The Mets Quantum Leap

Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett stepped

into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished. He awoke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. And so Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home.

How many times is anyone given the opportunity to correct a mistake? To be put into the

exact same position they were at an earlier time and right what once went wrong? And how many seize that opportunity and redeem themselves? Tomorrow, at 1:10 PM on the last regular season game ever to be played at Shea Stadium, the New York Mets will have that chance.
It was the last day of the regular season last September 30th that the New York Mets, beginning the day tied with the Philadelphia Phillies for first place in the National League East and with a chance to avoid the most monumental collapse in the history of baseball, took the

field to play the Florida Marlins. Before anyone had a chance to sit in their seats and settle in to watch the game, the raucous Shea Stadium crowd was silenced as Tom Glavine, in his last start as a member of the Mets, allowed seven runs in 1/3 of an inning. The Phillies, emboldened by the gift bestowed upon them by both Glavine and the Marlins, defeated the Nationals 6-1 to claim the NL East crown leaving the Mets to sit in stunned silence from that first inning onward, wondering how everything fell apart so completely that their season came down to this.
It was no consolation that the Phillies were swept out of the playoffs before their hangovers from the division clinching celebration had subsided; nor did it matter that the Mets went out and acquired the best pitcher in baseball specifically to avoid the fate that befell them in 2007. Until they're able to exorcise the ghosts from that collapse----new manager or not; new

players or not----it will always be there. Now, in the midst of another collapse, a small glimmer of light is shining for the Mets. Receiving the help they needed today in the form of a masterful, three-hit shutout by Santana on three days rest and a Cubs 7-3 win over the Milwaukee Brewers, tomorrow morning when they head to the ballpark, the Mets will be tied for the Wild Card lead and hold destiny in their own hands.
Facing that same Marlins team provides the Mets with a unique shot at a do-over; a chance to let the world know that they're not going to close Shea Stadium with a second consecutive collapse. Glavine is gone; manager Willie Randolph is gone, but the ghosts still remain. The ghosts that haunt the remaining players from last year's roster can be exorcised tomorrow. Oliver Perez, in what is likely his last regular season start as a member of the Mets, will have a chance to go out in the way Glavine wanted to; in the way that his former teammates will remember him fondly and say, "that guy came up big when we needed

him," instead of inspiring the head shakes and sideways glances that Glavine received with his indifferent reaction as he dismissed the devastation felt by the Mets and their fans and hustled back to Atlanta to rejoin the Braves as quickly as possible, a place he never truly left.
Last year at this time, the Mets were breathing a sigh of relief having been given a gift by the Washington Nationals as they beat the Phillies on that Saturday; the Mets had angered the Marlins with their excessive celebrations and a bench clearing fight marred a dominating performance from John Maine in a 13-0 Mets win. Now the shoe is on the other foot. The Marlins are the ones who have succeeded in making the Mets look sympathetic with their relentless yapping in the newspapers about how sweet it's going to be to knock the Mets out of the playoffs again. The circumstances are identical; will the Mets rise to the occasion, or will they be struck by that lightning for a second year in a row and

allow the Marlins to walk all over them and gloat about it for another year?
2008 is a mirror image of 2007, but the Mets are a year wiser; a year tougher and they've been presented with that Quantum Leap moment; a chance to put right what once went wrong and exterminate those ghosts that would haunt the site of the demolished Shea Stadium forever and they can close the place right, without leaving any ghosts, by seizing this rare chance at redemption.

The Mets-Phillies Day/Night Doubleheader May Help The Mets

• Phillies 6-Mets 2:

With post-traumatic memories dancing in the heads of Mets fans as the team lost their second

straight game to the Phillies, there are many differences between the collapse of 2007 and what's happening now in September of 2008. Last season, the Mets had been an average (at best) team from early June until they fell apart at season's end; this season they've played like men who were released from prison since the firing of Willie Randolph. (This isn't an overt reflection on Randolph; the questions about the manager's job security were just as stifling as Randolph's and pitching coach Rick Peterson's presence.) Last season, they'd spent just about the entire campaign in first place; this season, they've gone back and forth with the Phillies since getting their house in order with manager Jerry Manuel and pitching coach Dan Warthen. Most importantly, the Mets have Johan Santana pitching the second game of tonight's doubleheader----the exact type of game he was acquired to pitch.
The one thing missing from the Mets last season was that ace who they could give the ball and say, "carry us home". With Santana and his cachet, that is no longer an issue. Even with

John Maine and Oliver Perez winning 15 games apiece last year, there wasn't that one guy that the team could count on to give them a winning performance regardless of the circumstances.
Another issue that is an advantage for the Mets is that even though they've lost the first two games of this series and seem to have forgotten their bats in Milwaukee, losing the first game of a doubleheader on Sunday and trimming the lead to one game won't be seen as the panic-stricken tragedy that it would have been with the tightly wound Randolph at the helm; with the dearth of the one guy they could count on to go to the mound and deliver the goods; and without the newspapers, talk show imbeciles and everyone else going into conniptions at the mere thought of another September swoon. This may be the most important factor of all.
Part of the reason the team collapsed so completely last season, I think, was because the players heard the whispers of the fans, talk shows and newspapers wondering when the team was going to wake up. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy and everyone, from the front office on down through the entire organization, looked to someone else to get the job done and as a result, everyone played tight and tried not to screw up instead of doing their jobs. Even as they've lost the first two games of this series, the worst case scenario is that they and the Phillies will be all even with twenty games left; that would've looked pretty good early in the season given the way they played under Randolph until he was fired.
Having the break between games and not having to answer a million questions about why

the Phillies have the hex over the Mets in September; not having to go home and sleep with the feeling of impending doom that permeated the organization last season; not having to read the newspaper accounts of another Mets September stumble before heading back onto the field, and being able to get right back out with their ace on the mound is a huge advantage for those that are still seeing the nightmare of 2007 everywhere they look.
Mets fans are inherently pessimistic and paranoid (with good reason), but if they go out tonight and get what they're paying for from Santana, the combination of no remaining games against the Phillies (unless there's a one-game playoff or they both make the playoffs) should give the entire organization and fan base some breathing room to not worry about what happened in 2007 and move forward. All the pieces are in place to put 2007 to rest once and for all and it starts on the valuable left arm of Johan Santana and is being assisted by this day-night doubleheader.

