13 Responses to “Vote: Willie Randolph Approval Rating”

1. Mr. Metster says:

   April 14, 2008 at 9:34 am

   The latest events in Mets fandom are hard to explain - the ferocity of the posts in response to Saturday and Sunday’s losses, boos cascading down on Santana, the calls for Willie’s and Omar’s heads on pikes, the constant focus on things that are perceived as going wrong. All this might be warranted for a team with a 3-8 record, but we’re just a notch below .500. And while a win in April is just as important as a win in September, a team has a lot more margin for error at this time of the year. The Mets have five months to turn it around. Wasn’t it around mid-season a few years ago when a face wash administered to A-Rod by Mr. Varitek turned out to be the pivotal point in the Red Sox’s season?

   Could it be that we Met fans are over-reacting a tad? Perhaps it’s time for us fans to take a long look in the mirror and consider why we are so emotionally charged with 11 games under our belt.

   Channeling my inner Dr. Phil, here’s a possible explanation - a collective diagnosis of Mets Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Let’s face it, the Collapse was profoundly disturbing, particularly in view of how close the Metsies came in 2006. We were traumatized in a deep sense. And so each loss now is magnified as we are re-traumatized once again. It’s not simply a matter of it seeming to be just like last fall; emotionally, it is last fall, all over again. That lies at the core of Mets PTSD.

   We thought the acquisition of Santana and all the hopes that accompany spring training had moved us past our trauma history, but clearly not. The first perceived lack of team swagger, the first bullpen implosion, the first downturn in offensive production, and the first managerial blunder send us right back into September with white-hot intensity. Re-traumatized again and again.

   So what’s the hope for us? Group relaxation exercises at Shea? Anger management programs available through all Met websites including Metsblog? Winning a slew of games would be nice, but given the nature of baseball that is just not likely to occur at a frequency acceptable to this fan base. What is needed is a recognition of how seriously troubled a group we are and how long the recovery period is going to be. And until, let’s just fire them all.

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   • jimyager says:

     April 14, 2008 at 10:45 am

     YOU GO DAWG!!!! We hurt and are in pain and want a win. We want to feel as good about the team as we did in 2006. What would help would be a sweep of the Nats and Phillies or a 2-3 from them. We need to win a string of 5 or 6 games with all cylinders working at 100%. That would put the fans at ease, or, it would me. I want to win and I want to cheer and be confident in the team, they just have not earned it yet, in my eyes. I am still shell shocked from the past season. LETS GO METS !!!!

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2. TRex23 says:

   April 14, 2008 at 9:38 am

   Well, he IS doing a bad job. And he did a terrible job last year. But in fairness, and I’ve said it before, it’s a poorly-constructed team and that falls on Omar. The team has a bunch of “nice” guys that are lifeless and have no heart. The exception would be David Wright, but he can’t do it alone, and now he has no protection in the lineup. And Jose Reyes is actually regressing. He has a world of talent, but he — and this is just my opinion — is a very unintelligent player. He seems unwilling or incapable of learning. If he had Tony Gwynn’s head, he’d hit .400 — and that’s no exaggeration.

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   • Gregg says:

     April 14, 2008 at 10:45 am

     I’m not a big Willie Randolph fan. I wasn’t impressed by many of his moves last year, especially the way he handled the bullpen.

     But I think TRex23 is right on. Ultimately this year the blame should lie on Omar’s shoulders. He gambled on a bunch of old and injury prone players and so far he seems to be losing that bet. I am also not impressed by Reyes. He has a lot of talent, but he doesn’t have the focus to be a consistent player. I was actually for the Mets trading Reyes for Santana and I still stand behind that.

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3. therealsince86 says:

   April 14, 2008 at 9:46 am

   I was reading an autobiography of a former big league player and manager and these were his words. Some how I think they fit and I see a lot of Willie in these words.

   When I managed the Reds, I kept things pretty simple. Get’em on, get’em over, and get’em in—basic hardball strategy. I figured that if a player couldn’t get excited about playing major league baseball, then he was already beyond my hlep. The first thing I told all my hitters was this You only gotta be succesful 3 outta 10 times. You are not going to be successful 4 outta 10 times–we already know that. It ain’t that gd hard, so just go out and do your job. I used three techniques while managing the Reds. If a player needed a kick in the pants, I gave him a kick in the pants. If he needed to be left alone—I left him alone. If he needed encouratement—I gave him encouragement. Each player had to be treated in a way that he best responded or else I’d be hurting my own cause. I had just 2 rules Be on time and play hard.

