Randolph not alone in Mets mess

Willie Randolph should tell the New York Mets to take his job and shove it.
He's unappreciated by ownership. His own players won't take the chances presented to them to defend him. The fan base has turned against him, booing his every pitching change at Shea Stadium. And his general manager, the overrated architect of this team and its collapsing players, refuses to commit one way or the other about Randolph's future, leaving his manager in perpetual limbo.
Randolph met with Mets owners Jeff and Fred Wilpon on Monday, a Memorial Day that threatened to be remembered as his last day in charge in Queens. The trouble with New York's National League team has reached a fever pitch in recent days, with the Mets stumbling to a 23-26 mark out of the gate on the heels of their epic collapse down the stretch last season. Randolph has come under fire for his inability to turn things around despite baseball's second-highest payroll and a line-up full of high-priced stars that most teams would kill for.
But take a closer look at this Mets team. Is their character to go along with the talent in the clubhouse? Closer Billy Wagner calls out position players for their lack of production. Third baseman David Wright, the franchise cornerstone, keeps his opinions about Randolph to himself. Jose Reyes, the dynamic shortstop, pouts and sulks his way into slumps at the plate. Can these fragile egos really come together to win a championship for the first time since 1986?
The 2007 collapse still looms large over New York. How could it not? Blowing a seven-game lead on September 12 will do that to a team. And Randolph isn't a manager that fits with the city's fiery demeanor. His calm, steady hand is very similar to that of his mentor, former Yankees' boss (little b) Joe Torre, and it only works when the team is winning. He's ripped as passive and unsure of himself when his team is losing, labeled afraid to shake things up because he won't tip over the clubhouse spread or throw a chair.
Still, Randolph isn't the guy signing the checks. The goat in all this is general manager Omar Minaya, a man who gets a pass from the media in very much the same way that Doc Rivers does in Boston because of how likeable and accessible he is. Fact is that Minaya has spent lavishly since taking charge in 2005 and doesn't yet have a World Series appearance to show for it. Let's go over some of Minaya's blunders that have left Randolph with a roster that isn't quite as good as the names on it seem to suggest.
--Johan Santana
He became the immediate ace of a poor pitching staff, but how is that $25.5 million in salary going to look in 2013 when he's in his mid-30s? Santana was seen as the missing piece and was a knee-jerk signing by Minaya, a public relations solution to a festering pitching problem who has delivered average numbers at best. He's not the same dominant Santana he was in Minnesota.
--Carlos Beltran
This seemed like a good signing at the time, with Beltran coming off a dazzling postseason that helped the Houston Astros to within one game of the 2004 World Series. The Mets outbid the Yankees for Beltran, but his production hasn't been worth the seven-year, $119-million deal that he signed. Grade him as incomplete -- he was the right man at the time, but that doesn't do much to help the Mets right now.
--Carlos Delgado
In a word, yikes. All of that money for a .235 hitter who can't drive in runs anymore? Minaya fell in love with a name here. He's actually paying the Florida Marlins $4 million this year for the pleasure of watching Delgado spin himself into the ground on curveballs in the dirt.
--The starting rotation
A payroll of $140 million has to buy something better than a pitcher who has walked 37 batters in 53.2 innings (Oliver Perez), a pitcher who has given up 63 hits in 49 innings and walked one more batter than he has struck out (Mike Pelfrey), a guy who complains that opposing teams are cheering too loudly from the dugout (Nelson Figueroa) and a guy who collapses during the second half of the season (John Maine). Not too many teams can have any sort of sustained success rolling out one of these guys every fifth day. Teams don't have a consistent chance to win when they have poor starting pitching, and the Mets' rotation is very average at best.
--The bullpen
Aaron Heilman, a man that some Mets' fans want to see in the starting rotation, has a 5.81 ERA in 24 appearances. Jorge Sosa's 4-1 record is deceiving -- he has a 7.06 ERA, the highest on the staff. Duaner Sanchez still hasn't recovered from an cab accident last season, leaving him with a separated non-throwing shoulder, a shaken psyche and a trouble finding the plate (eight walks in 16.2 innings pitched).
And then we have Wagner, a guy who is producing on the field (0.43 ERA, 10 saves in 12 chances, four walks in 21 innings pitched) and killing the clubhouse with his big mouth. Wagner has popped off several times about the lack of fire in the Mets clubhouse, railing against the lack of leadership that the every day players have shown. The problem with this is that Wagner has appeared in only 19 of the club's 50 games. There's only so much that he can do on the field and only so much that the team's position players will listen to coming from a pitcher before they start to get sick of his mouth.
And finally, the crown jewel of the Minaya mess....
--Pedro Martinez
Here's my theory on how the Pedro negotiations went with Minaya: Pedro was baiting the Boston Red Sox into giving him extra guaranteed years on his contract, winning the PR battle and using Minaya, his good friend, as leverage. Pedro convinced the Mets to give him a third guaranteed year, which Boston reluctantly agreed to match, and Pedro took the news back to Minaya to drive up his price even further. What he didn't expect, and what nobody in baseball expected, was that any general manager would give a frail 33-year-old four guaranteed years. I think that Minaya agreed to offer Pedro the fourth year and Pedro turned to him and said, 'Really? Okay! I'll come to New York!' He damn well knew that the Red Sox weren't coming close to that.
Sure enough, here we are three years later, and Pedro is finished. He had one great year, his first in New York, and has been a bust since, injuring his rotator cuff and losing any juice that he had left on his fastball. Pedro's latest drama revolves around a strained hamstring that has kept him out of action since his first start of this season, an injury that shelved him for two full months. He'll make his next start on June 3, his second of the season, just in time to remind the fans in Queens of who they should really be blaming for this embarrassing bunch of losers.