• Whither Ben Sheets?

I've gone on about wondering where Ben Sheets is going to end up after this season ad nauseam, but after last night's performance in which he dismantled the Padres I have to keep

asking: which team is going to ante up the cash on Sheets's potential and not worry about his propensity for getting hurt with various injuries to just about every single part of his body. The most important question that the interested teams (and there will be many) is how high they're willing to go to get that potential and if they're confident that he's going to be able to get out on the mound on a regular basis.
Is Sheets going to become Chris Carpenter, who overcame injury after injury with the Blue Jays, got healthy with the Cardinals and won 36 games over two years and won the Cy Young Award in one season and finished in third place the next year? Will he become Jim Palmer, who went 15-10 in his first full year in the majors during the Orioles 1966 championship season then missed most of the 1967 season with injuries; spent 1968 rehabilitating and became a three-time Cy Young Award winner and a Hall of Famer upon returning to the majors in 1969? Or is he going to be another Carl Pavano, who received a giant contract and couldn't stay healthy? (It's very interesting how Pavano is now blaming the doctors for his woes----NY

Times Article, but I digress.) It's a big commitment that a team is going to make for Sheets with a massive risk/reward.
Sheets's teammate with the Brewers, C.C. Sabathia is putting himself into position to not only steal the National League Cy Young Award from Brandon Webb in just three months of work, but to make an even larger haul than Johan Santana got from the Mets. As for Sheets, the losers in the Sabathia sweepstakes will be calling him as a backup plan and he'd be smart to wait and see where Sabathia winds up before signing anywhere. If I were an executive for one of the teams that has the money to give Sheets the $110+ million he's going to want (and get), I'd possibly be staking my job on whether or not he's able to stay healthy for the 5-7 years of his contract.
If I were advising someone like Omar Minaya or Brian Cashman (if he's still with the Yankees), my recommendation would be to take the large chunks of cash that are coming off the books and invest it in Sheets; the change in scenery and different training staffs and medical teams might keep him healthy and he's one of the best pitchers in baseball when he's able to get out on the mound. My gut instinct is to take the risk because Sheets is Hall of Fame good when he's at his best and a 2009 Mets rotation, for example, with Santana, Sheets, John Maine and Mike Pelfrey would look very intimidating as they came into town. It's a big risk, but my gut feeling is that he's going to be worth it even with his aches and pains.

• Enough already with the moaning and complaining about C.C. Sabathia's lost no-hitter:

Buster Olney linked an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in which Tom Haudricourt suggests that Major League Baseball institute a fifth umpire to score the game so another incident as happened to C.C. Sabathia and the no-hitter that wasn't doesn't happen again----Article. This reminds me of the scene late in the movie Interview with the Vampire in which Lestat, the Tom Cruise character, hears a tape of Louis, the Brad Pitt character complaining

about his life as a vampire and asks interviewer Christian Slater:

Lestat: Oh Louis, Louis. Still whining Louis. Have you heard enough? I've had to listen to that for centuries.

It wasn't as if Sabathia had a no-hitter with two outs in the ninth inning and saw it snatched from his grasp by a bad call. It was a fifth inning judgment call that I've already said that I disagreed with; but what's done is done. All the Brewers have done since this happened is complain about it. They petitioned the league for a scoring change and were rejected. Now, these articles that are being written about it and it's enough. Sabathia wasn't all that bothered about it, so why can't everyone just stop whining and let it go. Can everyone move on with their lives please?
Am I alone in not wanting to hear about it anymore? A drastic change has just been made to the way umpires call the game with the installation of instant replay, are they supposed to add an umpire just so an official scorer won't be able to "steal" a no-hitter that may not have happened anyway? Baseball scoring has been done this way pretty much since the game began and a change isn't necessary because of one call that didn't go the way people with a vested interest in the outcome wanted it. I just don't want to hear about it anymore. (That being said, I might be swayed if the Brewers continue to whine, moan and complain because anything that puts a stop to this silliness is good enough for me.)

The Final Indignity Of 2008 May Be Yet To Come For The Yankees

• Would any one of the following be worse than the others, or would it all simply
  
  morph into different scenes in a full-on nightmare?

A 10 1/2 game deficit in the division and an eight game deficit in the Wild Card standings with twenty-one games to play pretty much seals the Yankees fate as a non-playoff team this year. Even with that, there are still ways for the nightmare to get even worse. With today's comeback win over the Rays, the Blue Jays have an identical record with the Yankees at 75-66; by season's end, there's a very real possibility that the Yankees aren't just going to miss the playoffs, but they may end up in fourth place in the AL East behind the Rays, Red Sox and the Blue Jays; but it gets worse.
By season's end, there's every chance that the Yankees are going to not only be watching the playoffs on TV for the first time since 1993, but that they'll have to watch their most hated

enemies in the Red Sox and Mets still playing, and also the manager that they kicked out the door to Los Angeles, Joe Torre, as he manages the Dodgers. If Torre coaxes this dysfunctional Dodgers team into the playoffs while the Yankees and their hand-picked replacement, Joe Girardi (who had been waiting in the wings for this opportunity since he was fired by the Marlins and turned down every other chance he got to manage) finishes the season with a record of, say, 87-75, what is that going to say about the decision to insult Torre with that one-year contract offer?
The arguments to let Torre go are well-known and some of them have reasonable validity. It may very well have been time to go in a new direction with someone younger who has a different voice especially since the team was going forward with their young pitching; it could be that Girardi will eventually be a better strategic manager than Torre was and that he was the perfect choice as they transition from a team that spent tons and tons of money on free agents and turned their focus on developing players of their own. They may even begin a new dynasty in the next year or two, but the fact still remains that the jury on Girardi----on and off the field----is still out.
His strategic gaffes have cost the Yankees several games this year and could have cost them several more; he's far too sensitive to criticism and his relentless positivity no matter the circumstances may wear thin to veterans who see reality and don't want to hear the manager talk about how the team "battled" or "never gave up"; they're eventually going to want to hear

him say something to turn things around or unload on them when they deserve it. And the fact still remains that if the Yankees do end with a record of around 87-75, Girardi will only have won nine more games than he did in his sole year managing the Marlins in 2006 in which he won Manager of the Year and was fired; the difference being that the Marlins payroll for 2006 was $15 million and the 2008 Yankees began the season with a payroll of $209 million. Suffice it to say he's not going to be winning Manager of the Year in 2008 for the same fourth place finish that he achieved with the Marlins because it's not going to be seen as an achievement; in fact, it'll be pretty embarrassing considering what he had to work with.