   I am already on the books for saying we need a new manager, not because he is not a good manager but for 2 reasons.
   1 I don’t think anyone will put last year behind us until he is gone. There will always be in the back of our mind is he making the wrong move because every move he has made lately has backfired going back to last September. During our losing streaks last year we could not get out of our own way. Every move that the players and manager made backfired.
   2) So people on here will just shutup. (That one is selfish but oh well.)

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4. tnmets says:

   April 14, 2008 at 9:52 am

   Can we really put the blame on Willie when the team itself is not playing up to par? How many double plays did they hit into yesterday? ALOT! Bottomline is this, Willie is not the one in the field making errors, or the one of the mound throughing Kelly Johnson a 3-2 fastball or in the batters box swinging at the first pitch after the pitcher just walked the previous hitter on 5 pitches. We need to put the blame on the team and not the manager. But, as we all know, we can’t fire the players, only the manager.

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5. kingkongkoo says:

   April 14, 2008 at 10:02 am

   I understand what you’re saying and I’m not one of the people who will typically make the angry posts you’re talking about, but I understand them. At what point is enough enough? I understand that it’s only baseball, but it is their job and it would nice for us fans to see people on the field playing like they really want to win. That’s something no Met fan has seen for an extended period of time since the end of the 2006 season. They sleepwalked through the entire 2007 season. The September collapse is what everyone points to, but anyone who watches them game in and game out knows that they played that way the entire 2007 season and it was the type of collapse that you could almost see coming. There were several points throughout last summer that I told my friends I wasn’t going to be surprised if they gave this division away. I don’t know if I actually believed it was possible, but the signs were there.

   I overreact, like other fans, when Willie manages games terribly. And maybe he shouldn’t get fired, but it should be a discussion. You talk about managing your way out of a game, what about yesterday’s game? Castillo (our best bunter) is up at the plate with Mota on the ropes and two men on and none out. Why is he not bunting Pagan over? We have our two best RBI guys in Wright and Beltran coming up next and we have Castillo swinging away? What are the chances he’s even going to hit a fly ball to score Clark? You want to talk about terrible managing, that’s it right there.

   My point is that no one on this team plays like these games really matter. Sure you see some flashes of anger from time to time, but the first time I heard anyone saying anything making me feel like these games are important was Figeroa saying how important it is to take 2 of 3 from the Phillies. And now a group of fans, like yourself, are starting to display the same sentiment where you act like we can just start winning whenever we feel like it. I understand its frustrating that fans seem not to appreciate their team, or that fans seem to be getting too angry too quick, or that we just don’t understand how long a baseball season really is.

   I offer this explanation. A lot of us Mets fans who have been watching this team for many years, probably not unlike yourself, feel that this team’s attitude is going to waste the most talented team we’ve had in a very long time. And that is very frustrating for us.

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   • Mister Koo says:

     April 14, 2008 at 10:45 am

     Right, and if it’s the attitude of this team that is the biggest problem, then the only way to change the vibe and atmosphere is to fire Willie. He should have been fired the day after the collapse last year. That, coupled with Santana would have been a true clean slate to start this year. Getting Santana just seems like a band aid now.

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6. MDMetfan says:

   April 14, 2008 at 10:04 am

   The Mets are playing poorly. They can’t seem to execute fundimental baseball such as situational hitting. Their pitching has been…”modest”…is the nicest way to put it. They have way too many injuries to key people…who knows if it is age or training or lack of stretching?

   Two years ago going to game 6 out of the blue was a great thing. However, it raised expectations for last year and we all know what happened. As a fan since 1967, I can tell you I have never been so angry and so down on baseball as I was last fall. It was a disgrace, period. When Alou said. “I hate baseball right now,” I related 100 percent. So now we get Santana and the team plays well in spring and we start to get charged up and then …poof…. the season starts and the Mets fall right back to crappy, unispired baseball. (that doesn’t mean they aren’t trying but it is what it is). That’s why the fans are so hostile. How much hype followed by flop can they take (even in NYC) before “venting” their collective frustrations. A fast start was the cure all and that didn’t happen.

