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Willie Randolph--greatest Mets' manager ever?

Bret Sabermetric Dec 12 2005 08:13 AM

Not yet, but do you know how close he is? According to Yancy's arbitrary chart, http://ultimatemets.com/managers.php which sets the bar for managers' winning percentage at 200 games, all Willie has to do to climb to the top of the chart is win 35 of his first 38 games this season, and he's at .590, nosing out DJ as the best ever. Go, Willie!

Bret Sabermetric Dec 12 2005 08:19 AM Re: Willie Randolph--greatest Mets' manager ever?

Of course, to maintain that percentage, he'll need to go 73-51 the rest of the way, for a total of 108-54, which is, oddly enough, the franchise record, held by Davey in 1986.

Zvon Dec 12 2005 04:09 PM

....theres no way to make a fair judgement this early in his managerial career. I did notice that he had a comment about the Mets being picked as the favorite in the NL east this upcoming season by alot of sources. He said he doesnt think they should be picking the Mets as favorites.....yet. So he's already feeling the pressure that the 2006 seasons gonna bring, and this year should be a very telling test.

seawolf17 Dec 12 2005 04:18 PM

Come on, Bret. There's nothing "arbitrary" about a ranking -- by wins, losses, percentage, or anything else. There's no value judgment in that statistic; by your logic, Kenny Greer is the best pitcher in Mets history. Get over yourself.

Bret Sabermetric Dec 12 2005 05:39 PM

Get over yourself. How'd this get to be about me, again? "Arbitrary" applies to Yancy's decision to set 200 games as the number he allows to count in his "Met lifetime percentage" tally. Perfectly arbitrary, perfectly reasonable, perfectly fine with me. You're really going to have to try much harder to turn this into a "BS all about his own obnoxious bad self" thread, but I'm sure you haven't even got started yet.

KC Dec 12 2005 06:23 PM

>>>How'd this get to be about me, again?<<< You're one big enigma, but you're our enigma.

Yancy Street Gang Dec 12 2005 07:13 PM

For the record, I wasn't offended by the word "arbitrary."

seawolf17 Dec 12 2005 09:10 PM

I apologize, Bret. I guess I always assume that you're being caustic just to be caustic.

Bret Sabermetric Dec 12 2005 09:13 PM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Dec 12 2005 09:15 PM

Thank you, sir, for being a competent reader of English. [OE: intended for Yancy, but it applies in context to Seawolf as well. A soft answer turneth away wrath.] I was thinking about this thread, and why it occured to me (it seems kinda pointless, dunnit?)--I wonder if Willie will be in danger of getting fired when the .590 lifetime mark becomes unreachable in a single season. I mean, Willie will need to have sexual congress with a goat on the mound as "Finiculi Finicula" is playing to get fired this season, whatever record he puts up. But if he has another 83-78 season, that will mean he'll need to go something like 121-41 in 2007 to get to .590. That ain't happening, but it's still possible mathematically. But if he then starts off the 2007 season poorly, going say 30- 42, that's the point at which he 1) probably loses his job AND 2) needs to win more games than are remaining in that season to go .590 lifetime. There's probably more to it than this, of course, but I'm thinking that the point at which a manager loses his job is probably susceptible to a fairly simple formula. We all think that there are a variety of subtle factors at play here--length of contract x popularity index divided by track record plus affability with the press, etc. but I wonder if the hundreds of managerial firings tell us more than we know offhand about the point at which managers are let go.

Yancy Street Gang Dec 12 2005 09:15 PM

Actually, if he goes .590 every year for the next ten years, his lifetime pct. won't get to .590. But I don't think such a streak would get him fired.

Bret Sabermetric Dec 12 2005 09:21 PM

Yancy Street Gang wrote: Actually, if he goes .590 every year for the next ten years, his lifetime pct. won't get to .590. But I don't think such a streak would get him fired. No, certainly not. I was wondering how far he can afford to go under .590 and still keep his job. I think Willie is safe through several more seasons of 83-79, in fact. It's just that after a few more of these, he's in danger of losing his job with a very slow start, the sort that Torre survived last year, mainly because of his accumulated wins in the bank.