• Dodgers 7-Diamondbacks 2; speaking of Torre:

For the three and a half years that Willie Randolph managed the Mets, it was always an open question why he made so many pitching changes when they didn't appear necessary; in

today's Dodgers-Diamondbacks game, it became clear that it wasn't something that Randolph came up with on his own; it was a learned behavior from the manager he worked for with the Yankees from 1996 through 2004.
Torre has always been very free with his bullpen and his track record of success served as a shield to any criticism that may have popped up for some of his maneuverings, but in today's game I had to stop and wonder what it was he was trying to prove as he pulled two relievers in the ninth inning with leads of seven and five runs, and had to bring his closer in to finish a game that shouldn't have been so complicated.
With that 7-0 lead going into the top of the ninth inning, Torre brought in a September call-up, rookie lefty Scott Elbert; Elbert promptly loaded the bases with one out when Torre made his slow amble to the mound to relieve Elbert with 34-year-old journeyman righty Jason Johnson.

Johnson got the second out before he walked Chris Young and gave up a two-run single to Justin Upton; out went Torre again, this time to call for his closer Jonathan Broxton. Broxton struck out Miguel Montero to end the game.
To get three outs in a ninth inning which began with the Dodgers leading 7-0, Torre needed to use three different pitchers; it reminded me of Randolph's overmanaging the Mets as he always seemed to want to install at least two extra bullpen mounds in every ballpark so he could have four relievers warming up at the same time. If Torre didn't trust the rookie Elbert, he should have had Johnson start the inning; and if he wanted to make absolute sure that the game never had any chance to get out of hand, he should have started the inning with Broxton and all of this "strategy" would've been unnecessary.

• Tony La Russa's "power play" and the possibility of becoming a GM(?):

Buster Olney linked an article by Joe Strauss in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that suggests that Cardinals manager Tony La Russa expects the Cardinals to spend some money this off-season, but it also suggests that La Russa is also entertaining the idea of becoming a general manager----Article.
There's no question that La Russa is going to try and get the Cardinals front office to spend

as freely as they did in his earlier years as their manager, but their reluctance to spend on big name free agents or to acquire anyone of substance to help them contend this year indicates that they're going to let La Russa bloviate about how he wants some expensive veteran help and then go along their merry way signing reclamation projects like Kyle Lohse and hope that La Russa and pitching coach Dave Duncan can turn someone else into a 13-game winner.
The Cardinals were widely expected by many (including me) to fall to the bottom of the NL Central division. It's been La Russa's strategic wizardry that has kept the Cardinals in contention, but the fact that the team desperately needed some help in the bullpen as they shuttled one pitcher after another into the closer's role and GM John Mozeliak did nothing indicates that they're not going to spend any more money this off-season on any players of note. They have a lot of money coming off the books, but that doesn't mean they're going to take it and put it right back into the team for 2009.
La Russa's going to want them to sign Francisco Rodriguez, which they won't do because K-Rod is going to be coming off of a 60-save season and will want at least $15 million a year

for five or six years. La Russa's going to want them to sign Orlando Cabrera, which they won't do because Cabrera's going to want somewhere in the $50-60 million range on a five year deal. La Russa's going to want them to go after A.J. Burnett, which won't happen because Burnett is going to be coming off his career year with close to 20 wins and will be in heavy demand as he asks for $100 million, and probably gets it. La Russa's kidding himself if he thinks these things are going to happen because he's demanding them. The Cardinals are going to wait to see where the big name free agents go, then they're going to sift through the remnants and pick at the bones for the most inexpensive pieces they can find because that's the way they do business now.
As for the La Russa as GM idea, it won't work. Much like Lou Piniella was kicked upstairs to be the Yankees GM during one of George Steinbrenner's attempts to fire a popular manager without really firing him to avoid the vitriol he received when he fired Yogi Berra (both times he replaced the former manager with Billy Martin), Piniella tried to be a GM for a few months, decided he didn't like it and resigned. (He replaced Martin as manager a short time later.)
La Russa is not a front office guy; he's not a guy who's going to be happy wearing a suit

and watching someone else manage his team in a far inferior fashion than he could. He's a baseball managing lifer. Like his friend Bill Parcells, the rush of the field will never be replaced by anything no matter how hard he tries. (I know Parcells is running the Miami Dolphins as team president, but I think a major part of him still wishes he had the energy to go back on the field and run the whole show from top to bottom.) So this is, to me, an empty threat designed to give the Cardinals front office the idea that their Hall of Fame manager might leave if the opportunity presents itself; but with the way they're now running that storied franchise, I get the idea that the ownership wouldn't be all that bothered one way or the other if La Russa was their manager or not; in fact, they might be relieved to get out from under his salary and hire someone for a bargain-basement contract who'd just be happy to have the job and do as he's told without complaint.
La Russa will manage the Cardinals next year; it'll be the same sort of team with the same sort of payroll as this year, and then after 2009, the two parties will go their separate ways and La Russa will go to a big spending team to take one more shot at winning another title without having to beg for in-season help; and it'll probably be best for all involved.

Randolph's Return To Pinstripes; Livan Or Maddux---Is There A Difference?

