Mets brass should be ashamed of Randolph firing
Willie Randolph fired
Only then did the dismissals occur.
In Anaheim, Calif.
Via a press release.
At 3:12 a.m. ET.
But thank goodness it was after Father's Day — a tribute to the Mets' keen sense of public relations.
I do not say this lightly: The Mets' firings of Randolph, pitching coach Rick Peterson and first base coach Tom Nieto will go down as one of the most disgraceful episodes in sports history.
Randolph had to go, but no self-respecting organization would treat its employees with such little decency. With the exception of one unfortunate interview, Randolph conducted himself with dignity.
Now, incredibly, he's a martyr.
The stain not only is on general manager Omar Minaya, but also those above him — specifically owner Fred Wilpon and his son Jeff, the team's chief operating officer.
Shame on the Wilpons if their excuse is, "This was Omar's call." The firing of a manager only goes down with ownership approval. And ownership is ultimately responsible for the way a team conducts its business.
Fred Wilpon, then, is the most to blame for the Mets' chaos and dysfunction, which is stirred in part by the strong opinions of his son Jeff and Minaya's assistant GM, Tony Bernazard.
The Mets' organizational flow chart looks like a child's scribble-scrabble. Minaya obviously lacks the full autonomy that the Wilpons promised him. But rather than attack the internal strife, he seemed paralyzed and overwhelmed by the task at hand.
Being GM of the Mets is not easy, not with a cacophony of voices creating unrest inside the organization and numerous outlets in the nation's media capital demanding answers daily, if not hourly.
Minaya almost could be forgiven if, during the last month, he wanted to put his hands over his ears and scream, "Stop!" But as a native New Yorker and two-time Mets employee, he knows the deal. And he's failing at a critical task — managing not only the people below him, but also the people above.
In some ways, Minaya is too nice a guy, loyal and sensitive to those around him. But his vacillation on Randolph and fumbling of his dismissal raises new questions about whether he should remain GM.
Minaya already deserved to be in trouble for assembling an old, meek, sub-.500 team in the wake of the Mets' collapse last September — all for the inflated price of $138 million.
By taking so long to fire Randolph, then botching the announcement, Minaya looked weak at a time when strength is required.
He could have justified firing Randolph at the end of last season. He could have justified it three weeks ago when Randolph met with ownership. He could have justified it at any moment but 3:12 a.m. Tuesday in Anaheim, Ca.
And he didn't stop there.
At the presumed urging of other Mets' factions, Minaya also dumped Peterson, one of the game's best pitching coaches, and Nieto, who had the misfortune of being a Randolph guy.
The soft-spoken, theory-spouting Peterson is not for everyone, but what pitching coach isn't a bit eccentric? It wasn't Peterson who counted on the oft-injured Pedro Martinez and even more oft-injured Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez to be two-fifths of the Mets' starting rotation. That wonderful plan was Minaya's.
Peterson helped transform John Maine, a right-handed starter, and Pedro Feliciano, a left-handed reliever, into quality major-league pitchers. He has gotten as much out of Oliver Perez, an enigmatic lefty, as any pitching coach. Oh, and he helped save the career of Tom Glavine, the former Mets lefty who is now back with the Atlanta Braves.
"Rick deserves a lot of credit because he convinced me I had to change the way I was pitching," Glavine says in John Feinstein's latest book, Living on the Black. "It isn't easy to get someone who has been pitching as long as I have to start all over again, but he did it."
Now Peterson is gone, replaced by Class AAA pitching coach Dan Warthen, who previously served in the same capacity with the Detroit Tigers, San Diego Padres and Seattle Mariners. Class AAA manager Ken Oberkfell and Luis Aguayo, a Mets field coordinator, also will join the major-league staff.
To what end?
The Mets are talented enough to turn around their season, but their new management team is hardly an upgrade. If anything, it's worse.
That debate, while meaningful, will be overshadowed by the Mets' 3 a.m. tomfoolery, an embarrassment that will linger long after anyone remembers Randolph's worst strategic moves.
Randolph, Peterson and Nieto are lucky in one sense.
They're getting out.
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