"Let's do something, even if it's wrong.." Roy Drusky

Something must be done!

And so it was, and so Willie Randolph joins the ranks of the unemployed. And the question you have to ask, the only one that matters, is whether the Mets are better off.

Absolutely, positively, well, probably not.

Because the problem is not Randolph, but General Manager Omar Minaya. The man who assembled the defective machine which failed to deliver a pennant last year or even the hope of one this year. A team with no head or heart.

And no bullpen.

Make no mistake, keeping Randolph wouldn't have changed the situation. Randolph was Gamelin, in charge of the French Army of 1940. On paper he had an edge, in the field, alas, a different story.

Back in the back of the pitching staff, behind Johan Santana and John Maine, stands a fire brigade of arsonists. A bullpen that has yielded 25 home runs. And a surprisingly weak rotation. Grim indeed is the question Nelson Figueroa or Claudio Vargas is the answer to.

Minaya, and not Randolph, rolled out the duct tape which binds this fetid assemblage. It seems he has a rolodex somewhere of every past prime pitcher in the universe. The height of this depth plumbing approach was four horrendous starts by Jose Lima in 2005.  Seventeen innings, 25 hits, 19 earned runs, 10 walks, 12 strikeouts and four losses.  Pregnant women who watched those games will have children who spend their lives flinching at the sound of bat contacting ball.

The signing of Pedro Martinez, for which Minaya has been widely hailed, has been a mixed blessing. The Mets tied up over $52 million in payroll to procure the services of a pitcher widely known to have a bad arm. It paid off in one good season, much less so in three others where the team's rotation and planning have been disrupted by his presence and absence from the roster.

Minaya's other acquistions?  Carlos Delgado. A study in decline. Carlos Beltran. A player who is probably not up to the unique pressures of playing in New York City.  A past his prime Luis Castillo. The dreadful Jorge Sosa who, if one man can cause another to lose his job, more than anyone did in Randolph.

The John Maine trade has to go into the plus column. Xavier Nady for Oliver Perez is starting to look a net loss. Moises Alou, an aging illusion. The loss of Heath Bell, Matt Lindstrom and Dan Wheeler from the bullpen has been a source of constant grief, and likely cost a pennant last year. Billy Wagner is the classic blessing and curse.

Mostly, though, the Minaya Mets are less than the sum of their parts. A team which finds a way to lose, the double play not turned, the weak grounder with two out and men on in the late innings. It is a team no manager could win with.

Was Randolph to blame for not lighting a fire under a listless pile of kindling? Probably. Should he have held pitching coach Rick Peterson to account for the team's pitchers failing at inopportune times? Absolutely.   Should he have found a way to get through to Jose Reyes?  Of course.

But did Randolph deserve to twist in the wind for weeks while Minaya vacillated and the Wilpons schemed?  And does it make sense to replace Randolph with one of his coaches?

Jerry Manuel won't fix the Mets. Nor will anyone else. It is not a time to hope for miracle comebacks, but a time to gut the interior of a badly damaged house and start over.

Without Omar Minaya.