• Randolph's return to pinstripes:

It seems the only one who wasn't taking subtle, wink-and-nod digs against the Mets during Willie Randolph's appearance at Yankees Old Timer's Day was Randolph. (There was

speculation that he hasn't said anything negatively against his former employers because of his contractual obligations, but I don't believe that's the sole reason; Randolph probably does appreciate the opportunity the Mets gave him and holds little animosity for anyone other than Tony Bernazard.) Instead, there were people like Jeff Torborg, Michael Kay and Al Leiter----each with their own issues concerning the Mets----taking their shots.
Torborg with his "we've both been through the same thing" of being fired; but at least Randolph had something called managerial success, which is alien to Jeff Torborg. Leiter gave Randolph a "welcome back hug", but is bitter because he was essentially told to take a hike by the Mets when Omar Minaya took over and wanted to end the Chatty Cathy atmosphere in the clubhouse in which it seemed that Leiter and John Franco were running the team; Leiter's 110 pitch counts by the fifth inning made him a liability and case of diminishing returns, and his performance after he left the Mets proved that Minaya was right; and for all of the implications of Leiter returning "home" to the Yankees, the guy's a Met; he was with the Mets far longer, had greater success and made much more money than he ever did in his brief times with the Yankees. And I'm not even going to get into Kay and how he despises the Mets to a degree where he has no business saying anything about them whatsoever and lacks the required guts to openly admit it. Kay's lack of courage was exemplified as he unloaded on Joe Torre as the former Yankees manager was out the door and claimed some nonseniscal attempt to protect the Yankees with his all-knowing opinions, as if anyone cared.
I hate getting into these Yankees-Mets arguments because they're pointless, but in what position are the Yankees to be criticizing how any other organization treats their employees?

Did they or did they not allow Joe Torre----four championships, annual playoff appearances and exuding class----to twist in the wind after 2006 and 2007? Would any Yankee fan or apologist want Randolph running their team after his foibles as manager of the Mets? All of this revisionist history is

offensive to those that were paying attention to what's gone on with both organizations. Torborg was a rotten manager----a cookie-cutter automaton who was unable to deviate from the "book" that does nothing other than provide a blueprint to be rightfully criticized for being unable to think for himself and to lose games and the support of the players; Leiter was finished when the Mets let him go; Randolph got an opportunity as manager with the Mets and needed to be fired if 2008 had any chance of being salvaged.
This group mentality of "we've experienced this before" is absurd because when put into context, the only thing that the Mets did to Randolph that he truly has a right to be bitter about was firing him in the shoddy way they did; in every other aspect of the story, the Mets have nothing to be sorry for and the Yankees are in no position to be judging anyone else given their history of callous ruthlessness in treating their employees including one Willie Randolph, who they dumped unceremoniously in 1989 after twelve years of loyal service in which he served as a captain, in favor of Steve Sax. It's convenient that these things are forgotten during the pageantry and history of Old Timer's Day, but they're still there nonetheless and can't be covered up by scoffing and ridicule by those that are in no position to exhibit such sentiments.

• We shall be Livan:

Keith Law writes in his blog on ESPN about players that he thinks will get through waivers and possibly be traded this month----Blog----and he mentions Greg Maddux as one possibility to go to the Dodgers. (Maddux refuses to go anywhere other than another West Coast team.)

In looking at Law's assessment of Maddux, calling him a "strike-throwing innings-eater" and remembering ESPN's Rob Neyer's continued ripping of Livan Hernandez, I decided to take a look at the numbers of both pitchers this year and came away thinking not only would they be similar acquisitions, a team looking for such a veteran "strike-throwing innings-eater" would in fact be better off going for Hernandez.
Neither veteran has been particularly good this year, but in looking at their numbers and taking into account that Maddux is pitching his home games in the baseball equivalent of Yellowstone National Park and Hernandez is pitching in the Metrodome, they're very similar. Maddux has been pounded in six of his 23 starts this year; Hernandez in six of his 23 starts. Maddux has provided 134 innings; Hernandez 139. Maddux is an 85 pitch/six inning pitcher except in extreme circumstances; Hernandez is willing to stay out there for 145 pitches if asked. Neither strike out many, nor walk many; both give up their share of homers. Maddux has been up and down in the post-season; Hernandez a former NLCS and World Series MVP.
I probably wouldn't want either of them as anything more than a fourth starter in a playoff series and wouldn't give up more than a mid-level prospect to get them, but I don't get how Maddux with his mid-to-low 80s fastball and mediocre performance is so in demand and

Hernandez, with his mid-to-low 80s fastball and mediocre performance is vying for consideration as the worst starting pitcher in the American League. If I had to choose between the two, I'd rather have Hernandez because at least I'd know he wouldn't beg out after 80 pitches saying he's "done" regardless of the game situation. The whole point of an innings-eater is that he eats innings by staying out there even if he's getting shelled and Hernandez can do that better than Maddux at this point and presumably would be willing to go to teams other than those that are conveniently located in his preferred destination.

Mini-Fallout For The Mets And An Absurd Panic

In the cosmic scheme of things this latest debacle, an 8-6 loss to the Phillies, won't mean much of anything if the Mets get two well-pitched games today and tomorrow from John Maine and Oliver Perez and win. The older I get, the more I believe the Jim Leyland-theory that momentum is only as good as the next day's starter. That being said, there are some things that need to be clarified about this game.

• Johan Santana didn't ask to come out of the game after eight innings, but he didn't fight to stay in either:

There are a dozen arguments to take a pitcher like Santana out after eight innings. A

three-run lead should have been safe with or without the closer and regardless of the opponent; he's going to be needed down the stretch and in the post-season(?) and it makes no sense to go over his normal workload for a relatively meaningless game in July; the Mets have a lot of money invested in him for a lot of years and going over his threshold four months into his first season with the team is a panic move; etc, etc.
But there are also viable arguments for him to go out and at least try to finish the game for his team. There's a difference between going above and beyond what a pitcher's used to in terms of pitch count and going slightly over what is normal; the circumstances----105 pitches through eight innings; the unavailability of closer Billy Wagner; that Santana came here to be the man the Mets have been missing since the

days of Dwight Gooden----dictated that he should have stood in front of Jerry Manuel and told his manager that he wanted to start the ninth inning; that it was his game and without Wagner available, his responsibility to try and close things out himself. Instead he allowed himself to be removed and again the question of whether his desire to win is secondary to his satisfaction of doing well enough to win even if the bullpen coughs it up.
The argument of star players who are reluctant to get down in the muck is always logically sound. When he was at his best as the most dangerous hitter in the National League, former Cincinnati Reds star George Foster responded to the Pete Rose criticism that he never got his uniform dirty by saying that he didn't run into walls because he didn't want to get hurt and miss substantial time and not be able to help the team with his bat; but sometimes a player must run into a wall; or a pitcher must go past that threshold of pitches to help the team win.
It's not like they were talking about him going from 115 pitches to 135-140. That would've

been extreme; he was at 105 pitches and could have thrown fifteen or twenty more as long as he felt all right and his mechanics were sound. Taking him out was the easily explainable maneuver (to their bosses and to the reporters) and that's what managers tend to lean towards rather than what might be best for the team. Thus far as manager of the Mets, Manuel has shown a strategic acumen that wasn't present in Willie Randolph and he's shown the ability to ignore certain orthodoxies that have become all-too-common, but last night, there shouldn't even have been a discussion or decision to blow up in everyone's face. Manuel should've asked Santana to finish the game and Santana should've demanded that he finish the game. He's thrown between 110 and 120 pitches in his career numerous times and it wouldn't have hurt him had he gone out there for the ninth inning with a short leash to try and prevent the short-handed bullpen from doing exactly as they did and blowing a game that the team should have won.

