Meet the New Mets, Same as the Old Mets

By Mike McGann
Posted Tuesday, June 17, 2008

At this point, no one can be shocked at the firing of Mets manager Willie Randolph — whether you agreed with it or not, it was pretty clear that this day was coming and coming soon.

But the method and the process that has unfolded over the past month tells us a lot more about this organization, its culture and why this move probably won’t make as big a difference as a lot of Mets fans hope.

At 3:11 a.m. EDT this morning, the Mets put out an email to the media announcing Randolph’s firing? Intended so as to miss the back page of the three local tabloids? Maybe, but I doubt it. In fact, with Omar Minaya traveling to Anaheim and not attending Monday night’s 9-6 win over the Angels, it’s pretty clear that the decision to fire Randolph and coaches Rick Peterson and Tom Nieto was made this past weekend, or earlier.

So why let them fly 3,000 miles, coach and manage in one or more games when you know they’re going to be gone — and why do it in the middle of the night, instead of grabbing Randolph at the ballpark, having a closed-door meeting with the team and holding a late-night press conference to hash it out? Or, better yet, the firing should have taken place Monday afternoon, with a pre-game press conference and team meeting, allowing the team to get past it once and for all.

Instead, the media is rife with reports of players being informed by reporters of Randolph’s firing in the lobby of their Cosa Mesa, Ca. hotel.

What the hell are these guys thinking?

To be honest, I don’t really know. Few organizations of any kind have been as media tone deaf as the Mets and this is just the latest example. Someone, Jeff Wilpon or Minaya got advice, bad advice, from the team’s media people (or in fairness, completely ignored good advice and did what they did).

To steal a bit from Pete Townsend, “Meet the New Mets, same as the Old Mets.” Let’s flash back to 2004, the last time we saw a manager get fired and chaos descend over the front office. Art Howe was furiously attempting to get his moribund team to play “meaningful games” in September. The new General Manager at the time, Jim Duquette (he replaced Steve “Booty Visit” Phillips as interim GM the year before and only earlier in the year got the job for good) was trying to ride herd on a virtual group home for the baseball challenged, as no less than three factions fought in the front office for the hearts and minds of the organization.

The result: the Scott Kazmir-Victor Zambrano trade. The embarrassing firing/not firing of Art Howe, who finally had to go in and force the issue.

Thankfully, that led to the wholesale massacre of front office staff and the hiring of the current GM, Minaya — and seemingly a whole new direction for the organization. For a good long time, the leaks to the media stopped and the Mets began to move as one for the most part.

But in the last year, things have reverted. Two clear factions have emerged in the Mets’ front office, with one clearly looking to peg blame on Tony Bernazard, Minaya’s trusted assistant, who oversees the minor league operation, Randolph and Peterson and a second faction of those loyal to Minaya.

In the end, the reactionary faction — using the same sort of reasoning process that led to Kazmir basically being given away — won out and forced Minaya’s hand by leaking the plan to the media, as the Daily News’ Adam Rubin had pretty much the entire plan by last Friday. And maybe the way it was finally done was a passive-aggressive move by Minaya — the new head in the center of the crosshairs — resisting it to the end.

Of course you can argue that Randolph needed to go — that something was wrong and this team needed a massive change. Adding Johan Santana wasn’t enough, obviously, and you can’t really deal a roster full of highly paid players with “no-trade” clauses. So, if you were going to make a change, this was probably it.

But the manner has to make you worry if you’re a Mets fan. Obviously, the team decided to fire Randolph days ago. So why not get it done? Who cares if it is Fathers’ Day or Christmas Eve? If you’ve made your mind up, do it. When you fire people, it’s best to make it quick and clean — it saves everyone a lot of grief and shows respect for everyone involved.

What’s clear now is that Jerry Manuel has a mess and an interim tag — and is probably less than 50-50 to manage beyond 2008. In between now and then, you’ll probably see a lot of leaking of new managerial candidates as one faction, and maybe both, campaign for their people. Hence, all the Wally Backman talk of late, which clearly was floated by a couple of front office people — who lobbied previously to have Backman hired for the minor leagues. Take it more seriously if Backman shows up in New Orleans or Binghamton as a replacement manager — with Ken Oberkfell moving up to the big club from New Orleans, someone will be needed to replace him, with B-Mets skipper Mako Oliveras a top candidate to move up to AAA.

So here it comes again: the chaos, the poor message management, the infighting. Will it mean more uninspiring on-field performance? If history is a guide, yes.

It’s not even the first day of summer yet and already, this looks and feels like a really long summer in the making.