Jerry Manuel should not be fired. A strong argument can be made that Jerry Manuel should never have been hired, but given that he was, he should not be fired. If Jerry gets the axe, Omar Minaya would get to pick his third skipper to lead the Mets-- an opportunity he has not earned.
For Minaya and the Mets, it simply hasn't worked. Ownership should recognize that it hasn't worked, still isn't working, and ultimately, won't ever work with Omar at the helm. He has no master plan.
In his time, Minaya has handed out millions to players that had been there and done that elsewhere, and gotten painfully little in return. His big-money busts include Luis Castillo ($25m), Oliver Perez ($36m), and how can we not now view Carlos Beltran ($119m; Free Agent in 2011) as a tremendous bust? Even "Hamdi" in You Don't Mess with the Zohan knew Delgado's $12 million in 2009 was one of the worst options ever picked up, and we may soon add Jason Bay's $66 million dollar name to this list. Omar also presided over the Julio Franco sideshow in 2006-07, during which he and ownership proved they were more interested in individual milestones and marketing than player development or playing to win.
For all his failures at building a winning team, Minaya's biggest mistakes have come outside the lines of play, and have revealed a man with little tact and less polish. In 2008, he fired Willie Randolph at about 3am Eastern Time, after having won 3 of 4 and directly following a win. Typically, when a manager is fired it's directly following a loss; as in, "enough is enough, that's the last straw" kind of thing. Not after a win, and certainly not after winning 3 of 4 at Texas and Anaheim. It is entirely possible that Carlos Delgado wanted Willie out, and Minaya made it so.
Minaya doesn't have the qualifications to be the General Manager of an organization of this size and scope. If he and I applied for the job of GM for a major league club tomorrow, my resume would include one thing his does not: a college degree. This is not to say a degree is required for the job, but it's a pretty advanced job these days. Minaya is a former ballplayer and talent scout who no one would've ever heard of if Sammy Sosa and Juan Gonzalez had laid off the 'roids.
If fans or the media would call for Jerry Manuel's head this summer, Minaya should be gone along with him. The team's wins and losses during his tenure dictate that, let alone epic collapses and squabbles with members of the press (thank you, Adam Rubin). Maybe they need to be reminded that he once traded Cliff Lee, Brandon Phillips and Grady Sizemore for an over-the-hill Bartolo Colon as Expos' GM.
The Wilpon family have Minaya under contract through 2012 with options for 2013 and 2014, so despite losing, they clearly like having him in charge. Either that, or they like having him appear to be in charge, while Chief Operating Officer Jeff Wilpon actually makes the decisions and gets less of the blame. At about $1 million per season, that's a lot of scratch to be paying a puppet.
One thing is for certain, any GM that truly had autonomy would have been fired by 29 other clubs by now, which brings the issue of baseball decision-making back into question for Mets fans, who dealt with this during the shrouded-in-secrecy Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano debacle in 2004. Until the Mets can be honest with themselves, they'll lack the direction to win, let alone everything else it takes.
Wouldn't a lot of reckless spending be curbed if MLB would adopt NFL style revenue sharing and a salary cap?
ReplyDeleteWithout question, Plumber. And thanks for the comment!
ReplyDeleteA hard cap in baseball would force players to prove their worth every night, GMs to have a complete approach to building their teams, and owners to stay inside the stratosphere. It just doesn't sound like baseball.