MLB: Hargrove, Randalph and Gibbons. Should they've been fired?

The baseball season is not even halfway done and we already have 3 firings, more than we had last year during the season.

Why? Well, mainly because all of these team had hopes of performing well and reaching the post-season. Although Seattle and Toronto would be more likely to go in as wild-cards, the Mets were the trendy choice to win the NL East, even after last years' late season debacle.

None performed the way they should/wanted to and therefore the managers took the fall. Should they have? Here's a closer look at the three firings.

John McLaren - Seattle Mariners

Let's see. a .350 winning percentage, 17 games back, a expletive-filled rant that led to nothing and an uninspired team that played lethargically, like the whole team had no interest in winning any game.

During the off-season, the M's acquired some new pieces, including would-be ace Eric Bedard from the Orioles and were expected to make a serious run at the wild-card and maybe even the division crown.

They fell flat on their faces right from the get-go and never recovered. Key players underperformed; J.J. Putz has been injured since the spring, Ichiro is not hitting like he does and the would-be ace has proven to be little more than a number 3 starter.

McLaren's inability to motivate his team proved costly and he was fired with the team sitting dead last without any chances of making a run at the playoffs.

The firing was inevitable, the team now can ride out this season (as painful as it will be) and start thinking about next year.

John  Gibbons - Toronto Blue Jays

At least this year he didn't punch his DH or tried to start a fight with his pitcher. Nonetheless, Gibbons was shown the door on June 20th with the Jays sitting last in the ever competitive AL East.

The Blue Jays, and their fans for that matter, are hopelessly delusional. Even though they play in the AL East, people in the Great White North were really thinking the Jays had a chance to win the division this year.

But what they didn't see was the lack of hitting (made worse by the release of DH Frank Thomas) did not compliment their great pitching. And after the first month of the season, when other teams' bats started to warm up, the Jays' stayed cold, and have remained cold ever since.

But the firing of Gibbons is a surprise because the team is not playing uninspired such as the Mariners. The team plays hard every day and Gibbon doesn't manage poorly; the problem is the team is not as good as the expectations placed on them.

The main problem is up higher, with the general manager J.P. Ricciardi. He did not do much this off-season to improve upon last year's team. He just traded one overrated third baseman for another (Troy Glaus for Scott Rolen) and then released Thomas early in the season saying that his production was "not where we need it to be," well, by doing so the team has had to shuffle DHs, not the most comfortable position for a manger.

Gibbons' team may have been playing poorly, but his firing was more a front-office trying to make a move just for the sake of it, to show its fans that "we're not gonna sit here and don't do anything about it," what they don't realize is that they made the wrong move.

Willie Randolph - New York Mets

Oh boy, I could write all day about this firing but I'll just keep it to the necessary information, for the sake of the readers.

Where do I start? The 3:15 AM New York time firing? No, that's been too documented. The fact that the firing took place in the first game of a road-trip? Nah, not that. Oh wait, I got it.

The team had won 4 of the last six games. Isn't that good?! Doesn't that show that maybe, just maybe the team is starting to play better?

Why not fire him when he comes home following a road trip in which the team was swept in four games by the Padres? The f*ing Padres. In four games.

They wait for him to go 3-3 at a home stand, go all the way west (after a doubleheader no less) and win a game against one of the best AL teams in the Angels, wait until he has the press conference, until he's "done for the day" and THEN you fire him?

Please...

Wanna meet the Mets? That's them right there. No class.

Should he've been fired? Yes, definitely. If a team with this much talent is hovering around .500 after mid-June and you have arguably the best pitcher in the game (the guy that was going to save your season), you ought to win.

But saying that. Don't fire him that way. It's just stupid and classless.

Willie is a good manager, that said, with last year's collapse combined with this year's mediocrity, I understand the move by the Mets, just not the timing.

Meet the Mets? More like Meet the Mess.