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.

As a Mets fan, I’m happy Omar Minaya was relieved of his duties today. I’ve been banging this drum for over a year, maybe longer: The guy did not come close to maximizing the resources available to him to make the Mets a championship team.

Still, watching him address the media today after his meeting with the Wilpons made me feel sorry for Minaya, even though I know he’s still making seven figures for the next couple years and even though, as a Mets fan, I’m near certain it’s what’s best for the team.

So though some nasty part of me, anticipating this, felt tempted to put together a comprehensive list of all Minaya’s questionable-to-bad moves in his tenure with the Mets, all the baffling contracts and bizarre roster decisions, I now feel no desire to do so. Everybody knows why Omar Minaya got canned. It’s better to look forward.

Problem is I really have no idea what happens now. About a billion names — and combinations of names — have been thrown around as potential replacements, and all of them, of course, have both decorations and blemishes on their resumes. Some seem promising — Terry Ryan, Rick Hahn, Josh Byrnes, to name a few — and none seems downright awful.

But I’d be kidding myself and all of you if I pretended to know the GM market well enough to be able to point to one candidate and say for certain that he or she is the right fit to build a sustainable contender in Flushing.

I know the Mets have the resources to create that contender, in the hands of the right person. They play in a brand-new stadium in a huge market and regularly field teams with payrolls upwards of $120 million. Plus for the first time in a while, they actually have a decent — if unspectacular — crop of young players nearly ready to contribute at the Major League level.

So I suspect it might not take as long as we fear for the next GM to point the ship in the right direction. But first, of course, we must find out who’s at the helm.

From the Mets press release:

The New York Mets today announced that Omar Minaya has been relieved of his duties as Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations & General Manager and they have declined to exercise the club’s option on Jerry Manuel’s contract as Manager for 2011.

A search is underway for a new General Manager who will run the team’s Baseball Operations department.  Ownership will lead the process with assistance from Vice President, Assistant General Manager John Ricco who will in the interim direct the department.  The new General Manager will work with Ownership to identify and hire a new Manager.

Big offseason ahead.

The Mets’ 2010 season, and quite likely the tenures of Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya, wrapped up in strangely appropriate fashion: Ollie Perez on the mound for the first time in a month in the top of the 14th, walking in the winning run, a quick bottom of the frame, then Manuel taking a couple subtle and perhaps misguided stabs at players while charming the press with his comedy act in his final press conference.

Perhaps strangest of all, Manuel, when asked his legacy as Mets manager, cited the ascent of Jose Reyes and David Wright to higher levels of excellence.

Now maybe that’s filler, something Manuel threw out to kill time while he thought of something more meaningful to say. But if he really thinks that, man. Wow. Maybe Manuel was even more oblivious than previously speculated. Because that’s just not what happened.

In 2009 and 2010, as Wright has approached and hit what should be his offensive peak, he has posted the two worst full offensive seasons of his big-league career. In both seasons, he set new career highs for strikeouts while his walk rates dropped.

Reyes’ 2009 was ruined by injury, an injury almost undoubtedly mismanaged at most levels by the Mets. Reyes’ 2010 was also hampered by injury, but even so he posted his lowest walk rate — critically important for a leadoff man — since he was a 22-year-old in 2005.

It is impossible to put the relative struggles of Wright or Reyes over the past two seasons on Manuel’s shoulders. But it’s downright crazy to say that under Manuel they’ve taken their games to a higher level. They haven’t.

That’s not to say that neither is a good player. Wright is an excellent player, even in down years like the ones he suffered in 2009 and 2010. But in 2007 and 2008 he was probably one of the top five players in the Majors, and it’s impossible to make that case for his 2009 and 2010.

In 2010, Reyes played as one of the better shortstops in the Majors. In 2007 and 2008, he was among the elite.

The good news for Mets fans is that both have plenty of prime years left ahead of them, and both appear very likely to be back in Flushing in 2011.

Though these last two seasons may have stripped them of some of their luster, they the same men who tore up the league just a couple years ago, and there’s no good reason to believe they’re not still capable of doing so. Perhaps they need new motivation or new instruction, or perhaps they just require full health, some minor adjustments and the prolonged type of good fortune that hasn’t been found anywhere near Citi Field anytime lately.

As fans, we tend to categorize our teams by eras. We think of the late 80s Mets of Mex and Gary, the miserable mid-90s Mets, the Bobby Valentine teams from the turn of the Millenium and now, the 2006 squad we see unraveling before us.

But if you look toward the margins of those eras, you find the divisions are never so neat and orderly. Someday, in our minds, we may point to today as the end of the Jerry Manuel Era, or maybe the end of the Randolph/Manuel Era or the end of the whole Minaya/Delgado/Beltran Era or something like that, but I have a feeling when the 2011 Mets take the field they’ll look an awful lot like the Mets that played out the stretch in 2010.

Perhaps a couple additions and a couple subtractions, some improvement from some young players and some regression from some dudes playing over their heads. But I think the biggest change will be in perception, which doesn’t do a hell of a lot to win baseball games.

Still, I’m not sure the forecast is as dreary as many Mets fans make it out to be. But it’s a long offseason, and we’ll get to that.

The Mets will announce shortly after the season that general manager Omar Minaya and manager Jerry Manuel won’t be returning in their roles, sources say. The announcements are likely to be made before the playoffs begin Wednesday. The changes will not come as a surprise, as they have been widely assumed for a few weeks now.

It isn’t expected that either replacement will be named immediately. There’s no evidence the Mets have begun contacting GM candidates. The new GM is expected to have a big say in the hiring of a new manager, so the managerial position will remain vacant for a period, as well.

– Jon Heyman, SI.com.

Not exactly shocking news here, but perhaps the most definitively written of the anonymously sourced stories we’ve seen so far suggesting that both Minaya and Manuel will be gone after the season, since Heyman’s report includes at least vague, measured details about what exactly will happen to Minaya and the money owed him.

As I mentioned here earlier, the speculation around what will happen with the Mets’ front office and bench has grown tiresome, especially considering how much clearer the picture will likely look in just a few days. And it’s a bit frustrating because, if these stories are true, it’s unclear why the Mets feel the need to wait until the end of the regular season to part ways with their general manager and field manager.

I wrote this last year:

I always take offseason rumors from anonymous sources with several grains of salt, but what Heyman suggests does seem to jive with everything that has happened in the Mets’ front office and every rumor we’ve heard.

And if it’s really true, the Mets should fire Omar Minaya right now.

Look: Either you have confidence in a GM to build your team for the upcoming season and the future or you don’t. “Putting the heat on him,” as has been suggested, is about the worst possible approach. That only further pushes Minaya toward moves of desperation, the type made to save his job but not necessarily to forward the franchise.

For whatever reason — bureaucracy, checks on Minaya’s power, who knows? — the Mets managed to make it through 2010 without doing major damage to their future. But there were plenty of assignments and transactions that may have negatively impacted that outlook, and as far as I’m concerned, a team should just never go forward entrusting important decisions to people whom it no longer trusts are best fit to make them.

Presumably the Mets will get a fresh start soon, with someone helming baseball decisions and, eventually, a manager they feel can aptly run their team in 2011 and beyond. But if they didn’t feel confident that Minaya and Manuel were the guys to do that entering 2010, it’s puzzling why they kept them around so long.