What would you do?

Tell me I'm not the only one who remembers that show. I don't even remember the content, so much as the advertisements for it and the "wha- wha- what would you do?!?" theme music. Is that show still on? I wouldn't know. It's probably been replaced by Hannah Montana.

The title, however, is ever relevant to the current state of the Mets. I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but this Mets team has been playing like one for just about a year now, and there truthfully is not a whole lot else to talk about besides the Mets' inconsistency, gutlessness, and what should done about it. Everyone's talking about Willie Randolph, and there's only so many times you can say the same thing in slightly different ways.

And everyone should be talking about Willie Randolph. If we want to get philosophical about this, we can note the many ways that it's not entirely his fault. It would certainly not be fair to blame him entirely for the Mets' ugly level of underachievement.

Omar Minaya flew to Denver last night to reiterate his support for Willie:

"Willie Randolph is our manager," Minaya said when asked if Randolph's job was in imminent danger. "He has my support. He has our ownership's support. I am here to support Willie. I'm here to let him know my support, to encourage him and to let him know we believe he can get this team on track. Willie's totally dedicated to doing that, and I believe he can do that."

Not sure what this gesture on Omar's part is about, but he's giving every public indication that the Mets are going to stick with Willie. Part of what he said later, though, sort of ticked me:

"You'd like to be better than 22-23. I think we have a team that's better than 22-23. That being said, I am one to look at the big season, the big picture. It's about playing 162 games, and the goal is to win at the end of the season. The goal is to get to the playoffs. The goal is to win the division first. You have to look at seasons not in a 20- or 40-game window. On Sunday, we beat a very good Yankee team, and then we went to Atlanta and lost to a very good Atlanta team. As a general manager, I try not to look at things only in the smaller window. I try to look at the bigger window." (Mets.com)

This attitude epitomizes everything that's wrong with the Mets right now. If Omar Minaya is really looking at the big picture, he sees the Mets' 74-79 record since last June 1. I just don't know how after the four game sweep in Atlanta Omar can even get off bringing up the nice Yankee wins last weekend. If we're going to follow that logic, we can point to several of the Mets 74 wins during this period and say we played well, so you can't always look at things in a smaller window. The problem is the always predictable following up of the good games with, say, a four game sweep in Atlanta (or Philadelphia).

Fact is, there's something fundamentally wrong with this Mets' team, most people know it, and it's been that way for quite a while now, longer and longer every day. Omar comes off sounding slightly delusional with the suggestion that we can continue to stay the course and things will naturally straighten themselves out. You'd think he spent some time crafting the Bush Administration's post-war plans for Iraq.

Let's not get too political, but to use another analogy, the theme for these Mets is the same as the one that's propelled a young Illinois Senator to the brink of the Democratic Presidential Nomination. We need change!




Whoever's at fault, it's just not working for the Mets. If the definitition of insanity is indeed doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, then the Mets are absolutely clinical right now. I think June 1, 2007, to June 1, 2008 is a pretty decent sample size, and the results, as I mentioned, have not been pretty for the Metropolitains. Something needs to change, because this team, as presently constituted, is going to ride out this season doing exactly what they've been doing for the last calendar year.

And the Manager, fairly or unfairly, is often the first to go. It's not necessarily about the degree to which Willie deserves to be fired - for the record, however, I do think he's earned it. Most importantly, though, when evaluating the status of Willie Randolph's job, we have to ask whether he's contributing anything legitimately positive to the Mets right now that might help reverse the flow of water into a ship that's clearly sinking.

So there's my question, I suppose, to anyone who thinks the Mets shouldn't fire Willie. What do we gain by keeping him around? How does he help us save 2008? Because as dire as things seem right now, 66% of the season is yet to be played. Mets fans more than anyone else should know right now that the trajectory of an entire season can change in two weeks. There's no reason that such a dramatic turn of events can't happen in the Mets' favor this season if we make the right moves, as we Met fans tend to forget in the current toxic orange and blue climate that we root for a team that came roaring back in '69, '73, '99, and '01 - even if we did ultimately fall short in a couple of those years, all was not lost.

But it's going to take something. For a historically cautious franchise, the only way to save 2008 might be to bite the bullet and make an uncommonly bold move. Because it's painfully clear that there needs to be something significantly different about this Mets team, and soon.

(Images courtesy rugratonline.com, obamamedia.files.wordpress.com)