Randolph's departure leaves Mets GM Minaya totally exposed
ANAHEIM, Calif. -- The body still warm back at the hotel from the midnight firing -- that, or gleefully on an airplane to Tahiti or some other exotic locale far away from this cuckoo's nest -- the clock immediately started ticking on New York Mets general manager Omar Minaya.
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| The departure of skipper Willie Randolph leaves Omar Minaya vulnerable. (Getty Images) |
It's his team. His roster. Randolph couldn't pull the right levers, so now interim Jerry Manuel will give it a go.
But unless Manuel is part magician and can turn back the clock to 2004, when Moises Alou was only 37 and slugged 39 homers and had 106 RBI for the Cubs, and unless Manuel can produce a vintage, 2002, 30-year-old Pedro Martinez (20-4, 2.26 ERA for Boston), the Mets will only continue to "under-perform."
Minaya corroborated what his assistant, Tony Bernazard, said upon landing in Southern California a day earlier, when the Willie Watch was at its frenzied height. Under-performing is one of those buzzwords, like the team "lacks energy" or is fighting through "distractions."
Sounds serious, but what the hell does it mean?
"I feel we have a championship team," Minaya said at a midafternoon news conference here. "This decision is not based just on this past weekend. It's based on how I've seen our team for the past year or two."
I added that one up the other night, and the numbers aren't good. For all of the hoo-ha about the Mets' ugly choke last September, if you add up the wins and losses for this crew beginning last June 1, they're 88-90. Maybe the sum of their parts simply isn't equal to the sum of their marquee names.
Minaya said he fired pitching coach Rick Peterson and first-base coach Tom Nieto along with Randolph because it wasn't entirely the manager's fault.
"Let's get that straight," he said. "I'm responsible, too. And the players ... we win as a team and we lose as a team."
There is no more cover for Omar. No shade, no camouflage. Randolph's sacking now leaves Minaya totally exposed, and for the sake of his future employment as the GM of the New York Metropolitans Baseball Club, there isn't much else left but to go for broke.
Though they were only one game under .500 heading into Tuesday night's game here, the Mets have become a national laughingstock.
Minaya was fiery Tuesday afternoon in insisting the firing was his decision and his alone.
