Farewell, Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya

No one is surprised Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya were fired yesterday as the Mets' manager and general manager, respectively. Manuel seemed to draw the most displeasure through the season because he couldn't dial up his relaxed attitude to respond to the team's disintegration after the All-Star Break and its subsequent two-month-long sleepwalk after that. But Minaya really was the one whose time had expired.

The roster is now full of his questionable signings, including closer Francisco Rodriguez, who combines circa 2001 Armando Benitez's unreliability with domestic abuse; second-baseman Luis Castillo, who has become indifferent to running, hitting and fielding, yet complains about being replaced; and Oliver Perez, who makes Castillo's play look inspired. Carlos Beltran is also close to jumping in this muck, considering his contract's size, his production the past two years, and his defining moment as a Met is watching Adam Wainwright's curveball for the last out of the 2006 NLCS. My uncle, however, is right to point out Beltran was superb between 2006 and 2008. Pedro Martinez gets a pass, I suppose, because while he only had one good year out of four, he had to be signed to revive the Mets' relevance (which sounds like the typical argument used to argue for massive public subsidy for sports stadiums; just replace "Martinez" with "tax dollars" and "Mets" with "city").

But Minaya had also proven by this point he isn't good at being an executive. He fired Willie Randolph in 2008 at about 4 a.m. EST so it wouldn't make the next day's papers. He allowed his friend and former fellow executive Tony Bernazard to challenge players to fights on the team bus. He strangely embarrassed reporters who asked tough questions during press conferences. He didn't know Beltran was having knee surgery last winter until after Beltran had it. The Wilpons, the team owners, had essentially stopped allowing him to give press conferences and be the team's public voice, which isn't a good sign.

A general manager first has to judge athletic talent well, but second, has to know how to run a team responsibly, and that slipped past Minaya. As it is with any mess, there's plenty of responsibility for lots to share, but Minaya probably deserves to be at the line's front. It's tough to see where the Mets go from here, but they've been here before and recovered, so I know they will again. To know peaks one must know valleys. A cliche, but a true cliche.