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WPCNR VIEW FROM THE UPPER DECK. By Bull Allen. October 24, 2007: World Series time. And the Mets are not in it. In one of the more mysterious collapses in baseball annals, the Metropolitans could not hit or pitch consistently the last two weeks of the season and were over taken by the Philadelphia Phillies.
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They were even upstaged in failure by their arch rivals from The Bronx – the richest sports franchise in the world. Even when the Mets seem to have won something – even if it was a first in failure, the Yankees even beat them in failure with the Indian Bug Conspiracy (what a lot of whining) and the Torre firing. They continue to grab the printer’s ink with the charade of hiring Don Mattingly, and the soap opera conspiracy of will they or won’t they sign A-Rod, Mo and Jorge.
Meanwhile, what are the Metropolitans doing? They are in free fall still!
If I were Fred Wilpon and Omar Minaya, I’d go after Jorge, Mo and maybe A-Rod, and make an effort to sign at least one or both of them. The Mets could use Mr. Posada’s savvy behind the plate to settle their young bullpen, not to mention his bat and maturity. What was the big Met failure that cost them the pennant?
The failure to save games down the stretch. So call up Marian0 Rivera’s agent and make him an offer he cannot refuse. A-Rod – he’s going to be expensive—but hey, the Metropolitans will be able to afford him with that new ballpark coming in, and he could be put at first base where he would not be such a defensive liability as he is in The Bronx.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! With those three signings or at least signing Rivera and Posada you would doom the Yankees in one swoop and dramatically improve the Met defense and lineup at the same time.
For the Mets not to go after those three players would seem to me to be a tacit nolo contender agreement. When leader players of that category are available – Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Kurt Gibson, Frank Robinson types – and your team leads a leader(s) – you have to bring them in to turn your ballclub away from the bad karma that plagued the Mets all season.
Now I like Willie Randolph, but Willie showed he does not have the ability to lead a ball club. He made no effort to shake up that club the last two weeks of the season. Not one overturned buffet table. Not one benching. No kicking dirt on an umpire’s shoes. No decking of Phillie hitters. No brawls. Come on, when a ballclub like the Phillies is taking your pitchers out consistently, you have to start moving those hitters off the plate.
The Mets pitchers also need a professional winning pitcher as a pitching coach. You cannot depend on Pedro Martinez to supplement the laconic Rick Peterson’s lack of knowledge of how to get players out in a big spot. Young pitchers need that. That’s what Ron Guidry did for the Yankees. If the Yankees unload Guidry – look for the young pitchers to go bad next season.
Willie Randolph should be fired. The Mets lacked toughness and meanness the whole season. The only fire came from ballplayers like Loduca and David Wright.
The manager has to supply the fire. Willie is too benign as to be almost not seeming to care. He takes losing too easily. Shake up the lineup when you’re slumping. Shake up the rotation. Shake up the defense. Suspend Reyes for not hustling.
Now, do we know of any well-known manager with a track record who is unemployed, knows New York and the New York media, and can bring in a coaching staff that knows how to win?
I can think of a huge name out there sitting by the telephone, recently unceremoniously let go by a ball club because they did not get out of the first round of the playoffs.
Joe Torre.
Yes, if I were Omar Minaya I would remove Willie Randolph or arrange for Willie to step aside and move upstairs – and bring in Flawless Joe as my manager.
Mr. Torre has so much class that he might turn down the position in respect for Willie Randolph. However, the public relations value to the Mets as well as the competitive karma Torre would bring to the Metropolitans ball club would be like a shot of strategic steroids. I have a problem with his propensity for conceding games by leaving starters in too long and not using Rivera in a tie game, but if the Yankees could judge their pitching that might not have happened.
But, hey, Torre is what the Mets need. Even Tony LaRussa would have helped the Mets.
But no, so far Omar Minaya and the Wilpons are standing pat.
How is Randolph going to inspire this club next season?
However, Omar Minaya is not without blame in the Metropolitan collapse.
He made no moves down the stretch.
I repeat, he made no moves down the stretch. He did not trade for a name starter in August to shore up the rotation, just in case.
One stud starter was all the Mets needed to secure the pennant, but Minaya could not make the deal.
One hitter might have helped, too.
Meanwhile up in the Bronx.
The charade of interviewing Tony Pena, Joe Girardi and Don Mattingly for the managerial position of the Yankees is playing out. Despite a Mattingly acquaintance telling the media that Donnie Baseball felt he was not ready to manage, now the last few days Don has denied he ever said that to any one and says he is ready to manage.
The New York press is buying this. Witness the glowing Mattingly “rehab” in today’s Times.
Meanwhile, Mr. Pena and Mr. Girardi, both men who have managed successfully, are playing second fiddle to the Mattingly line.
