Point The Finger At Freddy

By Jack Flynn
Posted Thursday, June 12, 2008

With less than 100 games to go in the regular season, the New York Mets are still playing losing baseball. Things are falling apart at Shea Stadium, and the potential for a disastrous season is looming ever larger.

Manager Willie Randolph was nearly fired on Memorial Day – you didn’t actually think the Mets set up an afternoon press conference to tell the assembled media that Willie was keeping his job, did you? Lately the heat has been turned on General Manager Omar Minaya, as observers have begun rightfully asking why a $140 million baseball team relies on so many brittle, over-the-hill veterans and features an embarrassingly thin bench more suited for a last place Triple-A team like the New Orleans Zephyrs.

Randolph and Minaya surely deserve plenty of the blame for the uninspiring baseball Mets fans have been subjected to this season – at this point each has done more than enough to earn themselves an October pink slip instead of a playoff share. Really though, doesn’t some of the blame have to land at the feet of the man who has put both the manager and the general manager in a position to fail?

Fred Wilpon is the ultimate architect of this mediocre and unlovable outfit. The man who bought out Nelson Doubleday to become the sole owner of New York’s National League franchise six years ago now presides over a reign of error that shows no signs of ending. Simply put, Wilpon continually hires the wrong people for the most important positions in the organization and then allows them to take the blame for the franchise’s failures.

Perhaps Wilpon’s first mistake was naming his son Jeff the Chief Operating Officer after taking sole ownership of the Mets in 2002. Nepotism benefits no one, except perhaps the unremarkable offspring of successful patriarchs. You would be hard pressed to name one positive contribution of Jeff Wilpon’s during his time in charge of baseball operations for the Mets. The words “meddling dilettante” come to mind, though.

Minaya was brought on board in 2004 after receiving mixed reviews for his stewardship of the Montreal Expos while they were wards of Major League Baseball during the final days of the franchise’s existence. Wilpon threw former GM Jim Duquette under the bus to mask ownership’s role in trading future ace Scott Kazmir and replaced him with Minaya, who was in the Mets’ organization for years before taking the Expos’ general manager job.

Unfortunately for the Mets, Minaya has proven to be an inveterate check writer who has never seen a veteran player he wasn’t willing to commit too many years and too much money to. His most successful free agent signings (Pedro Martinez, Billy Wagner, Carlos Beltran) have been the result of being authorized to spend more money than everyone else. His most successful trades (separately acquiring John Maine, Ryan Church and Oliver Perez) all came about during the pursuit of other players – the veterans that Minaya chiefly coveted (Jorge Julio, Brian Schneider and Roberto Hernandez) have all paled in comparison to the perceived throw-ins.

Even if his supporters claim that Minaya’s strength is a build-for-now mentality that aims to put the best team on the field on a year-to-year basis, then he and Wilpon picked the absolute worst manager to lead them during the short window of opportunity created by the general manager.

Remember, Wilpon’s first managerial hire was the undynamic Art Howe, who was fired along with Duquette after the 2004 season. To say Howe was a passive figure as the Mets’ skipper is an understatement; grass grows with more passion than Howe displayed throughout his two-year tenure. The current manager has displayed a similar nonchalance in the dugout for the last 3 ½ seasons, but lacked Howe’s managerial experience from the start

Randolph was passed on by numerous clubs before the Mets hired him to manage after the 2004 season. There were concerns that his lack of experience running a ball club would be exposed at the major league level. Randolph refused several opportunities to manage in the minor leagues throughout his time as a coach in the Yankees organization, arguing that his playing experience and his tutelage under Joe Torre was more than enough training for running a club.

Simply put, he was wrong. Randolph still struggles with the finer points of baseball strategy and appropriate reliever usage. He miscasts players in certain roles and refuses to change his mind until the tide of negative results becomes too overwhelming for even him to ignore. He overuses relievers at a breathtaking pace and has shown a remarkable knack for choosing the worst reliever for the game situation time and time again. When he is fired at the end of the season, it’s hard to imagine another team wanting to hire Randolph to manage their club.

What is so amazing about the Mets’ current predicament is that, with a new stadium on the horizon and a $400 million naming deal as part of the package, Wilpon and the Mets now boast spending power unmatched by virtually every other team in the league. But a large bank account and a willingness to spend from it means nothing if the owner puts the wrong people in charge and does not give them the freedom to spend it in the best way possible.

Wilpon seems more interested in increasing Citi Field’s chances of hosting an All-Star Game than he is in seeing the Mets play winning baseball. The Amateur Draft may be (to paraphrase Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane) a “bleeping crapshoot,” but big market teams can stack the deck in their favor by gobbling up players who fall in the draft due to “signability concerns.”

That’s a polite euphemism for describing players who want bonuses beyond MLB’s slot recommendations. There is no penalty for ignoring MLB’s recommendations, other than some angry phone calls from various toadies in the commissioner’s office. Still, the Mets continued to play Bud Selig’s foolish game during last week’s draft, while other big-market teams kept their farm systems strong by ignoring the commissioner and flexing their financial muscles.

That falls directly at the feet of Wilpon, who refused to authorize his draft gurus to take the best players available and instead insists that they take the best players who will sign for a dollar figure that Selig deems appropriate. It is the very definition of “penny wise and pound foolish.”

If things don’t get better, Randolph and Minaya will surely be the fall guys at the end of the season. But Fred Wilpon should not be allowed to escape the torrents of invective currently being hurled at the latest manager and general manager he hired. When will Fred finally get it right?