• A reporter's agenda is showing:

William C. Rhoden wrote an article in today's New York Times----Column----basically accusing Wagner of unilaterally deciding to take the game off, sitting in the clubhouse and shaking his head as his replacements imploded; that the Mets leadership from Jerry Manuel on down is lacking; and defending Willie Randolph as if the entire collapse from last season

and lackluster play during his tenure this season was somehow not his fault; he then suggests that the modern day version of Nietzsche's Superman, Mariano Rivera, has never once been unavailable when the Yankees needed him as the Mets needed Wagner last night. I'm here to tell you that Rhoden's agenda in defending Randolph is blatantly obvious and that he clearly pulled this vague accusation of a "lack of leadership" out of the air to defend Randolph and rip the Mets.
Wagner and the doctors decided that it would be better to give the pitcher's sore trapezius/shoulder another day of rest. It's not as if Wagner didn't want to be out there on the mound for the ninth inning. Wagner is a lot of things. He's shaky in big games and he's got a big mouth, but he's not an Erik Bedard/Carl

Pavano-style malingerer. This is why it's so difficult to be a closer especially in New York; if he goes into the game sore and blows the game or blows his shoulder out so he's lost for the season, he gets ripped for either not thinking about the big picture or for not being good at his job; if he takes the doctor's advice and gives his shoulder an extra day of rest, he's accused of fiddling while Rome burns.
One game is very small in the grand context of the last sixty games and beyond(?) that the Mets are going to need Wagner to pitch. If he got hurt, they'd be faced with the possibility of having to rely on their other bullpen pitchers who either don't have the mental aptitude or ability to close games as well as Wagner (even with all of his faults); then the team would be forced to overpay out of desperation for the likes of Huston Street or George Sherrill when their other needs (a corner outfield bat) should take precedence.
Regardless of how one feels about Willie Randolph on a personal level; or how they feel about the way the Mets botched his firing, I don't think anyone with an objective bone in his body wouldn't agree that it was time for him to go. The team wasn't responding to him and they weren't going to turn things around with him at the helm; the questions surrounding his job status had become stifling and the leadership that Rhoden claims is still missing was being ignored and dismissed while Randolph and Rick Peterson were still around. Even with

this one loss, Manuel has proven to be far superior strategically to Randolph and the team seems relaxed and at ease with him in the manager's office.
Mariano Rivera is not invulnerable. There have been times that even he has had to be rested because of a barking elbow. To imply that Rivera would have gone out to the mound in any condition (especially in a game in July) is piling on Wagner because he's not Rivera, but Wagner, even at his best, was never Rivera. He was never even Trevor Hoffman. He's a pretty good closer who throws hard and gets the job done most of the time. A player's performance has little to do with him being injured and Rhoden combines the two to indict Wagner as something that he's not. He is not a guy who doesn't want the pressure of pitching a big game whether he succeeds or fails.
To continue to try and defend Randolph is grasping at straws to find reasons for his demise other than that he had his major faults as a manager and it was past time for a change. No matter what happens for the rest of the season, it won't change that reality. And it should be remembered that even with the entire mess of this season----the injuries, botched firings, questionable decisions and infighting----the Mets are still one game out of first place and have the personnel to not only take control of the NL East, but to emerge

from a mediocre National League to make it to the World Series. As the Cardinals proved two years ago, once a team gets that far, they're still only four wins from a championship and everything that happened as they navigated their way there is conveniently forgotten during the victory parade and raising of the World Series trophy. In the end, this was only one game in July and that's what everyone needs to remember before panicking. It's not about the invisible and difficult to gauge expression of "leadership"; it's about performance and nothing more.

Piling On Randolph And Other Stories

• Is it necessary to dump on the dearly departed?

Willie Randolph is no longer the manager of the New York Mets, therefore isn't it time to let the man get on with his life without having to endure relentless piling on to his perceived failings as a manager? Mets broadcasters Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling are

going out of their way to point out the differences in style and tactics between Randolph and new manager Jerry Manuel. In particular, there is continued discussion of how much "looser" the Mets clubhouse is under Manuel in comparison to the "businesslike" Randolph; but when Randolph was hired, one of the things that got him the job was his history with the Yankees and the businesslike and serious clubhouse he worked in under Joe Torre. Now that approach was the root of all evil for the Mets? It would be one thing if the team was on a weeklong tear under the new manager, but

they're 3-3 since Manuel took over.
Randolph had his faults and I felt that the Mets would have been better served to fire Randolph at the end of last year rather than bring him back with a guillotine hanging over his head; but even with those faults, he carried himself with dignity throughout what was a turbulent first managerial job in a very, very tough situation with factions working against him and a natural wariness of the media and notorious thin skin when it came to criticism. The only way to judge whether or not Manuel's style is the antidote for the Mets will be in retrospect and six games isn't enough to make that judgment. If the Mets clubhouse appears more relaxed, that may have little to do with Randolph's departure and more to do with the players not having to repeat the same answers to the same questions about the shakiness of their manager's job.
Considering his inexperience and all the factors he had to deal with, Randolph doesn't deserve to have people like Cohen (who clearly didn't like the way Randolph managed and who were reluctant to criticize him openly for whatever reason) making comparisons after a week. Randolph's gone and Manuel's the manager; it's time to move on.

• Brewers 4-Braves 1; what's going to happen with Big Ben?