Today the Times also did an extensive interview with Hank Steinbrenner portraying him as “A Chip off the Old Boss,” attributing quotes to Hank that indicate he even talks and says things like George Steinbrenner, and is competitive like his father.
Hank also went out of the way to talk about the Yankees still being ahead of the Red Sox and being competitive for years to come. He also noted significantly, and I quote from Murray Chass’s column, “We have the best young pitching in baseball, not just in the majors but in the minors coming behind them. As long as we keep adding young position players like Cabrera and Cano, we’re going to be touch for 10 years…” and “…I hope we can win enough in the next 20 years that we’ll continue to be Darth Vader, if that’s how they want to portray us.”
This also smacks of reassuring any potential major buyers of the Yankee empire (a $5 billion franchise, if you count the YES network), that they are going to continue to win and be competitive.
Now, it is interesting that Mr. Chass acquires this “get” before anyone else. Is this a “rehab” repositioning the Yankee Torre purge, and assuring the franchise is stable?
Well, If they do not sign Rivera and Posada and A-Rod, I guarantee you they are not winning next year. You cannot replace A-Rod’s run production. You cannot replace Rivera’s saves (but that assumes he has games to save next year). You cannot replace Posada’s bat and ability to handle pitchers.
Conversely all three players would solidify the Mets for one great year or more. A Rivera Posada Torre get would take the Mets out of the shadows of the Yankee mystique. It would tell their fans the Met management is serious. A Rod would be too much to hope for.
Torre would also instantly stabilize a team that no longer believes in their manager, if they ever did. The Mets lacked fire last year. Torre could conceivably contribute to building up Jose Reyes maturity – a major flaw in Mr. Reyes performance this past year – as he did Derek Jeter.
The best manager the Mets ever had was Gil Hodges — the same kind of quiet strength no-nonsense type that Joe Torre is.
The Wilpons could, while they are cherry picking the results of the Yankee managerial change of guard, should look at bringing Brian Cashman in as General Manager.
But, hey, Omar Minaya did not do that bad a job. He gambled that the roster as constituted could hang on to win. He won’t make that mistake again. But Minaya when he was with Montreal also was reluctant to go for a new player down the stretch. He has to get over that and start pulling the trigger down the stretch.
He does though have to recognize that Randolph did not get the Mets through bad times this year, and that is the manager’s job. That’s why they call the job “Manager.”
So if I were the Wilpons that is what I would do, I would bring in A Rod, Jorge and Mo – whatever it takes – and dangle Wagner, the unreliable reliever. I’d bring in Torre. I’d move Willie to the front office.
Starting pitching – big Metropolitan problem. But that is why you have to make a change.
Mattingly will have fun with this Yankee pitching staff as presently constituted next season.
Frankly, I’d prefer to have seen LaRussa come in.
But as sports commentators have said, they’ll give Mattingly a three year contract, sign some big pitchers.
Who knows, signing Pena or Girardi makes more sense and they can move either of them out more quickly than they can Mattingly.
Mattingly is much in the position of Mel Ott when the Stonehams hired him to manage the old New York Giants from 1942 through 1948, after Bill Terry left. Ott presided over six and a half mediocre seasons. But everybody loved him. He just could not win.
More to the point, Mattingly has no experience managing.
When the Yankees fired Casey Stengel in 1960, they gave the job to Ralph Houk. Houk was a combat commander in World War II. He managed extensively in the minor leagues. He was a leader, winning three straight pennants. When he returned to the Yankees after the dreadful Berra, Keane years, and did not have the players, he was not as successful. But no Yankee fan ever felt Houk’s players dogged it.
Do you remember when the Yankees hired Yogi Berra for the 1964 season? Berra was a former player. The Yankees walked all over him. So much so that even when Berra won the pennant by a game in 1964, the Yankees fired him anyway.
I remember when I became a Creative Director for the first time. It all changed. The writers were no longer your friends and people you worked with. They worked for you. You had to manage your staff psychologically and figure out ways to get them to come around to your way of thinking.
Mattingly has no experience doing that.
Despite what Hank Steinbrenner says, good young pitching only lasts until the pitchers are thoroughly scouted, that’s when pitching coaching comes in. They need new pitches, new thinking, strategies. Pitching is not all about pitch counts. It’s about heart, guile, guts and brains, and mechanics. You have to develop them.
I did not see a lot of that from the Yankee pitching staff this season or the Mets for that matter
Let’s not go back to the days of Billy Connors. The Yankees started to win consistently when Mel Stottlemyre became their pitching coach.
So Fred…what do you think?
Reach for the phone now…and let the fun and the Mets future begin.