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7. gjhaze says:

   April 14, 2008 at 10:10 am

   Willie didn’t hit into five double plays yesterday. He also didn’t give up a four-run lead.

   I do blame him for pitching Sosa for two innings, though. He never pulls Sosa off the mound and the guy is killing the Mets in close games this year, if you look at the numbers.

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8. Bobby Bones in SC says:

   April 14, 2008 at 10:18 am

   I just have trouble blaming Willie for everything. Granted, I would NOT be sending him any Christmas cards, and I don’t always agree with his management of the pen. But players not performing is not just his fault.

   Way too much of the panic button being pressed by the fans seems to be the problem right now. Are the Yankees looking to blame everyone right now? No, and they are a game under .500 as well.

   Right now I have to be very happy with the performance of Church, Schnieder, and Pagan.. Delgado and Wright have played okay. I see some encouraging signs with Delgado, especially since he didn’t hardly play this spring..

   Reyes, Castillo, and Beltran don’t look so hot right now though. Beltran and Castillo are proven players and I expect will put up decent numbers and have good years. Reyes has the skills to be something special, but he does need good AB’s and do whatever it takes to get on base. As for batting .400? Well that hasn’t been done in 67 years and I wouldn’t bank on him doing it either. Agree though that if he worked and thought like Gwinn he could be awesome.

   Sanchez is coming. Moises is swing a bat and on his way back. Once the offense gets on track it should take some pressure off of the pen. If we get a few games and innnngs out of Pedro and El Duque then we are a better team. Let’s not lose hope week 2.

   No Wille doesn’t look like a baseball genius but I just can’t blame him for everything right now. Once the Mets start clicking on all cylinders Willie will certainly look a lot smarter.

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9. euchreking says:

   April 14, 2008 at 10:24 am

   (Matt, I could not vote in this poll–results posted with no chance to vote).
   I agree that Jose is a wonderful talent but not so smart maybe. Smart sometimes wins over wonderful talent (look at Keith Hernandez–not a prime physical specimen but a very smart, and tough, player). I also worry over the boo-birds, but understand the sentiment, especially for paying fans, after last year’s implosion.

   I was panicking last week–and feeling bad about Willie–but oddly feel better after yesterday’s ugly result. We did well enough to get all those scoring opportunities and most games you’re gonna get at least one clutch hit in those situations. (As a coach in Little League I tell my kids that the hall of famers fail 7 out of every 10 trips to the plate). It was a fun game in terms of all the opportunities but ultimately frustrating because of all the blown chances. Hopefully, they can build on the good things that happened, and on the frustration they must feel for letting one like this get away.

   I think doing badly like this will help Ollie because he too often thinks he knows best and gets off the game plan (which was why WIllie yanked him early last week and complained about him afterward–OP had lost his stuff and couldn’t tough through it, as he did again yesterday). This had to be a humbling loss, one that will force him to listen better to his coaches and catcher (as when Schneider sets up outside but Ollie’s pitch floats inside to be crushed as a homer in the first inning). Ollie has tended to rebound from these types of outings and do well over his next starts, which, with Phillies coming up, is a good thing.

   It’s what the Mets do with this loss that counts now. Maybe starting off sub-500 will be part of the wake-up call for this team. It’s the team that needs a reality check (they already have their huge pay checks!), not Willie. Maybe they’ll respond to attacks on Willie. There’s obviously no margins going to be given by the fans, who are on this team with boos at every bad turn. (Wow, even Santana gets booed, and it’s clear he was upset by this). They can listen to these boos crescendo over the next few weeks, and they can do one of two things: they can turn on the fans and hunker down with a bunker mentality, or they can figure out that the fans are simply waiting to reward the type of behavior and attitude they expect from this team. To wit, don’t they want fans to expect them to find ways to win? Still, it could be like last season when they barely broke .500 at home and did well on the road where they played looser without all the fan scrutiny.

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10. mets6986 says:

    April 14, 2008 at 10:27 am

    Not the time for a change but… If the Mets are .500 or below entering July, then we need to think of the future and get someone who can motivate these guys… Willie’s Style (whatever that is… bad bullpen calls… horrible substitutions, babying starting pitchers…. trusting veterans too much… stupid base running ) is not working…

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