David Wright: Not the Best Player

If you watched the SNY Hot Stove Report (which will be shown again Wednesday at 6:30 PM on SNY), then you may or may not have picked up a few morsels of wisdom from Willie Randolph. In particular ….

• While discussing the end-of-season slump by Jose Reyes, Willie mentioned that it’s tough when “…your best player is slumping …”

Aha! So Jose is the best player on the Mets — not David Wright, Carlos Beltran, nor any other Met. Hopefully this means there is no chance he is traded for Johan Santana. OK, this isn’t a scoop, and it really means nothing, but interesting that he would refer to someone as “the best”.

At the end of the show, the happy, shiny, eternally optimistic Marty “Crepehanger” Noble began to respond to an email asking about Ruben Gotay’s chances for playing in 2008. Luckily, time ran out right after Noble extolled the virtues of Gotay’s energy off the bench and before he could fully bury the rest of his game.

All in all, a mildly decent show if you’re struggling between it and, say, “World’s Wildest Police Videos”, but otherwise not particularly enlightening.

• In response to questions about several players who had tough seasons or bad finishes (particularly, Reyes and Carlos Delgado), Willie’s standard answer was, “I’m confident in … I’m sure he’s going to bounce back.”

He referred to so many bounce backs I’m wondering if Randolph should incorporate pogo sticks into the spring training workouts.

• After being asked if the Mets need a “big starting pitcher”, Willie initially responded in the affirmative. He stated that the Mets needed to replace the innings that Glavine provided last year, and that “we’re hoping that by spring training we’ll do something … or during the spring we might be able to make something happen …”

So apparently the Santana, Blanton, and other rumors will continue. Although, Willie did also admit that the Mets don’t want to “make a knee-jerk reaction” or respond to the pressure of making a move. He also said that he was very happy with the guys he has, and that sometimes you need to give the younger guys a chance, that one of the younger guys such as Pelfrey, Humber, or Mulvey, needs to step up. Hmm … so … the Mets need to bring in a pitcher from the outside, but they don’t. As usual, Willie was remarkably non-committal and talking in circles. And contrary to popular belief, I find it charming.

My wife had an excellent quote in regard to Willie’s roundabout way of expressing himself:

“After listening to the Roger Clemens press conference and 17-minute phone conversation with Brian McNamee, Randolph was refreshingly definitive.”

Also during the Hot Stove Report, Carlos Delgado came on via phone. He stated

“… we know we had a good team, we had a good lead, it got to a point where … I’m not gonna say we assumed we were going to win …”

I cut off the quote there because, honestly: the minute someone — anyone — starts with “I’m not gonna say …” then you know for sure that it is EXACTLY what he wants to say. (For the record, he went on to blah blah about how maybe they should have focused better, you can’t assume, blah blah. You can watch / listen to all of his comments, as well as most of Willie’s, on SNY.)

We already knew that at least part of the Mets’ problem last year was that their collective head swelled to dangerous proportions, leading to occasional lapses of apathy. But it was nice that one of the players (almost) admitted to it; it kind of confirms our suspicions.