Nymr83 Dec 12 2005 11:20 PM

i think to be fair you need to give a guy two full years before you even start talking abot dismissing him. i didn't alike alot of what Randolph did this year but i felt he was still not as bad as Howe (i have nothing to prove this, just my own feelings.) Randolph deserves another go at it and with the roster as presently constituted i'd say 85 wins gets him another yeaer, under 75 gets him fired, and anything in-between depends on other factors (how the year ends, who gets hurt, etc)

Yancy Street Gang Dec 13 2005 07:15 AM

A 5-22 August would probably get him fired. I think the Mets have enough good players that they won't do badly enough to get him fired, but I see what Bret's saying. At some point, if the Mets don't at least make the post season, Willie will be held accountable. He doesn't have years of success to fall back on. But Davey Johnson did, and that didn't save him in 1990.

seawolf17 Dec 13 2005 08:23 AM

Bret Sabermetric wrote: I mean, Willie will need to have sexual congress with a goat on the mound as "Finiculi Finicula" is playing to get fired this season Just think what that would do to SNY's ratings!

Bret Sabermetric Dec 13 2005 08:33 AM

Yancy Street Gang wrote: But Davey Johnson did, and that didn't save him in 1990. DJ's firing was strange. You'd think he would have had enough wins in the bank to keep his job at least through the season. At several stops, DJ got his ass fired despite having a decent track record on that team. That noted, I still want to figure out some kind of mathematical formula to predict managerial firings. What do you think of this: a running chart of all 30 franchises, their managers, and their current status: "Team Owns No Ax," (i.e., "Totally Safe, ) "Ax In Shed" (i.e., "No Immediate Danger,") "Ax Being Sharpened" (i.e., "One Long Losing Streak Away From Firing") "Head On Block" (i.e., "Could Go Any Moment") AND "The Ax Is Fallling" (i.e., "Done Deed Just Waiting For Announcement") Right now, for example, Willie's status is "Ax In Shed" and likely to stay there through the 2005 season.

smg58 Dec 13 2005 09:23 AM

Nymr83 wrote: i think to be fair you need to give a guy two full years before you even start talking abot dismissing him. i didn't alike alot of what Randolph did this year but i felt he was still not as bad as Howe (i have nothing to prove this, just my own feelings.) In Howe's defense, he was put into a situation where success was impossible. He was far from perfect, but I can't imagine anybody doing well with the personnel decisions and injuries the 03 and 04 teams had. Randolph faces a potentially hazardous situation this year. Success is not only possible, but expected even by people who aren't Mets fans. The pressure is most definitely on now.

Johnny Dickshot Dec 13 2005 09:29 AM

The W-L record will matter more this year than last. But the greatest danger to WWSB is and remains getting on the bad side of any of his no-trade-claused, expensive, longterm players (Pedro & Beltran, mostly). NL East is a pretty safe place to be Cox: Totally safe; he's prolly the only skipper who will leave when he wants to and no swooner. Manuel: On the same schedule as WWSB, will certainly get a chance this year before he awakes dreaming of axes. Girardi: Honeymooner with zero expectations: Completely safe Robinson: Hard to axe politically; but may be asked to step down if and when a new ownership group takes control.

Nymr83 Dec 13 2005 09:29 AM

i wasnt expecting either of Howe's teams to make the playoffs, but they still played even worse than (i) expected.

Bret Sabermetric Dec 13 2005 09:54 AM

What's the record for most money remaining on the contract of a fired manager, do you suppose? The trend of course has been for managers to be let go with ever-increasingly long golden parachutes. There's probably a pretty good article to be written (already written?) on this trend. In the 1940s and 1950s, it was rare for a manager to be let go if he was owed very much money contractually, and owners balked at paying them not to manage, a concept that's become SOP. Nowadays, a manager working the final season of a multiple-year deal is virtually a lame duck in April, and a year's pay for (in effect) severence is typical, a la Art Howe. So one way to measure job security, I think, is to measure backwards from the beginning of the final year on the contract. Someone working with two years to go for example, may be considered to be in a make-or-break position (with different standards of what constitutes "make" for that particular club.). So where does Willie stand in that regard? Is he in the second year of a three-year deal, at a relatively affordable rate? That's what I recall, but I could be wrong.