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Mets are winning now because they were due

Shaun Powell

July 17, 2008

The hottest team in baseball obviously started hitting in the clutch, getting big innings from the starting pitching, played smarter baseball and showed a killer instinct once the new manager came along and made a profound request:

"Pretty please?"

That probably wasn't what Jerry Manuel said verbatim in the clubhouse after he took the job, but my guess is it's close enough. Manuel asked the Mets to play better, just as Willie Randolph, the man he replaced, did previously. And it's not as if the players' ear canals suddenly became unclogged and miraculously allowed them to relate better to Manuel. It could be the Mets began winning not because of the managerial change, but because ... they were due.

Yeah, I know. Sounds radical, crazy even.

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But not to Billy Wagner.

"Look," the Mets closer said. "We were going to start winning. And we knew if we got our stride, it wouldn't matter who was steering the ship."

We've seen Wagner ruin a few games, but when it comes to being forthright and honest, Wagner rarely blows it. Basically, Wagner confirmed a point that many in sports seem to miss. Managers, as well as coaches, don't matter all that much.

Repeat: Not all that much.

As you watch the transformation of the Mets, who take a nine-game winning streak into Cincinnati tonight, and wonder how they turned it around, the reflex reaction is to chalk it up to the change. This guy Manuel is a genius, right? Well, actually, he's the same guy who was fired from the White Sox in '03. He just seems smarter today, now that his team's on a big roll, and now that Randolph, whose team famously choked away a seven-game lead last September, is history.

Truth is, Manuel probably isn't all that much different from what he was in Chicago, no better, no worse. Maybe he didn't win there because the team lacked enough of the right pieces. And maybe he's winning now because, for the Mets, the time is right and everything's falling into place.

For example, somewhere Randolph must be wondering why Mike Pelfrey's development waited until now to go nuts, and why the Mets didn't get three games with the Giants, three with Colorado and now four with the Reds (that's 10 against weak company) when he was desperate for a winning streak.

In the final days of Randolph's reign, Wagner said there was "tension" in the clubhouse that generated from Randolph's fragile job status, not from Randolph himself. Randolph was fired because "they had to blame somebody," Wagner said.

Yes, for the most part, managers and coaches are symbols of blame when the players simply don't get it done, for whatever reason.

"It was up to us to turn it around," David Wright said.

This is a rough guesstimate, but 85 percent of the coaches and managers in sports don't matter all that much. They get far too much credit when they win and are the first to get whacked when they lose. Someone once said a good baseball manager is the equivalent of a decent middle reliever. Not great; decent. Therefore, how many wins a season is a good manager worth? Five? Less?

And what about Joe Torre, three games under .500 with the Dodgers and headed nowhere fast? Is he suddenly a buffoon? Or do you suppose he just doesn't have Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Mariano Rivera, a few solid starting pitchers and Yankee millions anymore?

As a sports society, we place far too much importance on managers and coaches. Absolutely, a handful are special and separate themselves from the pack. But the pack is rather large, and no offense to Manuel and Randolph, they're pack rats.

Mike D'Antoni, the new man with the Knicks, is about to discover just how fast his offense will rev without Steve Nash starting the break and Amare Stoudemire finishing it.

The Mets are winning, and good for them, but really, now: They were due. The schedule fell in their favor, Pelfrey settled into a groove and Jose Reyes couldn't boot grounders and muff throws all season. Plus, they're in a flawed division and they did spend a fortune on Johan Santana.

Given all that, their season was bound to accelerate at some point, whether they replaced Randolph or not. In the end, he didn't mean all that much when they won, and wasn't the main reason they lost.

He was like most managers, who are only as good as their starting pitching.