Rex Ryan Redux
Way, way back at the end of September — and the beginning of the NFL season — I posted some articles regarding rookie Jets coach Rex Ryan.
In the first post, I mentioned that “The Mets Can Learn From the Jets“, with the gist of it being that Rex Ryan came into New York and announced that he “expected” to win IMMEDIATELY.
The subject of the second post was related to the Mets being “soft”, and compared that to Rex Ryan’s edict that the Jets would be “tough”. To reiterate the point of that post:
I’ve brought up Ryan again because he is living proof that the right leadership can completely change the culture and attitude of a professional team — and parlay that into success on the field.
If you remember, the underlying motivation behind these Rex Ryan posts was to compare him to Wally Backman, who eventually found his way back into the Mets’ system. That said, I remain 100% behind the Wally hiring, and believe that if the Mets want to return to the postseason, they will need to make more moves aimed at changing the overall attitude of the organization.
Since the Jets have miraculously found their way to an AFC Championship game, I feel it is relevant to remind everyone of these posts from September — mainly as proof that a sheer change in attitude can vastly impact results.
Here are the two Ryan videos, for those who missed them the first time around:
Mets Hire Bob Melvin
Who says the Mets aren’t active at the winter meetings? They just acquired another replacement for Jerry Manuel.
According to Joel Sherman and confirmed by David Lennon, the Mets have signed 2007 NL Manager of the Year Bob Melvin to be a Major League scout.
Interesting that both Melvin and Wally Backman are now employed by the same organization. Further interesting that Jerry Manuel has so many managerial candidates around him.
Is J.P. Ricciardi also on the Mets’ wish list, to help Wayne Krivsky keep Omar Minaya on his toes?
Q&A and More with Wally Backman
Steve Serby has an entertaining Q&A with Wally Backman in today’s New York Post, which I encourage you to read.
In case you missed it, Bart Hubbach posits Backman as a possible successor to Jerry Manuel.
David Lennon presented “leftover thoughts” regarding the Backman hiring.
Ben Shpigel of The New York Times gives his take on the second chance afforded Wally.
In between officiating a mustache contest and getting hired to be the Brooklyn manager, Wally visited a nursing home near Shea Stadium Citi Field.
From the archives, here is Toby Hyde’s take on the possibility of Wally returning in a minor league role with the Mets running the Mets’ player development system — which he termed “crazy talk” — written back in August. Ironically, Toby likely will be covering the Cyclones as part of his MetsMinorLeagueBlog next summer.
If you missed it, you can listen to Mike Francesa’s interview with Wally Backman on WFAN
And here is Wally reading from cue cards:
Can you ever remember so much media attention given to the hiring of a Rookie Short-Season A league manager?
Another Side to Wally Backman
Everyone knows Wally Backman is a bad guy. It’s a known fact. The guy is just bad news.
Right?
Not so fast.
Here’s a story of a bad guy doing something that you might not expect. And you certainly won’t be reading it anywhere else…
This past weekend – before he became the new manager of the Brooklyn Cyclones, Wally Backman visited the Park Terrace Care Center in Corona – just a stone’s throw from Citi Field. (Ron Darling appeared at Park Terrace last Monday.)
Backman fielded questions from the Center’s residents for over an hour, sharing his thoughts on subjects ranging from his experience as a World Champion in 1986 to his feeble career homerun total to his opinion of Derek Jeter. Before leaving, he posed with each of the 30+ residents who had come downstairs to see him speak.
And according to my sources, Backman wasn’t compensated for the visit. Meanwhile, Alex Rodriguez and several Yankees teammates were charging between $200-$475 for autographs in New Rochelle, NY.
Here are a few more photos secretly snapped by the paparazzi:
Wally May Be Back, Man
Most New York newspaper sources are reporting that Wally Backman will be returning to the Mets organization as a minor league manager, with the official announcement coming on Tuesday.
I had the pleasure of spending a few hours with Wally yesterday afternoon, just talking baseball. He would neither confirm nor deny the news, and since this blog isn’t run by “Scoop” Brady, and doesn’t seek to get a cheap influx of hits by irresponsibly breaking news when I’m asked to sit on information, I’m happy to respectfully wait for Tuesday and therefore wasn’t pressing Wally for confirmation.
Instead, we talked baseball — nothing specific, just idle chatter on his experiences as a manager, his thoughts on the game, and some insight on some of the players he’s managed or seen over the past few years.
