Mets to Keep Willie Randolph: Me to Hang Myself

The Mets should keep him because Willie Randolph can observe and decipher whether or not a Subway sandwich has a lot of meat or not.

"Yeah, it's a lotta meat!"

I think Minaya is doing this because he knows this buys him at least 3-5 years with the Mets. He can ride out next year with Randolph and if the Mets falter again, then he'll hire someone else and get at least two more years to prove that he can be a GM. GMs get way too little crirticism for putting together the team, especially when they make questionable moves like Minaya has.

What questionable moves has Minaya made? If Heath Bell and Brian Bannister are the two worst trade of his 3 year tenure, I consider myself very lucky. Bannister had a nice year, but success is very rarely sustainable for guys who only strike out 77 batters in 165 innings (Fausto Carmona and Chein Mein Wang the exceptions). Heath Bell put up a 5.5+ ERA last year along with a 1.67 WHIP. I was shocked to see him in the Major leagues, let alone one of the more effective relievers. He had a number of chances in New York and failed every time. I'd like to see him do it for another year before I call him a star.
Other than that, Minaya put together a terrific team. At the end of the year, every player in their lineup had made at least two all star games. The offense was obviously not the problem, but Randolph had the luxury of filling out a more attractive lineup card than almost any other manager in the league.
So the next criticism is the bullpen Minaya put together. It was a dominant bullpen in the first half. At the All-Star break, they had the second best bullpen ERA in baseball behind the Padres. Omar tried to get help at the deadline, but the price was either Humber or Pelfrey and that was not worth a Jon Rauch. So Jorge Sosa moved to the bullpen. For the next two months, Sosa and Pedro Feliciano pitched almost every game. By the time September 1st rolled around, Sosa, Feliciano, Mota, Schoenweiss and Wagner were overused and exhausted. Luckily, rosters expanded on September 1st and Minaya called up Joe Smith, Phillip Humber and Willie Collazo (coming off 24 scoreless innings in AAA) to bolster the bullpen. Problem was, Willie refused to use them. Mota and Schoenweiss, both with near dead arms, continued to blow games as Willie stayed content with the large lead over the Phillies. That is, until the season was lost. While Minaya did not get help for the pen at the deadline, he gave Willie fresh arms on September 1st. He just refused to use them.