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Most Valuable Stayer

Let me say that I'm glad that Willie Randolph will be brought back for next season. I don't think it ever should have been an issue.

What happened was not Willie's fault. I've been asked by about 1962 different people where I am placing the blame. For me it's a simple order to the list: 1) Players 2) The person who picked the players. If Willie makes the list, it's somewhere down at the bottom, probably just below Chan Ho Park.

Let's look at where we were when Willie was hired: pathetically hopeless.
Let's look at where we are now: just plain pathetic

There were 20 victories separating the line between "pathetically hopeless" and "just plain pathetic", but only 1 (or 2) victories separting "just plain pathetic" from "champion."

That's the residual bitterness talking, but the reality of it is that the Mets are a lot better with Willie Randolph than without him. Willie is a hunch manager, but for the most part, his hunches are pretty good, and I think you can attribute the team's record of 26-17 in games decided via walk-off to his instincts for making the right move at the right time.

You can question every manager's bullpen usage, so I'm not going to gripe about that. Yes, it would be nice to have a manager with a little more fire, but Willie's approach has been right significantly more often than it's been wrong. Stability is important. I want the manager of this team around for a long time, and I'd like the general manager to be in place for a long time.

On that note, I like Omar Minaya, but let's acknowledge he had a lousy year. At the end of the day, as Omar likes to say, Jon Adkins, Ben Johnson, Ambiorix Burgos, Jason Vargas, were pretty worthless, and boy it might have been nice to have had Heath Bell, Brian Bannister, and Matt Lindstrom. What's to say that they would have been productive Mets in 2007? Nothing, but what was the collective value of what you received in return?

I've already addressed the player with which I have the most grief, so I'm not going to get into all that again (though doing a search of "Tom Glavine" and various profanities provided better entertainment value than I got Sunday). My quibbles with the other players and my requests as to who comes and goes, I'll address at another time.

Let me end by citing something from Metpast that I feel is important to remind everyone during their various stages of anger. This organization gave Davey Johnson and Bobby Valentine six full seasons each. Willie Randolph has had three years, and while he may not be at the level of those two predecessors, I'm still of the belief that he could be. And as long as I feel that way, it's an easy call on my part as to how I feel about him as a manager.

True Metvine haters know...Tom Glavine was the third starting pitcher in Mets history to allow 7+ runs in 1/3 of an inning or less (joining the long-since-forgiven Bobby Jones and scuffballer Mike Scott), and the first to do so at Shea Stadium.

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