2008 All Star Game manager Clint Hurdle of the Rockies has chosen our very own Willie Randolph as an assistant on this year’s squad. The Padres Bud Black will also help out.

Good for Willie, thats an honor to be chosen by a fellow manager.

Willie Randolph spoke today to WFAN’s Mike and the Mad Dog. I usually give some quotes but I think today it would not do this justice. Now, don’t get me wrong there is nothing over the top or extreme here but Willie’s tone is definitely feisty. Even Chris Russo called him feisty towards the end of the interview. So, if you can, give it a listen. I enjoyed it. Since I’m looking to give Willie the benefit of the doubt, I may have heard more positive things than others will. Willie sounds like he has no problem telling any of his players how he feels and what he expects out of them. So, unless his critics are mostly basing their opinions on strategy, which most of the time is subjective, I don’t know what else he or anyone could do.

The link to the interview is here.

According to Bart Hubbuch of the NY Post’s Mets Blog David Wright told reporters that the Mets are going to have a players only meeting today at Yankee Stadium.

According to this post from Hubbuch and from Willie Randolph on WFAN today, Carlos Delgado and Billy Wagner already spoke about Wagner’s post game comments.

Since it was Wright who made the media aware of this pending meeting, I’m hoping it wasn’t Wright who called it. It will be interesting to find out who did.

From Bart Hubbuch:

6:25 P.M. UPDATE: It turns out that Willie Randolph and the coaching staff were also involved. The meeting lasted between 30-45 minutes, with Delgado and Wagner among the players speaking.

There has been growing discontent within the Mets fan base regarding Willie Randolph, somehow making him solely responsible for the mediocre play by the Mets over the last 100 or so games. While Willie has had a hand in some of the reasons why the Mets have been so disappointing, the idea that he’s responsible is overblown.

Is firing Willie going to make Carlos Delgado the hitter he was pre-2007?

Is firing Willie going to suddenly allow Jose Reyes to focus?

Is firing Willie going to make Carlos Beltran a better hitting in clutch situations?

The bottom line is that the players are not executing and I don’t know a manager that would replace Willie that can cure those problems. Willie can’t pick up a bat or throw a pitch for them.

Firing Willie would make some fans happy, and the front office’s hand may be forced to fire Willie simply as a public relations move. I simply don’t believe it changes all that much. In order for the Mets to play better, Willie doesn’t have to be a better manager, the Mets have to be better players.

Bottom line, you are grown men. Do your jobs and Willie can keep his.

I am normally a glass half-full person, but after yesterday’s loss and the Mets pathetic showing in their series at Shea against the Washington Nationals, I’ve had it. I’m dumping the glass.

This team has no heart. Yup, I said it… NO heart.

Wags, DWright, Moises, Johan, Mainer, Ryan Church and Brian Schneider are the only ones on this team who have shown they are gamers; so let’s get that out of the way. I’d even put Nelson Figueroa in there.

However, guys like Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado, Jose Reyes, and Oliver Perez aren’t getting it done. Reyes has become a shell of his former self and has reverted to that pre-2006 player than hacks at everything. He had a week and a half where he appeared to be getting on track, but now he’s off again.

We all know that Delgado has been hit or miss; it’s been mostly miss this year. I can’t say I’m too surprised after last year’s swoon. He told everyone that would listen in the spring that he broke down everything this off-season and re-taught himself how to hit. Unfortunately, his re-teaching has made Carlos Delgado into Wilson Delgado.

The most disappointing person, to me, is Carlos Beltran. He was very boastful in the spring, telling reporters that the Mets were this year’s team to beat. They sure are (as my Phillies fan brother keeps telling me); teams just keep beating them and beating them.

Beltran has done absolutely nothing this year, aside from his spring declaration. I especially enjoyed watching him yesterday; he swings at the first pitch with runners and first and third and two outs. Perfect opportunity to hit in the clutch and work the count; of course, that didn’t happen.

I’ll keep it short on Perez. I have zero confidence in him when he’s on the mound. Someone, anyone want to tell me where the passion is? Where is the hard work that this team was built on when Willie Randolph took over as manager in 2005?

I know Gary Grund has called for an overhaul of the coaching staff, but I can’t put all of the blame on Willie and Co. Is he the one that hits a wall in the 4th inning? Is he the one that can’t play fundamental baseball? The answers are no.

Sure Willie will take the fall, but you can blame Reyes, Beltran, Delgado, et al, for his ouster.

There will be some that believe that since it’s May 16 that there is plenty of time. It’s an excuse. This team is running out of time… and fast. Losing two of three, or getting swept by the Yankees, and

Billy Wagner said it best after Thursday’s game:

“We’re not earning our money.”

That is an understatement.

This team is currently under .500 (74-75) since June 1st of 2007. Yes, just about 150 games that totals out to, and the Mets and under .500 in that timespan. Obviously, some blame has to be towards the players, but you would be wrong not to point blame in the direction of the current coaching staff as well.

Willie Randolph is clearly no genius when it comes to managing a bullpen, and the in-game managerial mistakes are becoming a constant trend these days. He is simply losing his players, not physically, but mentally.

What is the solution?

I propose the Mets front office give the rest of the month to Willie to show signs of a turnaround. That’s three games against the Yankees on the road, three against the Braves on the road, three against the Rockies on the road, three against the Marlins at home, then four at home against the Dodgers. I would call that a fair chance to prove that you’re better than a .500 team.

If Willie fails to do so and this team remains to seesaw their way through May, there should be no choice but to find an alternative and hope for the best. At the very worst, you will get a head start on a possible manager option for 2009, but with four months of baseball left to play, and with the team still in contention, that is clearly not the motive. The passive, laid back style of play is simply not working right now and the way Billy Wagner has made his presence felt through the media regarding this awful play proves that Randolph is losing his players trust.