The most interesting question this winter will surround what's going to happen with Ben Sheets. Sheets has Cy Young Award quality stuff, but has been so injury-prone over the past

four years that any team that wants to get him is going to have to take that leap of faith that their money isn't going to be predominately wasted a la Pedro Martinez/Barry Zito. Sheets is scary-good when he's healthy, but cannot be counted on to make more than 25 starts in a season. Is a team that needs an ace at the top of their rotation going to risk a 7-year contract on a pitcher who's 30 and has such a long injury rap sheet?
There are some likely scenarios with Sheets. One, he's going to get a Zito-type contract from a desperate owner who wants to make a splash and is willing to risk a catastrophic injury to roll the dice on Sheets fulfilling his potential; two, he's going to see that the market for pitchers isn't as free as it once was and he's going to have to take a down-the-line contract as Carlos Zambrano did to stay with the

Cubs and Jake Peavy did to stay with the Padres; three, he's going to go for the bigger money on a shorter-term contract and if that's the case, there will be a long list of teams willing to take the risk.
If I had to bet now, I'd say Sheets winds up with the Yankees. They have a load of money coming off the books and they're going to need starting pitching, but the last case scenario might be intriguing to a large number of teams. The Dodgers have gone the high-salary, short-term route with Jason Schmidt and Andruw Jones and, even though both appear to be blowing up in their faces, the injuries from the explosions aren't going to be that bad because of the short-term nature of the contract. Schmidt's provided nothing for them and his contract's up after next season; Jones has been a disaster, but his contract is also up after next season. If Sheets is willing to eschew the long term deal and accepts a three or four-year contract in the $58-80 million range, he'll likely have a larger choice of destinations rather than the Yankees or possibly Texas Rangers.
Every time the idea that the time for long-term, lucrative contracts for pitchers is gone, some desperate owner whips out his checkbook and, in the same motion, flings sanity out the window. Sheets is such a talent that it could go both ways for him, but any owner who shells out for such a historically fragile pitcher is either going to regret it or get himself a long-term ace. It's all going to depend on what Sheets wants and where he wants to play because someone's going to pay him; the question is who.

The "Boost" From A Managerial Change

• Is it the new manager or is it the stability?

The Mets have played and looked much better and more relaxed under Jerry Manuel than

they did under Willie Randolph since at least the middle of last season and Manuel is going to receive credit for that with his different take on running his ballclub, but is that fair? Is the improvement a function of the new manager or is it that the players wanted some finality and an end to answering the non-stop questions about the manager's job security if they lose one or two games?
There have been many cases where a team just wanted a manager out of their sight because they couldn't stand him and subsequently went on a tear. It happened twice with former Astros and Blue Jays manager Jimy Williams; with the Marlins when they dumped Jeff Torborg; and with the Red Sox when they fired John McNamara. While it's easy to give credit to the successors----Cito Gaston and Phil Garner replacing Williams;

Jack McKeon replacing Torborg; and Joe Morgan (the veteran New Englander, not the inept broadcaster) in replacing McNamara----it's not that easy to automatically think that the new manager was the reason things turned around.
The perception of playing for a manager's job on a nightly basis can't be easy. Most managerial changes don't just come out of the blue; there's usually a series of leaks to the newspapers mentioning that it's possible (sometimes that's done to gauge the temperature of the situation, the fans and the players and see how they're going to react); many times management wants to get a feel as to whether or not the change is actually going to do any good on the field.
Amid all of that, even the Mets players who didn't particularly like Randolph or pitching coach Rick Peterson and wouldn't have minded them being gone don't want to be seen as responsible for getting the manager and pitching coach fired. It wasn't necessarily that the

players had simply stopped performing for Randolph on purpose, but it can't be easy for a reliever to come jogging in from the bullpen with runners on base and a one-run lead and all the factors he has to worry about in that situation to be thinking that if he doesn't do the job, he's getting someone fired as well. It gets to a point where even the wins are tinged with the repeated questions about the status of the manager; once the idea of a change is in the air, it's going to be there and fall on the players until the matter is resolved.
There's no question that Randolph had lost his effectiveness as a manager, and if the team turns things around Manuel is going to get the credit, but it might have little to do with what he does as the manager and more to do with the players not having to worry about every loss possibly resulting in the manager getting fired.

• Brewers 7-Orioles 3:

The Brewers turnaround has a great deal to do with Prince Fielder finally hitting some home runs, but it also has a lot to do with Salomon Torres taking over as the closer and not coughing up the games as Eric Gagne was. Russell Branyan has provided a big boost as well, but he's only been back in the big leagues for three weeks; time will tell whether this is

just an opportune hot streak for a veteran professional player or if he's found his niche in Milwaukee. If I had to guess, I'd say Branyan's going to come back to earth sooner rather than later.
The Brewers took a reasonable chance on Gagne last winter signing him to a one-year deal hoping that a return to the National League would revert the pitcher into what he was with the Dodgers and with the Rangers early last season. Instead, they got the pitcher who imploded for the Red Sox on a nightly basis. They turned to the quirky veteran Torres out of desperation more than anything else and, in a prime example of how finding a successful closer is a flip of the coin, Torres has been excellent. For a guy who was a closer off-and-on for the past few seasons and lost the job as a member of the woeful Pirates last year and also had some bizarre incidents in his career (walking away from the game for five years, etc.), Torres might be remembered as the man who saved the Brewers from 78-win season and a major restructuring. The Brewers are still within striking distance of the NL Central and right in the middle of the Wild Card race. If they hit as they're capable, Ben Sheets stays healthy and Torres continues to perform as he has, they could hang around in both races for the duration and that's a far cry from scanning the want-ads for a closer who wouldn't blow games they should be winning.

• Twins 5-Diamondbacks 3:

The expectations for the Diamondbacks were at least as high as that of the Mets this season, but they find themselves with an almost identical record and saved by the unexpected wasteland that the NL West has become. With a starting rotation fronted by two

legitimate aces; a deep and diverse bullpen; and a lineup that, despite it's youth, should be a force, the Diamondbacks find themselves at 39-37 and stumbling along despite hanging onto first place.
Brandon Webb has been getting raked around so regularly that I would be concerned about the pitcher's health; granted it would've been impossible for him to continue pitching shutouts every night, but he's gotten knocked around in three of his last five starts; it could be a mid-season slump, but it's not something to ignore out of hand. Their rotation, which was supposed to be a strength, is looking short. Dan Haren has been everything advertised, but Micah Owings got off to a great start and has been pretty much terrible since late April; Randy Johnson has been more bad than good; and Doug Davis, for all the courage he's shown in coming back from thyroid cancer, is a back of the rotation starter who can't be counted on to pick up for the top of the rotation.
Out of the Moneyball school, Josh Byrnes is probably the closest GM to Billy Beane in

terms of temperament, playing his cards close to the vest and making decisive moves. Even though they're in first place, this could mean one of two things: 1) Bob Melvin might be in trouble if they continue sleepwalking; or 2) a big trade is going to be made to shake things up. I don't think Melvin deserves to be fired (for what that's worth), so I would think that Byrnes is scouring the trade market and other teams in need to make a quick and decisive strike to loosen the cobwebs.

