when I left the stadium, gave them all the momentum to run to the super bowl.
For the amount of money the Mets spent and talent we have we SUCK.
I want the momentum. I want consistency. I do not want to flounder hoping for Delgado to snap out of it, or Reyes to quit swinging for the fences. Or for any other star to step on his crank at an inopportune time. (Except for Church, that guy rocks)
I want a rally by the Amazing Fucking Mets and I want it now, against the demons in pinstripes, and their fuck face aura of entitlement fans THIS WEEKEND.
nuff said.
11:57 PM
All due respect, Brian, that is this borders on the most outrageous argument I've ever heard. They shouldn't run out fly balls because (a) nobody else does, (b) this isn't little league, (c) they think they'd look silly doing it, and (d) they'd be insulting the other team by assuming the ball would be dropped.
Each and every one of those points is freaking nuts.
And I already agreed that this sort of laziness is commonplace throughout the game, which is why I put in my caveats, which you totally ignored, and which I will repeat here:
But are most teams coming off of the worst regular season collapse in baseball history?
Are most teams getting routinely booed by their home crowd for what's perceived as a lack of hustle, effort, or interest in the game?
Are most teams sporting a $138 million payroll?
Are most teams in desperate need of being able to give their fans some reason, any reason, to believe that their players care, that they're hungry, and that they're totally and completely committed to ensuring that 2008 will not turn out like 2007?
Finally, as for Willie losing his player's respect "immediately" if he were to pull Wright, Gil Hodges is perhaps one of the most well-respected managers in baseball history, and he did the exact same thing. Also, I'm not sure what respect Willie even has to lose at this point.
7:40 AM
Amen brother Toasty - I wrote some similar aspects (though not so much about the loafiness of our golden boy and the man with bad knees) but great great stuff. My point is Willie has obviously lost the clubhouse, he has one set of rules for some, different for others and that shit just does not work. I recommended a douching of the coaching staff myself - fire everyone, I mean everyone - promote internally. Win like Bobby V did. Nuff said.
10:11 AM
Pete Rose's "Charlie Hustle" moniker was handed to him derisively for his conspicuous running out of every fly-ball/groundout/base-on-balls.
I understand that fans want to see that kind of hustle, but here's the issue. It's not that "everybody does it" it's that "everybody does it. It is completely universal. It's the respect that major-leaguers give themselves and each other.
It is not laziness. It is professionalism as defined by major leaguers. In every sport, there are unwritten codes of conduct that divide the pros from the amateurs.
In chess, at the highest level, when one grandmaster commits an error, and screws up his position irreperably, he resigns. If he didn't the other grandmaster would rightly call it an insult. In high-school chess, such a resignation would be a travesty.
It's the same in baseball. The rules of Little-League no longer apply. Major Leaguers have their own codes of conduct and should be judged by those standards. I am sure that you will at least admit that Willie had no business pulling David Wright from that game for doing something that every major leaguer without exception does every time that situation arises, particularly when Wright is notable for the conspicuous effort he brings to the field night-in and night-out. He, like Beltran, consistently makes plays out of his zone that a true dog, like Miggy Cabrera, would not budge for, and you're going to pull him for not getting to second on a freak drop?
If Willie were to do what you want him to do, consistently, he would alienate every player on the Mets. This is not because the Mets are particularly lackadaisical players; he would alienate any roster in the country if he were to treat them like Little Leaguers.
Go back to 2006; remember when the Mets were a magical team that did everything right? Played the right way and all that? Go to any similar pop-up that was hit in 2006 by any Met, or indeed every Major Leaguer on the planet. You will find the same result. You are upset now because the Mets are losing and because there are other, more serious lapses in concentration that do merit some consternation. But look at it more closely and honestly, and I think you'll find that 95% of the Mets' problem is not effort related. It's performance related. (That is still too low, it should be at around 99%) It's not effort that makes the Mets fail in RBI situations. It's not effort that makes the bullpen put close games out of reach and coughs up leads.
People try to come up with narratives to things that are in fact meaningless and random. That's what gives us the baseball gods--the strongest remnant of paganism in modern times. But there is no there there. It's not a story about mice and men; it's not a morality play. It's a good team playing below potential for all sorts of reasons, mostly involving random variance, some involving that the team is not as good as we thought, and some involving that our manager always misuses his talent and gives his team less than its best chance to win.
And unfortunately, this business you posit of the players making it up to the fans for their disaster last year, by playing extra hard, or saying, "hey man, our owner is paying $140Million this year for this team, let's play extra hard for him!" ain't gonna happen. It's not the way major leaguers any major leaguers, not just our beloved Mets think. It's not that they don't care about winning. Most of them do. But baseball is an old-boys network and that kind of relationship with fans does not exist anymore if it ever did. If you don't like it, don't watch professional sports.
