Presidents' Day Hodge-Podge

Hey everyone, A Friend of Mr. Glass' back at you again. Me and Sip had a little debate as to whether it was worth posting today, today being a holiday and all, but we decided that the few of you who have a job to go to today would appreciate an update.

Besides, checking out the papers Saturday morning, I came across several stories and blurbs that piqued my interest.

As regular readers of the Mets blogosphere may be aware, Willie Randolph cops a lot of shit from a lot of fans. I'm not just talking about the FireWillies of the world. For those unfamiliar with FireWillie, he's a regular contributor to the message boards over at MetsGeek. There is no momentary lapse in judgment, no ill-fated decision by Randolph that FireWillie has forgotten.

Now look, taking Willie to task for certain in-game decisions he's made is fair game. We as fans have every right to criticize him for mistakes he makes. That time in September when he allowed Braden Looper to blow the save twice in Atlanta? Give Willie hell, he earned it.

So I don't object to that kind of critique. But I do wonder whether we as fans sometimes underestimate the level of influence (or is it interference?) that front office types can wield in playing time decisions.

One of Willie's much bemoaned "decisions" last year was to keep Kaz Ishii in the starting rotation through the first four months of the season.

OK, interlude. Read the Notebook at the bottom of this article: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/story/392381p-332780c.html

Or if you don't feel like reading it there, here's the important part:

Randolph described the second-base job as a "real competition" and said he's been "told by management, for the most part, that we're going to play the best people." The manager added, referring to the $8 million owed this season to Kaz Matsui: "Obviously you have to consider stuff like contracts. That's the reality of the game. But still, when it gets down to it, we're going to try to pick the guy that deserves to win the job."

Let's keep our Kaz's straight here. We're talking about Ishii, but the blurb above about Matsui is instructive. Sometimes things like contracts or front office egos get in the way of wise player decisions, and it wouldn't surprise me if the grief we direct towards Willie for Ishii's playing time doesn't at least deserve to be spread evenly between the manager and his superiors, chief among them Omar Minaya.

Think about it. First-year General Manager Omar Minaya convinces his bosses, the Wilpons, to trade the league-minimum earning Jason Phillips for fifth starter Kaz Ishii and his $2.5 million contract. Is it possible that he instructed Willie to stick with the guy so long as he didn't completely stink up the joint?

I know a lot of us think retrospectively that Ishii was terrible from Day 1, but the truth is that if you look at his game log (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/gamelog?playerId=5006), you'll see that he pretty much traded good start for bad start through the first two months of the season. After that, the wheels never came off exactly, but we all know the story, the guy just wasn't good. No, that's not strong enough. Ishii was bad. Awful even. So he lost his job in the rotation by July 31.

For a lot of us, July 31 came 9 losses too late. We point to Jae Seo. We point to Aaron Heilman. Why on earth did Willie run Ishii out there every fifth day when he had two guys in his queue who consistently performed better throughout 2005?

Well, I don't know that this is the reason necessarily, but it occurs to me that maybe Omar expected the guy he imported to be the fifth starter to actually be the fifth starter. It occurs to me that maybe a first year manager like Willie Randolph wasn't given the same control that a Bobby Cox or Tony LaRussa might have been.

Looking at the quote above about who gets playing time at second base, Willie is saying that the decision in this case is his, but also implicitly that these decisions are not always his own. Sometimes when a player gets playing time incommensurate with his results, it can be instructive to look at the size of the checks the front office is cutting on his behalf before calling for the head of the manager.

Before moving on to the other article I wanted to highlight, one other bit in that Notebook also caught my eye:

Tom Glavine indicated he would be willing to discuss a contract extension with the Mets this spring, allowing him to return to Flushing in 2007.

You know, we here at Yankees 2000 give Glavine a lot of shit. Tommy the Spy. Benedict Glavine. Tom "Nina Myers" Glavine. Traitorous nicknames come fast and furious with Tommy Ballgame.

Glavine appeared for all the world like he was still on the Braves' payroll in his first season with the Mets, and then again during the second half of 2004 and the first half of 2005, fueling speculation that he was, in fact, an embedded Brave. Like the suspected embedded Yankee Mike Stanton, it seemed the most plausible explanation for the drop-off in quality from Glavine was that he was still taking orders from John Schuerholtz or Bobby Cox.

But you know what? For all the crap I give Glavine, I still kind of like him. He's a class act. He's taken his lumps as Mets. He lost his two frornt teeth for chrissakes. He's only shown flashes of being the pitcher we signed him to be.

But the truth is that now, with the team looking like it has a serious shot of making the playoffs, there's a part of me that respects that Glavine has been with this team through some seriously bad times, and I'm happy for him that he may have a chance to be part of it's honest-to-goodness renaissance.

So here's to you, Tommy. For your sake and mine I hope you find the same success throughout 2006 that you did in the second half of 2005.

So what else is going on? Right. Ladies and gentlemen, the award for Crazy Motherfucker of the Year goes to...

Albert Belle!

As you can read about here, http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2334039, it turns out Albert Belle tracked his ex-girlfriend with a GPS monitor, meaning he could locate her anywhere on the planet if he were so inclined. Now I'm not sure how he did that necessarily. Did he implant it under her skin like that ex-marine did on 24 during the fourth season? Who knows?

A month back or so I read an article in the Boston Globe that basically speculated that the reason Albert Belle would never make the Hall of Fame was that he was too much of an asshole to ever get voted in. Looking at his numbers (http://www.baseball-reference.com/b/belleal01.shtml) they really are quite impressive. They may not warrant enshrinement in Cooperstown necessarily, but they warrant consideration.

But as any follower of baseball throughout the 1990s knows, Belle was basically a jerk through and through. And if it's the case that he's not making the Hall because of his bad behavior, well, stories like this one can't help.

Anyway, that's all I got. Good weekend these past few days. Went down to Baltimore, good town. Check out the Blue Moon diner for breakfast if you're ever in the area -- you may need to wait but the hashbrowns are worth it.

Saturday and Sunday morning found me in D.C., which gave me a chance to see the World War II monument in the National Mall for the first time. I hate to say it, but the monument is a little underwhelming. I think the idea is that you're supposed to feel completely surrounded by the memorial, which is meant to evoke the all-encompassing nature of the struggle and the nation's commitment to winning it.

The monument is dug into the ground so that from most vantages the only things visible are the rest of the monument and the George Washington monument rising in the distance. The symbolism there makes sense enough, but at the same time I found it a little wanting, which is really too bad.

But let me leave you on a baseball note. I was reminded yesterday of that awesome billboard of Dwight Gooden that was on the side of that building in midtown for what must have been 10 years. That billboard was the best. Can you imagine if the Mets' farm system produced a guy who turned pro and put together the kinds of season Doc had in 1984 and '85? Mike Pelfrey, we're looking at you, buddy, we need this.

- A.F.O.M.G.