It's The Manager, Stupid! (or The Steady Hand Of Willie Randolph)

By John "Metstradamus" Coppinger
Posted Friday, May 11, 2007

In the efforts of full disclosure, I have to tell you that I’m a Willie Randolph guy, so what you’re about to read comes from a slightly biased point of view.

In the beginning, when Willie Randolph was hired to clean of the mess that one Arthur Howe left behind, I didn’t let the whole ex-Yankee thing scare me off. The ruination of the Mets franchise at the end of the 2004 season told me that this team deserved the shame of having to turn to an ex-Yankee to set things right, and Randolph’s discipline was just what the team needed at the time. His facial hair rules and overall structure rid the Mets of their “inmates running the asylum” modus operandi. They improved twelve games in 2005 and were right there until the beginning of September, but Randolph detractors still wanted to see him handle a bullpen and understand the nuances of the double switch.

2006 saw the Mets improve fourteen more games under Randolph’s watch, but many fairly felt that Omar Minaya was the driving force behind the ’06 N.L. East champs with such “under-the-radar” acquisitions such as John Maine, Orlando Hernandez, Shawn Green, Xavier Nady (who turned into Oliver Perez), and Jose Valentin. It seemed sometimes, and especially to those in the anti-Randolph camp that all he had to do was not screw up the machine, as everything was basically laid out for him.

All the line-ups were set for the most part, bullpen roles were clearly defined, and any major shakeups that Randolph was responsible for were created by injuries to starting pitchers that required little more than a minor league call-up.

The detractors still thought that Randolph sometimes managed by the seat of his pants sometimes (which I don’t necessarily think is a bad thing), and deviated from “the book” a little too much. They’ll tell you that Randolph won 97 games and still couldn’t manage to win the “Manager of the Year” award (he came in second).

I’ve always believed that managing or being the head coach of the modern sports franchise takes a whole lot more than merely knowing X’s and O’s. It takes knowing the locker room and being able to navigate the modern ego. Randolph has shown that he’s been able to do just that, knowing when to be friend and when to be firm. He’s displayed that all the way up to this spring training with the Duaner Sanchez lateness and conditioning issues. But back in the spring of 2005, that establishing relationships and installing a winning culture within the room was the hard part.

Now with a team so tightly knit that they shave their heads together, chemistry is the easy part.

The hard part is navigating the X’s and the O’s. And just when you thought that his X and O knowledge couldn’t sway any detractors his way, check out his managerial skill set so far this season. The injuries he’s had to deal with in 2007 are different in nature than the ones he had in ’06. He’s had to delicately juggle a bullpen missing two major components that made it so good last year in Duaner Sanchez and Guillermo Mota (and outside of the occasional Aaron Heilman hiccup, the results have been frighteningly good). He’s also had to deal with the first major slump of David Wright’s career, along with a Carlos Delgado “don’t call it a slump” that’s lasted way too long (both show signs of ending after Wednesday’s performances against San Francisco). He’s also had to juggle the second base position after Jose Valentin’s injury, delicately balancing the Damion Easley/Ruben Gotay seesaw, evoking memories of Wayne Garrett and Ed Charles (well, maybe that’s a stretch, but you get the point).

Granted, Omar has loaded Willie once again this season, but 2007 still misses some key ingredients that made 2006 special. Yet, with Randolph steering the ship, the ’07 version of the Mets is a mere one game off of last season’s pace. It’s high time that Randolph gets the widespread credit that has escaped him for so long.

Whether you like Willie Randolph, or think he’s overrated, you are more than welcome to visit me on my home planet: http://metstradamus.blogspot.com, to enjoy some uneducated banter, and some pictures of what Keith Hernandez would look like with a shaved head.