Comments on: Buzz: Mets to Reevaluate Willie, Team

By: youknowwhatimsayin

youknowwhatimsayin — Sun, 11 May 2008 04:51:48 +0000

I agree to an extent that Willie was/is being undermined by Omar and his errand boy Bernazard. That said, Willie’s has many faults of his own, especially his reluctance to praise a young player when he is doing well, yet turns a blind eye to certain vets (cough cough Delgado) dogging it on the field.

His relationship with Reyes seemingly blew up in Philly last summer when Reyes did not run out a ground ball. Willie was right in chastising Reyes for it, but chose to not do the same for Julio Franco when he did the same thing in the ninth inning of that same game.

IMO, Willie has NO credibility in that clubhouse. If this was a food chain, he’d fall somewhere between the clubhouse toilet attendant and that bat boy.

Omar is getting no heat so far.. and he should. That he NOT ONCE addressed the team’s collapse, which was mostly caused by uninspired, bored, self-entitled play. All he chimed was the party line of “it was only two weeks..” No, Omar, the signs could seen in JUNE.

By: gomets019

gomets019 — Sun, 11 May 2008 03:51:25 +0000

This team is built to be a winner. Omar has done fine. Theres something else going on. Omar signed Alou to complement an already good offense. He knows Alou isn’t durable. He didn’t sign him to be a clean up hitter or our savior. its not omars fault everyone seems to disappear instead of step up when he goes down. Thats the difference. Remember, the Phils kept rolling when Utley was down a month late in the year. With these Mets, its like everythings gotta be perfect-a player goes down for a while and so does the team. In 06 they kept battling, and since then they just lie down.

By: gomets019

gomets019 — Sun, 11 May 2008 03:41:20 +0000

What is your definition of proven winner? Hasn’t Willie also been proven to be a “choker” ? And nobodys saying the only thing wrong with this team is Willie-so every1 can stop saying its unfair to blame Willie. He’s not the whole problem, but he’s a big part of it and he’s the easiest part to fix. It’s not about assessing blame it’s about getting better. I’ll admit I don’t know a ton about him as a manager, but Gary Carter seems like a good choice. He certsinly understands the NL style of play and how to use pitchers better than Willie and he always played hard. I think players would respect him. Booby V is my 1st choice but not gonna happen for many reasons, and as crazy as it sounds, I’d rather have Jose Valentin or Julio Franco than Willie. It may be a little soon for them, Valentin is still trying to come back after all, but seriously, they’d be better than Willie and the players would turn it up a notch

By: cleonsvan

cleonsvan — Sat, 10 May 2008 03:37:51 +0000

Mazilli and Robinson? You’ve got to be kidding. Showalter at least has had some success.

By: The_Hook

The_Hook — Sat, 10 May 2008 03:33:18 +0000

I am surprised that so many people criticize Willie for his perceived “hands-off” approach, without factoring in:
A) Omar wanted Manny Acta as Manager and has never bothered to hide that from the players or Willie.
B) When Willie tried to bark at Reyes and discipline the petulant SS, assistant GM Tony B. (acting at Omar’s behest) ran into the club house to tell Jose “not to worry” (reported by Madden in Daily News on several occasions—and if Jose’s ego is that fragile that he needed that, god help us all.)
C) Delgado (rightly or wrongly) judged Omar to be pandering and Tony B. a buffoon the first time the GM tried to land him; Delgado was intelligent enough to say all is well when he wound up here, but its no secret that he does not like Omar, does not like Tony, and does not like NYC. His best friend on the team was Shawn Green. In light of that, should Omar have relentlessly pursued a man who has no respect for his GM and little desire to be in the biggest market in sports?

Willie is not blameless, but does anyone else think that Omar’s Tony’s actions may have eroded Willie’s authority a wee bit? An amazing amount of info is chewed to the bone on this site. Did I just miss the discussion of Omar’s heavy handed interference? (Not trying to be sarcastic, truly want to know if I missed this and am flogging dead horse).

By: MetLifer

MetLifer — Sat, 10 May 2008 03:05:09 +0000

Don’t forget to mention that 2/5 of the rotation is injured… That is a lot! If everyone was playing like Church, I bet we’d be in first place and there would be none of this talk. Fact is we have injuries and have players not playing to their potential. I would say this has nothing to do with the manager and no matter who the manager was, we probably would have the same outcome. What can be done? I don’t know… the knee jerk reaction is to blame the manager like all the fans and the media which imflames this. I think the only thing that can be done at this point is to ride it out. It’s still pretty early and you gotta think that Reyes, Wright, and Beltran will get out of this funk soon.. They’re too good not to. I don’t know about Delgado… just take what you can get.

By: MudvilleNine

MudvilleNine — Fri, 09 May 2008 22:31:34 +0000

I’m agreeing with FAH. I think many of the Mets fans here have overestimated the abilities of this team. Not only the guys he mentioned but theres Ollie Perez. I believe the experts at the beginning of the season weren’t sold on Perez and Maine but everybody here was saying how can you ignore 15 game winners. Maine had no real major league experience to say different but Ollie did, and with the way he’s been pitching, its saying that last season was his career year. He wont match that again. Your other two starters are Pelfrey and Figgy. These starters are not of an over .500 team. Add to that you have had only 4 reliable hitters in the lineup (Reyes, Church, Wright, and Beltran) which only two have produced and you have a team that doesnt look over .500 to me. I’m one who understands that there are some managers that can take a team so far but never able to get them over that last hurdle and that Willie might be one of them. But with the team that is out there, any manager is going to find it hard to win games and take the division.

By: stewart0329

stewart0329 — Fri, 09 May 2008 22:09:48 +0000

And to answer the question as to who i would fire. I would fire the person and if I couldn’t fire the person I would “SIT HIS ASS DOWN” and find someone that would do the job better in addition I would fire the person that signed him say hello OMAR

By: MudvilleNine

MudvilleNine — Fri, 09 May 2008 22:07:56 +0000

Doc, do you need motivation to do your job well?

By: stewart0329

stewart0329 — Fri, 09 May 2008 22:05:43 +0000

Managers are not in companies to motivate, a managers responsibility is to make sure that you do your job correctly and help you when and if you ask for help. Willie is in charge of a lot of VETERAN ballplayers. They should NOT need motivation they should be PROFESSIONAL enough at this stage of their career where motivation should not be a factor. Their paychecks should be indicative enough of the status they should reflect and if they don’t they they don’t deserve the contract they were awarded.

OMAR “hired” these guys. If you want to find blame you blame the person that hired the “employees” not the manager that had no say as to who to sign.