• Tigers 5-Padres 3:

I'm aware of the payroll disparity between the Padres and the Mariners and why the Mariners are a laughingstock because they look like they're going to lose 100 games after being a trendy pick to win the AL West, but the Padres expectations were higher in many

circles than the Mariners; the payroll shouldn't factor in if the Padres were taking credit for being smart and frugal while being almost as bad. No one seems to be flogging the Padres with a similar enthusiasm as they are the Mariners. There's even talk of the Padres crawling back into the race for the division. They're not crawling into any race; the race is tumbling to them and it's not going to last. The Dodgers and Diamondbacks are going to right their ships enough to bury the Padres, but will anyone notice, or will they continue to protect the "smart" Padres management team, which may not be all that smart after all?

Tony Bernazard---The Epitome Of Evil Among Baseball Executives

• Tony Bernazard, Tony Bernazard, Tony Bernazard and, lest we forget, Tony Bernazard:

I hadn't realized that Tony Bernazard was such a powerful and evil force among the Mets hierarchy that he's the behind the scenes puppetmaster who's orchestrated every move the

Mets have made over the past four years and that he and he alone is the mastermind behind Willie Randolph's demise.
I have no way of knowing what's true and what isn't in regards to Bernazard, but it does seem that he's becoming the fall guy for whatever went wrong between Randolph and the Mets; that being said, for all those that have been relentlessly ripping the Mets for the way

they fired Randolph, it's in the same ballpark when these anonymous quotes are popping up from people whispering in the ears of dubious messengers saying that Bernazard is a "bad" guy. When there are guys like Chris "The Biggest Idiot In The World" Russo going off on tangents saying that the Mets should "get Bernazard outta here" without knowing exactly what Bernazard did or didn't do, it's more of a search for a fall guy in the Randolph firing other than Randolph himself.
You can say whatever you want about Mets GM Omar Minaya and owners Fred and Jeff Wilpon, but one thing you cannot say is that they're stupid. Minaya may be taking advice from Bernazard, but if Bernazard had so much power in the organization and hated Randolph that much, then Randolph might have been gone after the 2006 NLCS. Now we hear that because of Bernazard's former top tier position with the players union, the Mets would never

bring in a player who'd crossed the picket line thirteen years ago, which leaves Kevin Millar (pretty much exactly the type of player the Mets could use) as a non-option. I would hope that Minaya isn't so easily manipulated that he's going to let such a forgotten thing as that to prevent him from bringing in a player the Mets need. It was so long ago and just about every team has forgiven and forgotten the players who crossed the line that it's absurd to think that a guy like Millar would be excluded out of hand based on the say-so of the assistant GM.
It's easy to play the game of telephone and repeat rumors about Bernazard's supposed

power in the organization, but Minaya isn't going to let his assistant tell him what to do when it's his job and reputation on the line. The easiest thing in the world for a reporter to do is to say, "I heard " from an anonymous source and not be required to back it up with facts because they have their own agendas like a latter day Deep Throat without benefit of verifiable truths.
This reminds me of when the New York Giants had hired a new veteran defensive coach named Rod Rust and Rust used a system called "read and react" which some reporters decided they didn't like. All of a sudden there were numerous phone calls to sports talk radio ripping the "read and react" system which the vast majority of them couldn't distinguish from any other system that defensive coaches use; but Rust became the villain in the Giants fall and was eventually replaced.
Rumors are rumors and word of mouth is word of mouth, but there doesn't seem to be any concrete facts with Bernazard either having the power to do what he's said to have done or that he and he alone is responsible for Willie Randolph's failures. Randolph was notoriously thin-skinned as a player, coach and manager and it may be that he was overly sensitive to a perceived interloper in his clubhouse and if that's the case, he should have taken a stronger stand against Bernazard hanging around and making him feel uncomfortable. Even if Bernazard did everything he's alleged to have done, it's partly Randolph's fault for not taking care of it so it wouldn't be an issue.

• J.P. Ricciardi----the gift that keeps on giving:

J.P Ricciardi apologized for his radio show roasting of Reds outfielder Adam Dunn----ESPN Story----but this appears to be a longstanding modus operandi of Ricciardi. He rips a player reacting in uncontrolled and unfiltered anger, contritely apologizes and goes back to business until he does it again. Buster Olney said on Baseball Tonight that Ricciardi

called Reds GM Walt Jocketty, apologized, and was trying to get in touch with Dunn to do the same.
Whether Dunn accepts that apology is up to him, but another interesting thing that Olney brought up is that there's a similar feeling around the Blue Jays as there was around the Mets in Willie Randolph's last days and that Blue Jays manager John Gibbons is close to being fired. Just so I understand, Ricciardi, whose term as Blue Jays GM has been mediocre at best, is going to be allowed to fire his third manager during his tenure? I have to openly wonder: How is Ricciardi still there? Does he have an unlimited amount of time to continually bring in another manager; then another manager; then another manager? Eduardo Perez (who is very good on the show by

the way) said that he thinks Cito Gaston will replace Gibbons if he's fired. Gaston has been unfairly deprived of another chance to manage after winning two World Series with the Blue Jays, but unless he's a miracle worker and gets the team to the playoffs, how likely is it that he's going to keep the job after the season if Ricciardi is finally let go?
The Blue Jays problems are not the fault of the manager. Gibbons is a fiery, solid X and O guy who should receive another chance to manage in a more stable situation. Does Ricciardi deserve another chance to change managers and deflect blame from himself? He's had almost seven years on the job and the team has never had more than 87 wins or been closer than nine games from a playoff spot at season's end. He's bluntly honest in his unguarded moments and extremely impressed with himself; perhaps Ricciardi would be better served to choose between his twin vocations of radio talk show host and GM and pick the one he's better at. It doesn't take a genius to figure out which of the two that is.

