The Mets will hold a press conference at 5:00pm EDT today to introduce Jerry Manuel as their new manager. Omar Minaya will make the announcement and I’m sure will have to answer many pointed questions from the media in Los Angeles.
The press conference will be carried live on TV by SNY. I’m sure that WFAN will carry it on the radio as well. This is a nice departure from the morons at SNY that didn’t carry the Minaya press conference about Willie Randolph’s job status on Memorial Day.
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Now that Willie Randolph has taken the fall for the under performing Mets team, someone else is going to be responsible for the wins and losses. That person is Omar Minaya.
Minaya is now on the hook for the performance of this team. He doesn’t have the security blanket of the Mets’ problems being Randolph’s fault anymore. That will be a heavy burden for Minaya to carry for the rest of this season.
Mark this date on your calendar because Omar Minaya is now on the clock. If the Mets and their $137 million payroll don’t meet expectations it will become Minaya’s problem. And there are some hefty expectations to meet. Getting deep into October is the only successful outcome for the Mets now. There is no safety parachute for Minaya. That’s now gone. There’s nobody else to blame.
Trading top prospects for Johan Santana and making a massive financial commitment to him over seven years was Minaya’s recommendation. The only logical reason to do that is for a team that’s on the verge of winning.
Good luck Omar. You better start working the phones. The Mets roster is going to be one of the hardest to re-make into a winner. The aging, injured, and under performing players are on your hands now.
There’s never a good time to fire an employee. Whether it’s first thing in the morning or after a day of work, it isn’t pleasant.
We don’t know the nature of the conversations that took place between Omar Minaya and Willie Randolph. It’s possible that Minaya that wanted to fire Rick Peterson and Tom Nieto but Randolph said that he couldn’t work under those conditions. The reports were that Randolph was very unhappy when Minaya fired hitting coach Rick Down last season.
I know that it makes for good headlines in the mainstream media and the blogs to rip Minaya for the timing of this move. But don’t be too quick to judge.
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The Mets announced at 3:15 am Eastern time that they fired manager Willie Randolph, pitching coach Rick Peterson, and first base coach Tom Nieto. The move was completely expected after multiple media reports over more than a month. Mets bench coach Jerry Manuel will take over on an interim basis, Triple-A manager Ken Oberkfell, and pitching coach Dan Warthen, and scout Luis Aguayo will join the Mets major league staff.
Carlos Beltran hit two solo homers, one in the first and one in the third inning. Mike Pelfrey got his first win since April 15.
Pelfrey’s line was six innings pitched giving up eight hits and two walks. He had no strikeouts. He gave up six runs but he was shaky in the seventh and didn’t get any outs. Pedro Feliciano came in to relieve in the seventh and was terrible giving up two RBI hits. He only got one out in the seventh.
Aaron Heilman came into the game in the seventh after Feliciano was ineffective. I thought that the Angels would break it open at that point but Heilman locked down the inning with two strikeouts.
Billy Wagner was a little shaky in the ninth inning again. He gave up a hit and a walk but got out of the inning with a line drive to Jose Reyes for a double play at second base.
Reyes was 2 for 4 with 3 runs scored and a stolen base as well.
Update June 17 11:00 AM EDT: Since the decision was made for us early this morning. I decided to take the poll down.
Since it appears to be imminent that someone is going to get fired. I’d like to get your take on who should get the axe. See the poll on the right side of the page. If you’re using a feed reader, visit the site to participate in the poll.
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There have been a variety of reports about what Omar Minaya may do to shake this team up. It seems that the latest hot story in the mainstream media is that Willie Randolph will be retained as manager for now, but several coaches could be fired as soon as this week.
Pitching coach Rick Peterson and first base coach Tom Nieto are the two coaches named in the stories that appear to be on the hook for the Mets’ troubles this season.
Somebody has to be the scapegoat for this disappointing season, so why not the coaches?
I’ve wanted Peterson to go since shortly after the 2004 non-waiver trading deadline deal that sent Scott Kazmir to the Rays for Victor Zambrano. The reports were that the trade was made mostly on a recommendation by Peterson that he could “fix Zambrano in ten minutes”. That trade has hurt the Mets for years.
I have no idea what Nieto did to land on the chopping block, but Peterson sure deserves to be there.
The Mets Report 