Perhaps the best option is right under their nose and could be Triple-A manager Ken Oberkfell. After bouncing around the independent leagues hoping to land a managerial position with a minor league affiliate, Oberkfell caught on with the Phillies organization when then-Phillies GM Lee Thomas gave him a shot with low Class A Piedmont in 1997. He remained there until 1999, leading the Boll Weevils to the playoffs in 1998.

After parting ways with the Phillies, the Mets picked him up and brought him in to coach their then Class-A affiliate, the Capital City Bombers. After one season with them, Oberkfell took over Class A St. Lucie, leading the team to the playoffs in 2002 and winning the Florida State League title in 2003.

In 2004, he moved up to coach Double-A Binghamton, and finished 10 games over .500, making the postseason.

He moved up again last year, this time to Double-A Binghamton, where the B-Mets finished 10 games over .500 and made the postseason. Counting this year’s appearance, Oberkfell has four consecutive playoff berths at three different levels.

He has managed the club’s AAA affiliate for the past three seasons and is currently in his fourth season managing the team. In his rookie season (2005) as a manager in the Triple-A level, he was named the Minor League Manager of the Year by Baseball America, winning the International League’s south division with a 79-65 record by 14 games.

This man has undoubtedly paid his dues with the organization to receive consideration for the job. If the Mets don’t improve over the next few weeks, could we be hearing this man’s name more and more as the team’s coaching staff becomes more in question?

In his column today in the NY Post Kevin Kernan has some quotes from David Wright regarding Willie Randolph that may surprise some. David told Kernan that:

“There is another side to Randolph, I’ve seen him throw chairs. I’ve seen him flip tables. I’ve seen him kick people in the butt, The motivation is there, now it’s completely up to us as players to go out there and do our jobs and to get it done.”

So, maybe the Wally Backman, Larry Bowa and Lou Pinella side of Willie is not talked about much, but according to Wright there is a side to Willie that can be Mark Foleyesque. Maybe if he were to be thrown out of games the way Bobby Cox is, just to prove to us that he cares, he’d accumulate as many rings as Cox has. Yeah, and with all that talent for all those many years in Atlanta, one ring would have been suffice here in NY? … No, folks, he would have been getting tossed from games elsewhere a long long time ago.

According to Dan Graziano of the Star Ledger, the Mets brass is planning on a reevaluation at the end of the month.

The team is disappointed that they are not playing up to their potential, and will look at the idea of replacing manager Willie Randolph. However, if the Mets remain in contention, Randolph will likely keep his job through the season.

Right now, I think its too early to replace a manager, we still have to see what we’ve got. Yet, if we’re still hovering around .500 come June, I’d be in favor of pulling the trigger on Willie. If we’re still around .500 come June, it means lots of the team is still under performing, like Carlos Beltran and Oliver Perez. Under performing, as well as having a fan base that seems like it wants to win more than the team wants to, is a sure sign that its time for a change.

Hat tip to Mets Blog for the link.

Took a look around the interwebs and some sports talk radio and this is what I found.

First up, Brian Schneider visited with Benigno and Roberts on their midday show on WFAN. Scheider told them even though he “hasn’t swung a bat yet” if they need him in an emergency he would “go out there”.

Asked if he had any thoughts on Oliver Perez, Brian said

“I just want to see an adjustment” when struggling with control. “I’ll go out there”, to the mound, “and tell him I don’t care if you throw the next two pitches in the dirt or if you hit this guy”… “He has to make an adjustment and I didn’t see that”.

Then I found these two nuggets that could kinda make you of scratch your head. First Adam Rubin of the Daily News tells us how higher-ups in Mets management mulled over the idea of replacing Rick Peterson this past off-season and Ed Ryan of Mets Fever points us towards a ESPN Jayson Stark article that reads:

So can Barry Zito ever get straightened out? We surveyed a half-dozen scouts and executives, and we found only one who thought he could. And that was a scout who said his only hope was to get reunited with Rick Peterson, “the only [pitching coach] Barry Zito ever had success with.”

So, baseball “experts” mull over whether Peterson was the problem with the Mets last year. Then six months later he might be the answer to one of the biggest flops in baseball free agency history…jeez.

Tim Marchman of the NY Sun has had enough of Willie Randolph an writes there’s nothing that Willie can do to change his mind:

It’s time for the Mets to fire Willie Randolph. They should fire him if his team sweeps the Arizona Diamondbacks this weekend. They should fire him if his team wins all three games by a total score of 27-0. They should fire him if his team puts on such a display this weekend that the greater Phoenix area literally burns to the ground around them, lit by nothing but the intensity of their passion and brilliance. The man’s time is up, and nothing can change that.

Jason at Faith and Fear in Flushing could not agree more.

NY Times Ben Shpigel gives us a pre-preview of the Arizona series in a small post he titled The Mets Past, Present and Future in Arizona.

Mets.com Marty Noble tells us about some bad memories Billy Wagner has from a ball that ricocheted off his head ten years ago in Phoenix.

Jeff Bercovici of Portfolio.com has a story about ex-Met Lenny Dykstra and some trouble he’s having with his publishing venture.

Lastly, Matt Cerrone over at Mets Blog writes about a story from the NY Post’s page six regarding Carlos Beltran’s 31st birthday party at Sofrito. Among other guest’s Jennifer Lopez was in attendance. Matt goes on to quote the page six story:

“Just when you thought it couldn’t get any wilder, Jennifer Lopez grabbed the birthday boy and shook her world-renowned booty. Then, the crowd improvised a song with the lyric, “We’re going to win the World Series.”

Then Matt totally cracked me up with this remark to finish up his post:

…take note, as this may be the first and last time the term world-renowned booty appears on MetsBlog…