2:17 PM
Brian, I know where you're coming from and I generally agree with you (obviously, we've both read the same Bill James essays).
95% of baseball is about TALENT, with a capital T.
But there's that dicey matter of the other 5%. And that's what we've been talking about here. With a team that isn't as talented as the '06 squad, that's currently in a team-wide hitting slump (Church aside), with a faltering bullpen, what the hell kind of excuse do they have not to give their very best effort on every pitch???
In that marathon of a baseball season there are moments that have significance. Benching "Mr. Wright" -- who incidentally is smart enough & strong enough to "get" it -- would have been one of those moments.
And Willie missed it like Delgado lamely trying to spear a liner.
8:21 PM
I must say, I have never, ever heard anyone articulate the theory you have just postulated that running hard on every ball in play violates some unwritten rule and/or is tantamount to showing up the other team. Frankly, it boggles the mind. I'm sure you'll recall that although he was never fleet of foot, Mike Piazza busted it down the line every time. Derek Jeter does it as well. I think Wright does it most of the time, but it was obviously glaringly absent the other day. Are these universally-respected players hated throughout the game? Should they be? (Pete Rose was hated for many other reasons, not the least of which included his willingness to nearly decapitate an opposing player in a freaking exhibition game).
And where does this theory of yours end? Why not walk to first base on any seemingly-routine fly ball, instead of jogging? In fact, why not walk straight to the dugout? After all, if you even go in the direction of first base, you're showing the other side up, no?
Perhaps an analogy might help you. As you know, most pitchers are terrible hitters. However, it's particularly infuriating if one of them can't even bunt, because if you can't hit, at least take the time to perfect that one task. The same logic applies here: if your talent, moxie, and chemistry is enough to carry you as a team (such as the 2006 Mets), well, great. If not, well, then you damn well better at least bust it down to first base all the time. Otherwise, the image you're portraying to your paying customers is that you don't give a shit. So why the hell should they?
And you still haven't told me why Gil Hodges didn't lose the respect of his team "immediately" (to use your word) after pulling Cleon Jones.
9:01 PM
I'm saying that there are things that are excusable and there are things that are inexcusable and that Wright should be judged according to the standards of his era and level of play. Gil and Jones were from a different era with different expectations, and Gil had established a culture on that team which lent credibility to that move. Willie has no such credibility, and pulling Wright in that spot would have been arbitrary. Gil reinforced his position; Willie would have further weakened his.
I completely agree that the Mets seem to make far too many mistakes on the field, that their heads seem to be somewhere else many a time, and that their level of hustle is at times inadequate, even by the admittedly lax standards of modern day baseball. I agree that this is a reflection of the manager, and that it is one of the reasons why Willie is inadequate for his role. My disagreements proceed thusly:
The incident with Wright and Castillo was handled correctly. Willie should not have shown up Wright, who is in general a good hustler and who consistently lays it all out on the field making plays that are nothing short of spectacular, over putting league-average hustle on a can of corn. If it were sub-league average, such as when Reyes didn't run out a ground ball at all, and was subsequently shown up by the opposing shortstop, embarrassing the entire team, it would be a different story.
If Willie demands greater that league average hustle, that's fine, but he has to establish that culture first and apply it consistently among his veterans and youth, both of which he has shown incapable of doing, much to his discredit. Embarrassing a player over a minor offense cannot be done without precedent.
I might be mistaken, but I do not recall Jeter or Piazza running as hard to first on a routine fly ball as they would on a weak grounder that they had a chance to beat out--in Piazza's case, of course, it would have to be perfectly placed. I think you are holding the Mets up against a false ideal. (I believe that Jeter the consummate professional was styling his sunglasses on the brim of his cap when he missed a routine fly ball in the sun.
Although it would be nice if the Mets were preoccupied with atoning to the fans for last year and justifying their payroll to the Willpons by putting an effort which is exemplary, rather than merely professional, Major League athletes do not think in those terms. They do not think of themselves as serving the fans, but as doing their jobs. To the extent that they do hustle, they do so because their job demands it and (sometimes) out of respect for the game, not out of any feelings of obligation towards their fans.
Although the Mets' problems with focus and concentration are real, they are overblown. 95% of their struggles are purely performance issues. The task is to get that 95% number (which is unacceptably low)up to 100%. Pretending that all would be right in Met-land if the team would just leave their blood and guts on the field on every play is just that: pretending. It would make for a team that is perhaps much more likeable (which is important) but only marginally better. They will not get appreciably better until they get a manager who can optimize his team's performance--which is the major issue with Willie, not his nebulous--though real IMHO-- control problems with the team--and a GM who can actually put a good team together with 140 Million dollars.
5:22 AM
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