Manager Willie Randolph said one of the factors in keeping catcher Sandy Alomar was his familiarity with Dave Williams. Can you imagine what the score would be if he didn’t know him at all?
Manager Willie Randolph said one of the factors in keeping catcher Sandy Alomar was his familiarity with Dave Williams. Can you imagine what the score would be if he didn’t know him at all?
18 Comments
Hogwash….I’m sure that either LoDuca or Castro could have done the job. I fully expected to see Castro starting today b/c LoDuca caught what amounted to almost two games last night. Castro is hot at the plate. Randolph just doesn’t use a lot of common sense.
Regardless of where the Mets are in the standings, I am not sure that Randolph really has what it takes to manage. He was a great 2B and probably a better than average coach. This year his weaknesses are glaring.
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To Jeff (RE: Alomar): Just an attempt at sarcasm with the Alomar crack. Got to laugh because it’s an ugly game here. This year, not only Randolph’s weaknesses are glaring.-JD
What’s equally as glaring are the weaknesses of the many of the players.
again, i really think the mets are a better second half team…but regardless…the rest of the league is really improved…the mets aren’t going to dominate like they did last year…but they’re still the class of the NL…as along as they stay afloat in the NL east, which is very feasible…they can get into the playoffs…and its a new season…
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To Tasan: (RE: Second half team)
They can stay afloat to win the NL East. I have no doubts. But, there’s something missing. I can’t say they are a clear-cut favorite to get to the World Series. One of the best things they have going for them is you can’t say that about any team in the NL.-JD
There’s something very wrong with this team.
on a positive note, delgado is really looking better at the plate. If he can keep this up in the 2nd half, that will be a BIG BOOST TO THIS OFFENSE, and should take some of the pressure off of reyes, wright, beltran….
Gee why does Valentin play so much? His skills are lacking and with Gotay playing and HITTING well, why sit him on the bench?
Sorry JD—-I guess I’m so upset by this team this year, I can’t even detect sarcasm…lol
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To Jeff (RE: Valentin)
Valentin has been a disappointment, and Gotay has played well when given the chance. You can see Valentin is limited in the field with the knee. I’d like to see Gotay get more time.-JD
You can’t blame this all on Williams or even Alomar, either. The team is flat and understandably so. The whole Affair Ledee was mismanaged. You can’t cut a cornerstone player right before game time and not expect negative repercussions throughout the clubhouse and spilling out onto the field.
The other thing is that they should have done this at home, so that they could do a video tribute or something. They should have given him the send-off he justly deserved.
Is the glass half empty or half full?
The half-empty part:
*We are 3-6 against Atlanta, our closest pursuer. No one besides Oliver Perez has beaten them yet.
*The bottom of the order is weak. Jose Valentin isn’t getting it done. Shawn Green has just 27 RBIs. Our eighth spot, ever since Valentin went down earlier with an injury, has mostly been an automatic out.
*With the injuuries, the back end of the rotation is awful.
*Middle relief isn’t completely dependable.
*Nearly everyone who has played left field this year has gone down with an injury.
*We struggle mightily against mediocre finesse pitchers.
*Tom Glavine had a schizophrenic first half. Which Glavine will show up in the second half?
*We haven’t played particularly well at home. Would home field really be an advantage in the post-season?
Glass half-full part:
*John Maine has emerged as an ace.
*Oli Perez has emerged as a very dependable starter.
*Billy Wagner has been nearly perfect.
*Jose Reyes continues to mature as a hitter
*Carlos Delgado has raised his average more than 20 points over the last two weeks and actually now looks like the feared hitter he was last year.
*Barring any setbacks, Pedro looks on track to be back in a few weeks.
*Carlos Beltran is, historically, a seocnd-half force.
*We play 37 of the remaining 75 games (including a makeup against St. Louis) in the second half against sub .500 teams.
We need 1 stud can’t miss player on this team, and quite frankly we don’t have it.
