Message From the Mets

New York Mets Dear Mets Fan:

All of us at the Mets are bitterly disappointed in failing to achieve our collective goal of building upon last year's success. We did not meet our organization's expectations -- or yours. Everyone at Shea feels the same range of emotions as you -- our loyal fans -- and we know we have let you down. We wanted to thank you for your record-breaking support of our team this year.

Equally important, Ownership will continue its commitment in providing the resources necessary to field a championship team. Omar will be meeting with Ownership shortly to present his plan on addressing our shortcomings so that we can achieve our goal of winning championships in 2008 and beyond.

You deserve better results.

Many thanks again for your record-breaking support.

What a nice little gift from the Mets. I certainly hope this team entertains getting a new manager in here. Please do not get me wrong. Everyone is on notice and it truly took an organizational effort to do something this colossally bad, but this Met team does not need to overhaul things. They do need to tweak things though. Really, they have a guy at the helm is not respected enough to make one decision in regards to his coaching staff. Is there any other team who has a manager with so little control? To me, that speaks volumes to how much they actually trust and respect the guy.

Also, the players lackadaisical play down the stretch is a direct reflection of Willie and the way he runs his team. His calming demeanor that everyone loved backfired if you ask me. This team needed someone with fire to get them motivated because they clearly needed help in that department. They needed someone to light a fire under their asses because all we have been hearing about is how lately is this team had taken everything for granted. They need someone like Valentine who knows the X's and O's of the game and had some fire, but someone not quite as grating. Too many people were rubbed the wrong way by him which was his problem.

On top of that, this team needs someone that is more trusting of young guys like Valentine did who seemingly got the best from young players. The Mets need to get younger and simply cannot get younger with people in this organization that shuns youth. Willie likes his vets that 'know how to play the game'. That is all well and fine, but he can go somewhere else and do that. I would also bet that if he gets fired, we will not see him managing for a long time. If you want to look at wins alone, you can certainly say he was successful. However, if you watch the games, the only thing you can do is speak well about his demeanor because it certainly will not be because of his strategy and I think we can all agree that strategy is a major part of managing.

I received a lot of complaints for getting on Willie about seemingly innocuous moves. However, the old axiom that every game counts could not be ringing truer. Whether it is wasted starts on Brian Lawrence, too many times going to Mota, inexplicably leaving Burgos in to face Howard earlier in the year, not using Gotay enough off the bench, calling Franco's number one too many times, leaving Green in the starting lineup for way too long, not having a handle on when you starting pitchers are done, putting in Paulie Ballgame to pinch hit with the bases loaded when the Mets direly needed an extra base hit, not using important September games more to explore your organization for pieces that might be able to chip in, etc.....

He is a good guy, but he is not right for this club. I have been saying that from day one and I am still saying it now. Not everyone can manage a big league ballclub and simply playing for twenty years does not qualify you to do so. The Mets took a flyer on a guy who has never managed before and it honestly has not worked out. You look at this team and the talent and you have to have an overall sense of disappointment. He lost control of this team and does not have a good handle on how to navigate through a game strategy wise. Add that up and the answer is obvious. By no means am I suggesting he is the only problem here, but he is a large part of the equation and one that is rather easily fixed. Yes, they have to eat some salary, but they can more than make up for it with a strong rebound in 2008.