No Accountability For Mets

The Mets baffled everybody by holding a nine-hour press conference on Monday to announce...the firing of two coaches (and reassignment of a few others). Yes, that was it.

Did they really need to hold a press conference for that? Omar Minaya, Jerry Manuel, and Jeff Wilpon took turns showing that there’s no accountability in the world of the Mets.

Here’s what I heard Wilpon saying on Monday (keep in mind, I’m just paraphrasing here):

“What happened this season was unacceptable. But we decided to keep Omar Minaya around because when he came on board after the 2004 season, he took a Mets franchise that was seemingly irrelevant and in five short years turned them into an embarrassing laughingstock.

"Not everybody has the talent to do that. Instead of creating a plan and vision for future stability, we’re going to continue to put our finger in the dike and keep on plugging holes.

“Today we’re announcing the firings of Luis Alicea and Sandy Alomar Sr., because, quite frankly, the failure of 2009 was all their fault. Our pitching staff was 20th in the league in ERA and walked 616 batters, which is just three shy of the franchise record, and every one of our pitchers regressed this season, so we’re rewarding pitching coach Dan Warthen by keeping him on the staff.

"I mean, we almost set a team record for walks; isn’t that good?

"Razor Shines will stay with the team. Mets base-runners were thrown out at home at an alarming rate this season, but firing him may hurt his feelings, so we’ll keep him around.

"And who has a cooler name than Razor? In fact, I want everybody to start referring to me as Razor Wilpon.

“Omar and Jerry Manuel must step up and be successful next season or else—or else we’ll give both of them contract extensions.

"We saw what a good job Rex Ryan has been doing with the Jets, and we tried to lure him away from them, but he wouldn’t budge. So we had no choice but to stick with Manuel. Who else are we going to get?

"And besides, we like the fact that he’s always laughing, even when there isn’t anything remotely funny going on around him. And since we hold nobody accountable—and that includes Fred and myself (well, except for Alicea and Alomar)—we’ve kept on our medical staff as well.

"So next season, Mets fans can expect more of the same bumbling failure as the last few years.

"Why should the results be any different if the same people are going to keep running the show? Again, 2009 was unacceptable, so our philosophy will be to ignore it and do nothing about it while keeping our fingers crossed for next season.”