One thing we did discuss was his philosophy in terms of young ballplayers on their way to the big leagues. Wally Backman believes that players can and should learn how to win, no matter the level of play. In his view, learning to win and “development” go hand-in-hand. He eschewed organizations that put a premium on “developing” players, to the point where “development” took precedence over winning ballgames.
Some may not take this the right way — much like few people truly understood where Vince Lombardi was coming from when he said “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing”. So I said to Wally, “in other words, you teach players to do the right things, all the time — to constantly practice ‘winning habits’ — and if they do, they’ll have a good chance to win more games than they lose, right?”
His answer: “Exactly. You can’t win until you learn how to win.”
If indeed Wally Backman is on the verge of re-joining the Mets, and is bringing ideas such as this with him, I have to change my current pessimism into optimism. Hopefully, the Mets are looking to inject more people like him throughout the organization (re-hiring like-minded Tim Teufel is further evidence that the Mets are committed to change — hopefully John Stearns is also on the radar). It may take some time before we as fans reap the benefits of philosophies instilled at the lower levels of the farm system, but at least we’ll know a philosophy that makes sense, and is grounded in success, is in place.
I’m willing to wait.
Hire Wally – Sign the Petition
Over a year ago a petition was started requesting the return Wally Backman to the Mets organization.
The petition is still alive, and now is a good time to sign it if you haven’t already and believe he should be given another chance.
Contrary to popular belief, this petition was not to make Wally the manager of the Mets. All his supporters want is for Backman to be given a shot to work somewhere inside the organization:
We believe his history as a New York Met coupled with his outstanding minor league track record would make him a great fit for a coaching job somewhere in the Mets organization. Do the right thing and give Wally Backman a second chance in affiliated baseball.
Today, Jon Heyman reported that the Mets are considering bringing Wally back:
The team now appears willing to give scrappy fan favorite Wally Backman a second chance to return to baseball in a minor-league job. Backman has technically not been given a new position yet, but he’s been told they’d like to hire him and have invited him for an interview that is expected to be a formality.
That sounds to me like the team could be fishing for public support — otherwise why wouldn’t they have simply hired him and not “leaked” the possibility of hiring him. So, if you think Wally Backman deserves a chance to work with the Mets minor leaguers, it may help to sign the petition.
Bring Wally Back, Man!
Wouldn’t it be great if the Mets did in fact find it in their heart to bring Wally Backman back into the organization?
Funny that a little over a year ago, this was written on MetsBlog, in reference to a review of Playing for Peanuts:
The show is about Wally Backman’s return to managing in the independent league for the South Georgia Peanuts.
In Adam’s opinion, SNY must be showing this in an effort to soften Backman’s image – while trying to make him a more viable candidate to replace Willie Randolph.
I doubt this very much, actually. SNY is probably just trying to fill content. I mean, it was on today in the middle of the day, which is hardly prime-time viewing, and I was totally unaware it would be on.
Also, for what it’s worth, I have seen no evidence that Backman will ever be considered as manager of this team, seriously. From what i understand, a) Backman torched his bridge from Shea, and it will not be rebuilt – no matter how badly some Mets fans want to see him return, and, b) from what I understand, most all of MLB sees him as a total loose cannon, who, while entertaining, can be very, very unprofessional in a day and age when team’s have way too much money on the line.
I understand why some fans want to make him an icon, or want to believe his passion is a good thing. However, fact is, there are hundreds and hundreds of professional baseball teams and he has been unable to latch on to any of them. I mean, he quit the only job he could get, which was managing an Independent League team. Add these things together, plus consider this record, and I can’t see him back at Shea.
How quickly things change … losing can do that.
Matt Cerrone was right – Backman would not return to Shea. But he didn’t say anything about Citi Field.
Interestingly, the tune changed at MetsBlog over the past few weeks. And today Jon Heyman tweeted that the Mets may be bringing Wally back after all.
Personally, I don’t want to see Wally named manager of the Mets right now. It’s Jerry Manuel’s job through the end of 2010, and the man should be given a chance to show what he can do with a “full stack” of ballplayers from game 1 through game 162. We’ll hope that no injuries occur, every player has a career year, and everyone executes perfect fundamentals and makes good decisions on their own.
Meantime, install Wally somewhere in the minors as a manager of young men, and let’s see what he can do with the talent of the most underrated farm system in baseball.
