Live: Willie’s Q&A on SNY at 12 pm
Willie Randolph is talking with reporters at Tradition Field.
The conversation will air live on 
.
…i’m going to do my best to live blog the topics, questions and general responses…stay tuned…
According to Randolph, it took him until the holidays to start feeling like himself again following last season’s ‘collapse.’ He is excited to be back with ‘his boys,’ i.e., his players, in spring training so to ‘get back at it again.’
He reached out to his players during the off-season to address the ‘collapse.’ He said his peace over month ago. One of the things that he loves about this team is that they know they wasted a golden opportunity last season, and they will not need ‘any additional motivation or speeches or talks,’ since they are ready to go, and ‘we’re ready to get back.’
He does not intend to change his demeanor or tenor or the way the team workout this season compared to last, ‘No major changes need to be made, nothing different, we’ll hit on all the things that are important, like always, talk about our philosophy and work to refine that.’
He does not feel the team must behave any differently, just because of ‘the collapse,’ since, for the most part, the team played fairly solid all of last season. For instance, to ask a player like Carlos Delgado or Carlos Beltran to act in a way that is a different from ‘who they are,’ could jeopardize the way the play. He believes that last season’s awful ending can simply be credited to the entire team going in to a funk at the wrong time.
“We are who we are, I think we are good at what we do,” he says, “We’ll just try to learn from our experiences, and work harder to make sure that when we have the chance to put people away we do that.”
He is impressed with the number of players who are in camp, healthy and ‘chomping at the bit’ to get back to winning baseball. “That’s a real good sign, to me,” he says.
He talked to Duaner Sanchez, who he says is, “Ready to go.” He adds, “I don’t think we’ll treat him with kid gloves.”
He thinks they are a better ballclub, talent wise, compared to last season, though he adds, “There isn’t a manager in baseball who doesn’t feel good about his team during this time of year.”
He doesn’t feel any pressure. “I’m here to win,” he says, “and I feel good about my people…It is what it is, as far as expectations…I know that if I don’t get the job done, and we don’t win, I know…I think year to year, one at a time, I think of winning.”
He says Jose Reyes went through a bad slump. “It happens, that’s baseball…it’s a learning experience, and you just hope it doesn’t happen at that time of year…But, that’s baseball…We all know, it’s human, human beings are playing the game…Look at the Rockies…You get hot…They weren’t the best team in baseball, but they almost won a World Series…It just happens like that sometimes.”
He will not revert back to the more strict rules he implemented during his first spring training, adding, “I’ll get in their face if we’re not going about our week in the right way. I mean, we’re gonna come out here and work hard, and get after our business, but that’s the only reason I’d get in their face. In that first year, I wanted to form a solidarity…We have a solid group of guys now, who respect each other’s space…We’ll get back to hard work, but that’s every spring.”
He says it may have helped for him to have relayed some of his experiences to his players during the end of last season, saying, “For instance, we’re going down the stretch there against Philly, and my attitude might have been, you know, I want to knock someone’s head off on the other side, but if that’s not their mentality it doesn’t matter what I feel, I’m not playing.”
More than any ‘mistake,’ he feels he learned a lot about his players, from last year, and will know how to handle certain situations with them in the future.
“We’ll prove what we’re all about, and the only way to do that is on the field,” he says.
Right-field is Ryan Church’s job to lose.
There will be no team message or rally cry, because, “I don’t believe in that stuff…In our minds, we’re gonna have a good year…I think you go over board when you start looking for themes and mottos and sayings…It’s baseball, man…If you have talent, you go out and execute and learn from your mistakes, you’ll bounce back.”
…the happy-go-lucky, open, off-season version of willie is now over…welcome back to the surly, serious and focused regular-season version…
…also, by my account, 55 percent of the questions essentially dealt with the collapse, so if you took the under, you’re a winner…
