Free Willie

In case you haven't heard, and judging by the Mets timing of this whole thing, you likely didn't, Willie Randolph has been fired as the manager of the second-best team in the City that never sleeps.

He was fired after the Mets' 9-6 win over Anaheim of Los Angeles and it would seem after the New York tabloids would have already gone to press, so the headlines this morning won't scream about it as loudly as the websites likely do...

I was out for a job with my XM when I heard the news this morning, but really I heard the news weeks ago, months ago even. Willie was fired by the fans and the media when this team didn't jump out to a 15-game lead in the division from the start of the season.

He was fired when Jose Reyes started off slowly and all the old players GM Omar Miniya signed got injured. He was fired when someone in the organization didn't make Ryan Church go on the DL after he was kneed in the head and he was fired when Billy Wagner forgot how great a season he was having (for my fantasy team as well) and blew three straight games...

But let's all be honest here. Willie was fired for two reasons: 1) 2006 NL Championship series Game 7 and 2) September 2007.

In one, he should have told Beltran to swing at that curve ball. No wait, he should have told El Duque to quit his act and get on the mound so we don't have to pitch Steve Traschel. No wait, he should have told Aaron Heilman that despite being a great late inning guy all year to stay in the bullpen and not give up a home run to a Molina. No wait, he should have...

The point is, when the Mets didn't make it to the World Series in a year when they were the best team (Doesn't matter that John Maine and Oliver Perez, two unproven starters at the time would start big games in that series), Willie was officially put on the hot seat because another manager would have found a way to win.

As for September 2007, that was the biggest collapse ever and he should have been let go right there. I wouldn't have liked the move or necessarily agreed with it, but I would have understood it. It would have been justified and no one would have blasted the Wilpons.

Instead, they strung him around and instead of making the organization better, they made the team look better on paper for one year. It was basically asking a manager with little experience to take one last gasp at it before we pull the plug. It was a move you make with a Bobby Cox or jim Leyland at the helm, a veteran manager who's been through it all before. Willie, who wasn't that bad a manager, was dealt a bum hand and was asked to play it out.

Doesn't matter that an old team has been asked to make four different trips out west in their first 70 games. Doesn't matter that injuries and players not performing to expectations (from David Wright to Carlos Beltran to John Maine to the entire bullpen). None of that matters, not when you play in New York and there are 8 to 12 daily papers that send reporters and you're an image-worried franchise getting ready to open a new stadium next year on a rather new TV network with little else besides baseball.

It means the manager goes and takes all those under-performing players with him.

What's that? They're still on the team?

And most of them have long contracts that no one in their right mind would take off your hands (I'm looking at you Luis Castillo).

And your best trade bait starter is a power left-hander with a Jeckly and Hyde complex (Hi Oliver).

And while trading Beltran seems like a smart move on paper, you're gonna have to eat some of that contract and that's only if he waives his no-trade clause?

And there's really absolutely nothing at the AAA level? Nothing?

Wow, it almost sounds like Willie Randolph made out like a genius. He gets the rest of his contract to not have to deal with all this crap for the next three months. Good for him and a bad day for Mets fans, those that wanted this especially...

On second thought, maybe it was done this way to turn Willie from a marked man into a martyr. Not like I can spell that word, but you get the point. Instead of the usual focus on how horrible a coach he was, Willie is now being looked on as a great man done wrong by a horrible organization...