Mets Soft? Look Again to the Jets
At Newsday today, David Lennon reported that more heads will be rolling in the Mets organization, and noted that
“Mets decision-makers have been meeting regularly for the past six weeks in an effort to sort out what went wrong this season.”
To which Matt Cerrone of MetsBlog responded,
“here, let me take a crack at it: everyone on your team got hurt, your GM struggles with foresight, you have one reliable starting pitcher, and your players are soft”
Well, injuries are difficult to control, and Omar Minaya is coming back next year. We can only hope that the Wilpons have enough money to buy a decent starting pitcher from the free agent market (John Lackey?). As for the softness, that can be addressed with a mixture of new blood and the right leadership — similar to what the New York Jets did when they reassembled their roster and hired Rex Ryan. During Jets training camp, Ryan talked tough about how the Jets would be playing, though it may have fallen on deaf ears at the time:
I’ve brought up Ryan again because he is living proof that the right leadership can completely change the culture and attitude of a professional team — and parlay that into success on the field.
This year, at least part of the Mets’ problems could be blamed on the injuries to their stars, but that’s not the entire story. One need only look at the failures of 2006, 2007, and 2008 to know that in addition to talent, the Mets can also benefit by a change in their demeanor and the way they approach the game. Some players may be inherently “soft” but that doesn’t mean a “hardness” can’t be coaxed out of them with the right leadership.
Which leads us into part three of “Bring Wally Back, Man!” — Watch and listen to Wally talk about how his team will play aggressive “old school” baseball (courtesy of Playing For Peanuts):
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and I don’t know that Wally Backman can singlehandedly change the face of the franchise. But adding Wally and other hard-nosed coaches / former players like him (Ray Knight? John Stearns?) to the minor league system, where they can teach youngsters the right way to play the game, would be a good start in changing the culture and reputation of the organization. There is the “Dodgers’ Way”, the “Braves’ Way”, and used to be the “Orioles’ Way” … why not start building the “Mets’ Way” ?
Mets Can Learn from the Jets
During the NFL offseason, the Jets made the somewhat surprising move of hiring Rex Ryan as their head coach. The hiring was met with mixed opinions from the pundits, and there were much eye rolling going on when Ryan addressed the media on several occasions with big talk about the Jets — and that he EXPECTED to win immediately:
Similarly, Wally Backman said in this interview that he believes a team’s goal should ALWAYS be to win, and has a major issue with managers who talk about “reaching .500″. He says the only number that should matter “is winning the fourth game of the World Series” :
I may be in the minority here, but I fully believe that there are some leaders — in every sport — who can have a significant, positive impact on a team’s success as a direct result of their attitude and the development of a “winning culture”. Bill Parcells is one of those guys, so is Bill Belichick, and so was Tom Landry and Vince Lombardi. In baseball, you can point to Bobby Cox, Tom Lasorda, Casey Stengel, Billy Martin, Earl Weaver, Whitey Herzog, Tony LaRussa. Yes, those managers often had talent, and they didn’t win a championship every single year, but they also fostered a winning culture and taught winning habits that can’t be measured on a stat sheet (though it can be seen through championship trophies and career won-lost records). There aren’t many “impact” leaders in MLB these days — but Wally might be one of those rare figures.
It can’t hurt to send him to Binghamton to find out, can it?
Mets Continue to Clean House
Somehow this news got buried at the bottom of Adam Rubin’s postgame report on Sunday night, as if it were inconsequential: Binghamton B-Mets manager Mako Oliveras and Gulf Coast League manager Julio Franco have been fired.
Oliveras and Franco join Minor League Special Assistant Ramon Pena and “Field Coordinator” Luis Aguayo on the unemployment line — both were fired last week.
As Matt Cerrone of MetsBlog notes, “…Omar Minaya is planning to replace all of Tony Bernazard’s guys with ‘his own guys’…”.
So to review, the following positions are now open:
- Vice President of Player Development
- Minor League Special Assistant
- Field Coordinator (whatever that is)
- AA manager for the Binghamton Mets
- Rookie League manager for the GCL Mets
The first three positions, I’m guessing, were created for the people who held them. Still, I’m sure at least two of those spots will be filled with a new person, filling some type of scouting and development roles. And of course the Mets will need to hire managers for the two minor league clubs.
You know who MetsToday is supporting …
(Wally Backman on developing MLB players courtesy of Playing for Peanuts)
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