Here is the second part of the WFAN interview with Willie randolph by Chris Carlin and Kim Jones. The first part was posted earlier today.
Carlos Delgado – He is not the fiery type or a boisterous leader, but he leads by example and you have to let people be who they are. He knows exactly what he needs to do without me having to tell him. He is remorseful and he’s looking to come back strong. He’s starting to hit already which is something he has never done this early and he is hell-bent on getting back and doing what he’s capable of.
Jose Reyes – When you have 50,000 people screaming "Jose, Jose, Jose" it’s easy to get caught up in it and become full of yourself. I think what happened to Jose was more a case of timing than anything else. He went into a slump and like most young players he didn’t know how to deal with it and get going again. The timing of his slump was wrong. As far as me having to take him out for those two games, listen… you have to play hard and hustle for me everyday. He understood that and a couple of times I had to call him on a few things, but for the most part Jose Reyes hustled and played as hard as anyone else on the team. He at times got a little bit down on himself and some of his immaturity surfaced and I had to call him into my office, but let me just say that he’s a great kid and I focused so much on him because he is such a big part of our offense and he makes us go. When your energy is not there it starts to look like your not doing certain things. But like I said, he got into a funk, it happened at the worst time of the season, and he never had to deal with a slump before. It’s a good lesson for him, but a tough lesson to learn at the wrong time.
Luis Castillo – He’s a veteran guy and he was preoccupied with his health and his pending free agency and he was very hard on himself. He could have been more of a mentor for Jose Reyes and he tried to be one at times, but he had many issues on his mind. I spoke to him about that and this year he’ll be better. He’s going to be with us for a few years now and he knows what I expect from him.
John Maine – When you get to a certain level you can’t regress. I need to get more from him and I think he’s going to give us more innings and a better year overall.
Duaner Sanchez – He is the biggest key for us in the bullpen and we need him to be the dominant setup guy he was for us a couple of years ago. He’s pitching and he’s looking great.
Players Urgency – We always come out of the chute with urgency. It’s so important to get out of the division with a good start because everyone is so tough in our division. We need play well and not get ourselves in a hole. There’s no doubt the players learned something, I know and feel in my heart that these guys are going to bounce back and that they realized they wasted a golden opportunity.
Johan Santana – Pitchers the caliber of Johan Santana are few and far between and of course any manager would love to have him on their team. To me you have to be smart when you make a trade like this because it’s going to impact you financially. I love young players and when you have a nice nucleus of prospects it’s okay to let a few of them go, but you have to be careful not to give up four or five of them in one shot. That being said, if Mr. Minaya and Mr. Wilpon want to that, hey I’ll take him, but my baseball mind tells me that’s a lot to give up. I think we have some good young prospects in Martinez and Gomez and pitchers too. I think this kid Mulvey looks like a good pitcher and of course Pelfrey and Humber need to step up.
The Off Season – We have gotten better but we still haven’t addressed the pitching issue. Let’s face it there’s not much out there to get excited about in free agents in terms of quality. I know the fans and the media want something to happen but you can’t have a knee jerk reaction type of move that can backfire on you. You have to trust your young players sometimes, just look at all the kids on the Marlins and the Yankees.
*** One of the highlights of the interview came when a youngster asked Willie how he would make sure the Mets won’t lose their motivation again. Willie’s reply… "I’m gonna whip them".