Conspiracy Theories And The Rapid Rash Of Firings

• Randolph's conspiracy theories (relayed through other parties):

The New York Post is implying, through quotations of anonymous Willie Randolph "friends" (take that for what it's worth) that the former Mets manager feels betrayed by new manager

Jerry Manuel and thinks that he may have been stabbed in the back by an ambitious subordinate----NY Post Story. If this is accurate, then Randolph is grasping at straws to find some reason why he was let go other than the reality of a team that was underperforming for him and hadn't played well and with life since early last season.
Any bench coach or "manager in waiting" is in a no-win situation while the entire episode is unfolding. Few and far between are the bench coaches who have little or no interest in becoming managers, so the current manager has to know that his trusted assistant would probably like nothing better than to have his job if the situation calls for it. Yesterday, I mentioned two recent situations where the bench coach may have undermined his manager to get the top spot; with Manuel, I didn't suspect similar machinations and I still don't. What was Manuel supposed to do? Was he supposed to ignore the front office personnel that wanted to talk to him because he didn't want to upset Randolph? Technically, since the front office personnel were above Randolph, they too were Manuel's bosses, so he had no choice but to respond to them when appropriate.
Randolph knew that there were front office personnel that wanted him out and had become paranoid (with good reason apparently), but to all of a sudden have "friends" implying that Randolph now feels betrayed by a bench coach with whom he'd become close and had counseled him during the turmoil strikes me as the Post either making things up or Randolph trying to find ways to deflect the blame away from himself for his dismissal.
It doesn't matter who the manager is and how close he is to a present of former employee

who's been mentioned as a possible successor, there has to be tension once the criticism becomes more pronounced, a firing is imminent and the replacement is seen to be skulking around and waiting for the job. Joe Torre was about as successful as a manager could be with the Yankees and had Joe Girardi as his bench coach before Girardi left to manage the Marlins, but Torre had to know when Girardi turned down several opportunities after the Marlins fired him and instead chose to work for the YES network, that his former catcher and coach had an eye on his job. Torre's bench coach from last season, Don Mattingly, doesn't have an undermining bone in his body, but Girardi seemed to be waiting for the opportunity that he eventually received. Friendship doesn't matter; loyalty doesn't matter and what actually happened doesn't matter; it's the perception that counts and if Randolph wants to see Manuel as a power hungry usurper who took his job through scheming, there's no way to dissuade him even if it's just a conspiracy theory to protect himself from the truth----he deserved to get fired.

• Mariners fire John McLaren:

This was somewhat inevitable once Bill Bavasi was fired even if it's just for cosmetic effect. McLaren may get another shot somewhere eventually (although he waited a really long time for this chance and may not have the stomach for another long delay), but it's hard to blame

him for this disaster. That being said, the Mariners have been unlucky and terrible in just about every phase of the game and that generally is a reflection on the manager.
Rob Neyer wonders if McLaren "could have fought harder for the young players he managed, particularly Adam Jones and Jeff Clement", but I don't think that McLaren would've been given such a strong voice in the construction of the team in his first full season on the job. Given Les Miserables Erik Bedard's injury-history and misanthropic behavior throughout his career, it was silly to think he was going to show up and suddenly become a legitimate number two starter and expected savior. The centerpiece of the deal for the Orioles, Adam Jones, hasn't been exactly lighting the world on fire in his chance to play, so it's hard to rip the deal as a total nightmare yet. With the fire both McLaren and Bavasi were under early in the season, they really couldn't afford to wait out Clement's struggles and try to win simultaneously.
McLaren may go down as a better coach than manager and, even though this wasn't exactly a fair chance for him, the results are what they are. The players didn't seem to be listening to him and installing Jim Riggleman makes sense to give the appearance of doing

something even if it's too late to do much of anything useful but clear out the house of some veterans and retool the organization.
One thing about Riggleman that needs to be watched is that he tends to batter his pitchers. While Dusty Baker has the Kerry Wood/injury problems laid at his feet, it was Riggleman who overused Wood as a rookie with some ridiculously high pitch counts----Wood 1998 Gamelogs. The argument that the Cubs were in a pennant race and were trying to win as many games as possible is the same argument that Baker can give for his usage of Wood and Mark Prior in 2003. The 1998 Cubs made the playoffs, but Wood missed the entire 1999 season with Tommy John surgery. Felix Hernandez is a valuable commodity who needs to be kept on a reasonable pitch count under Riggleman and if they're going to trade Bedard, they'd better keep him healthy and on the mound. They're out of the race, so going crazy with their pitchers makes no sense.

• J.P. Ricciardi's flapping mouth:

There are guys who should be baseball executives; there are guys who should have their

own radio shows; there are rarely guys who can effectively combine both. Say this for Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi----he's entertaining. Now he's gotten into a war of words with Cincinnati Reds left fielder Adam Dunn. After receiving calls on his radio show from fans

advocating the Blue Jays acquisition of the power hitting left fielder, Ricciardi unloaded on the player----Story----with some unkind comments. As much as I hate to say it, Ricciardi might be well-suited to taking some lessons from Brian Cashman on saying a load of stuff while saying nothing at all. As annoying as it is, it seems to keep Cashman out of the same trouble that Ricciardi's free mouth uses to get himself into such verbal scrapes.
Never mind the inappropriate nature of a current GM unloading on a player in such a way, Ricciardi makes it worse by unloading on a player who isn't even on his team! It never ends in Toronto; Ricciardi's players fight with his manager (Ted Lilly and Shea Hillenbrand with John Gibbons); he accuses players of malingering and milking injuries (A.J. Burnett); he gets into

verbal confrontations with players and releases them in fits of anger knowing their penchant for getting off to slow starts and because they have contract options----that Ricciardi negotiated----which kick in with a certain number of at bats are reached (Frank Thomas); and his team has never, ever been a legitimate contender despite his brazen proclamations upon getting the job in 2001.
Again, amid high expectations, the Blue Jays are floundering at 35-39 and Ricciardi's job has to be in jeopardy with all the bluster, controversies and failures on and off the field. One thing about him though, he's not going to go out gracefully and if anyone's going to leave in a blaze of glory, it's Ricciardi.