You can’t script baseball: In defense of Willie Randolph

This ain’t March, man…but it’s still only April!

The murmurs from fans and sportswriters alike have become more and more pervasive with every passing game and one thing has become clear: there is at the very least a loud minority that will never accept Willie regardless of what the team does.

3) Willie is improving. You may not want to acknowledge it, but Willie is managing very differently than he did in 2007. He is constantly shuffling the lineup to see what works, double switching, has tried two (albeit unsuccessful) suicide squeezes. He has even started to manage the bullpen better, despite the fact that no manager can successfully manage a bullpen that has to pitch 4+ innings every single day. Willie’s biggest flaw, in my opinion, is his stubbornness, and I think he has been working on that so far this season.

4) Not everything is Willie’s fault. I know that one is hard to believe, but it’s true. A manager is a terrific scapegoat, because it’s hard to pin a loss on one player. But think about how crazy it is - would Bobby Cox have motivated the Mets to come back on Wednesday? Would Joe Girardi have willed Heilman not to give up grand slams? Would Jim Leyland get Delgado out of his slump? Please. The reality is that fans are frustrated, which is understandable, and just want to see some accountability. I think most fans who want him fired think firing Willie would show that the organization cares about winning. Well, that’s not really true…firing Willie after an over .500 April would be a knee-jerk reaction that would likely throw the entire team off course in the short term and wouldn’t necessarily improve the team in the long term.