The front-page poll on SNY.tv asks the right choice for the next Mets’ manager. Early returns have Bobby Valentine in the lead, followed by Wally Backman.
Those are the men most frequently rumored to replace Jerry Manuel and so their position in the poll should come as no surprise. But it’s at least mildly interesting that Valentine and Backman have reputations as managers who would rather put themselves under fire put any heat on their players, since Manuel, at various times during his tenure, appeared to do the opposite.
The Mets’ manager leaves to the trumpets of reporters heralding his kindness, but I have heard multiple former players note the way Manuel always seemed to divorce himself from the things that went wrong in games and wonder how the guys on the team would react. And there were all those times Manuel laughed with the press at the expense of his players.
Of course, to Manuel’s credit, a lot of times he wasn’t responsible for the things that went wrong in games. Many times he was charged with managing a roster that George Patton couldn’t have led to victory. And perhaps some of those former players were biased by the team’s lackluster performance and record.
Truth is, no one but the men involved knows the nature of Manuel’s relationship with his players. We know that Manuel presented himself as a nice guy. In my lone one-on-one interaction with him — an off-camera interview in the SNY studios after the 2008 studio — he definitely seemed like a nice guy.
But all I can say for certain is that there’s a grayscale of human decency and Jerry Manuel — like all of us — falls somewhere on there.
We know he really liked bunting — sometimes with his No. 3 hitter — and appeared to love using the same reliever over and over again until he proved ineffective. Neither quality makes for a great manager. Ideally, the Mets’ next manager won’t do those things.
But he’ll inevitably do some other things we’ll complain about, and then if the team’s not winning, we’ll call for his firing. It’s kind of how it goes.
Tedquarters 
I thought on WFAN today with Francessa Jeff Wilpon made a good point about the manager, when Mike specifically asked him about Backman. While Jeff commended Backman as doing eveyrthing asked of him and how he thinks he’d be a good candidate, Jeff also noted that there are likey many other “wally backmans” out there, who they, nor the fans have even thought of, who the new GM might want to interview, who would also likely be a good fit.
Basically meaning, Mets fans and the media need to be a little more open minded when they think of candidates.
Ted ~ Once again, the most interesting commentary about a Mets situation is on your blog. What you describe about Manuel is the perception I got in spring training 2009, mostly when considering his odd public remarks about Church, directly and indirectly (remarks about how good a hitter Murphy is were often sprinkled with negative Church comments.). It seemed to me that that sort of management — or playing games — publicly was a recipe to lose the respect of his players.
As 2008 finished, I thought that maybe Manuel had been the right choice to replace Willie and to start the 2009 season, but I began to have serious second thoughts before a real game had been played in 2009,