Mike Piazza in his prime could do what Delgado, Beltran and Wright are doing together right now. We need someone who can hit a double in the 7th to score 2 runs no matter who is pitching. If we can’t have a hitter like that then we need a true ace, maybe Pedro can do it, but who knows.
I was symapthetic to Minaya’s problem of what to do with all these vets who should be playing better….but no longer. If they are real vets they will accept whatever role they are given in order to win. Go get that impact player if you can, feelings and egos be damned.
Williams didn’t a fare shake he was rushed back. This should have been Brian Lawrence’s start or Humber’s. Most starters get six ST starts prior to the regular season. He got three minor league rehab assignments and then thrown to the wolves. Now he’s here and ineffective while out of option and with value. The team didn’t want to leave anyone vunerable to put Lawrence on the roster and don’t want to chance Humber getting beat up since he’s trade bait. So Williams a control pitcher was thrown in their and you could tell he wasn’t ready as evident by all the walks. Now Sele looks good and Williams is up what do they do. I think they hoped Alomar could milk him through the start.
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To Ed (RE: Williams)
I think they misjudged the Williams thing totally. They had until July 21 to make a decision on him. He only had two rehab starts in Triple-A. He should could have made three more starts. The ball should have gone to Humber on Sunday. Hell, I might have given it to Aaron Sele. They didn’t have to start Williams Sunday. They had other options.-JD
Hey John, would you keep Alomar up and demote Newhan or Williams when they recall LM later this week?
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To Jay (RE: Demotions)
They can’t demote Williams because he’s out of options and wouldn’t clear. I would probably go with Newhan because once Milledge is up DN won’t get much time.-JD
Hopefully Franco goes because the only person he would accept losing his spot to would be Alomar. Alomar already took the spot talking to Reyes after the lack of hustle play. Then maybe the sage position can be phased out.
John,
does the club realize how unpopular having Franco is becoming amongst the fan base especially with the team needing a right handed backup 1B.
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To Ed (RE: Franco)
I think the organization has a blind spot when it comes to Franco, so in answer to your question, no, they don’t realize it.-JD
I second that question, Mr. Delcos…
A dude has gotta REALLY be sticking to The Talking Points to find anything positive about Franco’s contribution these days.
My hope is that holding onto Alomar is a roundabout way of saying “Franco is terrible but we don’t have the heart to DFA a human interest story”...
Does Willie really believe the things he says about Franco or does he just think he’s supposed to say a guy is still useful because that’s the manager’s job?
Or when we defends a Schoeneweis somehow on the active roster with detached stuff in his leg?
Or so on?
It seems a bit like madness if he can keep believing Franco can contribute and that his roster spot couldn’t be better used in SOME way.
Julio Franco only has 50 ABs this season. While he shouldn’t be on this team, he is hardly the reason that they haven’t been playing well.
Let’s also remember that as far as roster moves go, we can’t blame them all on Willie. Omar is just as responsible for keeping people like Franco and Schoeneweis on the team. Omar is the one who said that Franco would always have a job as long as he was running a team. Who knows if Willie told Omar that he didn’t want him anymore and Omar said “tough, he’s my boy”. Willie can’t throw him under the bus so he’s stuck with those “talking points”.
If Delgado and Beltran played like they did last year a lot of this would not have been an issue. And the Alou injury has hurt a lot more than we thought it would.
Gil,
I agree with you on your assessment of where we are.
Hopefully Carlos has gotten his swing back and can lift the lineup like he did last year. It certainly would take the pressure off many players.
As for Valentine. Since he is injured as many here have said they should platoon him more to find out a bit more about what we have on the bench. It’s not like he is any better.
Hopefully when we get back Milledge can play left. He is tearing up AA and would be a welcome improvement on the ghost of the day in left.
Dave
Left field cracks me up.
WHere is ENDY?!
still disabled? :-(
He has that hammy thing.
probably won’t be back for a month more. But who knows. If he wasn’t DL’d he would have done for us what he did last year and we would not all be abscessing about Ledee, Newhan, et al.
exactly. hopefully he’s back soon.