Mets Avoid Blame Game by Protecting Randolph

D. Boon of the Minutemen was one of America's great songwriters. He knew a lot about life, and cared about accountability. "What of the people who don't have what I got?" he asked. "Are they victims of my leisure? / To fail is to be a victim, be a victim of my choice." Once he wrote a song called "Futurism Restated," which went, in its near entirety, "The wheel is an extension of the foot."

By contrast, during a press conference the Mets held yesterday to announce that they would not be firing manager Willie Randolph, he said, "I wish my players had my passion and will to win." I doubt Fred Wilpon, Jeff Wilpon, Saul Katz, or Omar Minaya have listened to the Minutemen much. They might learn something about how failure is always the result of a choice. But now, there is no way to put such a lesson to use. Randolph — who is the extension of the general manager, and thus the owners — has, unsurprisingly, been found not wanting. It has been deemed that the great collapse wasn't something anyone did. It was something that happened to them. The Mets will stay the course.

Yesterday's announcement came too soon. It also commits the team to a strategy that can't succeed.

Keeping Randolph was likely the right move, but taking so little time to make the decision was not. Forty-eight hours isn't enough time for emotions to cool, for the team to assess what went wrong in September, or to plan a response. There's nothing weak or indecisive about waiting to gather and judge the facts — but the Mets, as they often do, put the appearance of strength above being strong.

More ominously, by firmly committing to Randolph, the Mets also firmly commit to going for everything next year, and thus to fielding another decrepit team. Managers, who are in job trouble on big city teams that are expected to win the World Series, always favor washed-up old men over unknown young players. It's a question of self-interest. Managers rarely get blamed for not taking risks; they get blamed for taking them. Plenty of people are laying into Randolph for letting Lasting Milledge dance on the field and sleep on defense. Very few are laying into him for giving Milledge's at-bats to Shawn Green, whose admirably professional playing style didn't make up for the fact that he was a lesser player. There will be no real youth movement at Shea Stadium next year.

The Mets can't win by playing it safe, though. Another team full of 1999 All-Stars won't work. Bear this in mind: The old players will be hard to replace. Tom Glavine pitched 200 mostly very solid innings. Orlando Hernandez and Moises Alou were, when healthy, among the best players on the team. Green, Luis Castillo, Paul Lo Duca, and Carlos Delgado were all respectable. And it wasn't nearly enough. Not only did the Mets blow odds of 499 in 500 of making the playoffs, but they were lucky to finish 88–74, as they had the underlying numbers of an 86-win team.

It's a terrible dilemma. The Mets have essentially committed to an old team. But they have to get rid of the old players in order to get rid of the stench of failure. The old players they retain won't perform as well next year as they did this year, and the new old players they bring in won't be as good as the old ones.

This isn't a problem that can be solved with money. There are no great players on the free agent market. There are few good ones. Vintage pitchers like Curt Schilling and Greg Maddux, and burned-out workhorses such as Livan Hernandez, aren't answers. The trade market isn't a solution, either. Pitchers like C.C. Sabathia, Ben Sheets, and Johan Santana can be free agents after next year, but they all play on contenders who can afford them right now. There are too many strong teams that have money and far deeper farm systems than the Mets — the Yankees, Arizona, and both Los Angeles teams, to begin with — for the Mets to be in serious contention for a young ace.

At other positions, prospects are even bleaker. Ivan Rodriguez's OBA has been below .300 two of the last three years, and short of Atlanta's Mark Teixeira, he could be the best free agent at a position of Mets need over the next two years.

If the Mets go with a team of known veteran quantities, they're not going to win. And if they go with children, and don't dominate from April on, the season will be ruined by internal war. This is just what happens in these situations. The Chicago Cubs were eaten alive during Dusty Baker's tenure by this problem — a heartbreaking end in the playoffs, followed by a horrific September collapse in a season in which they'd been favored to win the World Series, followed by a refusal of a distrusted manager (and a deferential general manager) to give unproven players chances with a job on the line.

Chicago made the playoffs with a new manager this year, for one main reason: After a brutal start, Lou Piniella began to make out his lineup card with meritocracy in mind. They squandered two years because a manager under pressure had an interest in avoiding risks that conflicted with the interests of the team. The Mets aren't preordained to fail as Baker's Cubs did. But the same dynamic is in place, and the dynamic of interests — not personalities — usually drives conflicts when ambition, pride, and money are at stake. With his job on the line, Randolph's sole interest isn't winning. He also needs to avoid blame for any failures. He needs to avoid risk. What other interests are in play? Are the Wilpons, Katz, and Minaya interested only in winning? Or are they, in Madison Square Garden style, just hoping no one notices that the wheel is an extension of the foot?