Mets fans are an odd group of individuals that always seem to disagree, but when it comes to management there seems to be a universal agreement. This agreement is that two of the three levels of upper management are not living up to their expectations. These two levels are the owners (The Wilpons) and the manager (Terry Collins). The Wilpons are not going anywhere, much to our dismay, and Collins was recently announced to return in 2015. This recent move has made many Mets fans a little disappointed, but there are actually a few reasons to be positive about this.
1) Collins Knows Most of his players
Over the past several seasons the Mets have pretty much built from within, with a few exceptions. This had made the players in New York somewhat comfortable with their skipper. This is important because starting out with a new manager is never fun, in fact the only two successful new managers in baseball this year were Matt Williams and Lloyd McClendon, and both had outstanding teams to work with. In addition, Collins is pretty solid with rotating his players and gives most of them an oppurtunity to prove themselves (with the notable exceptions of Wilmer Flores and Juan Lagares). Starting with a new manager is a learning curve and having a new manager would just be another problem to work around in 2015. As much as Mets fans hate the guy, something has to be said for the line of players willing to defend Collins after Jordany Valdespin called him a cockroach.
2) Collins cannot get any worse at managing his bullpen
Since 2011, us Mets fans have witnessed some of the worst in-game decisions ever made a manager. From the actual 58 at-bats given to right-handers against Tim Byrdak in 2011, to the over usage of Scott Rice, and finally naming Jose Valverde to close major league baseball games, Collins has improperly managed the bullpen since the beginning. Why bring this atrocity up? Collins simply cannot get any worse than he has already been. Meaning that now given a well balanced and functioning bullpen, he should be able to learn from his previous mistakes and be an average decision maker. Maybe, just maybe, Collins can figure out this year that overusing lefties is not the way to go.
3) There is an extremely short leash on Collins in 2015
Collins has gotten away with poor play from his team due to scapegoats over the past few seasons. From the scrappiest team in MLB history in 2011, to the loss of 2/5 a rotation in the second half of 2012, simply a bad team in 2013, and finally the loss of Matt Harvey in 2014, Collins has gotten away with poor performances. This upcoming season however, there are absolutely no excuses to poorly manage a team with a rock solid staff and hopefully an average offense. Collins has, in the past, managed a rotation fairly well and has been able to get an offense going before (2011). Not to ever wish bad things upon the Mets, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if Collins was fired mid-season for poor management and then the Mets struck back and into the postseason?
Terry Collins is not a great manager, or even a good one, but at this point Mets fans need to look start looking at the positive side of a bad situation. After all, Collins has shown flashes of brilliance in 2011 and 2012, so why not now?
Three positives
Alderson read in a bathroom stall that leprechauns are lucky
The National Enquirer said that not blinking was the new market inefficiency
He can run faster than any short stop on the roster
You would think that after how many years TC knows his players? Really? Why did SA have to have a closed door meeting with TC in order for him to play Flores? He knows that playing youngsters could be the demise of his managerial career! Stupid? Huh? Collins infatuation with veterans is in contradiction with what is happening at Citi. You have all these young players coming up the system with a manager who is totally against playing them! How is that helping the youngsters develop when they come up from Las Vegas just to sit on the bench for a week before the manager inserts them into the starting line up? Or as you say a young player gets rewarded and starts a game, hits a home run and then is benched again for another week. Sounds normal to you?
Pete: perfectly stated.
Teams finish with a string of sub .500 years when they are bad. This has been all about lack of Talent. The Manager has been the Least of the problems…and that is actually not a defense of Terry as a Manager.
I may agree that Alderson is “living up to expectations”. My expectation is that he’s willing to choke the team with Low Finances to satisfy the needs of ownership….”He’s doing the Job he was hired to do”.
That doesn’t mean we have to accept it.
Pete—does it sound Like I’m accepting it?
“Collins is pretty solid with rotating his players and gives most of them an oppurtunity to prove themselves (with the notable exceptions of Wilmer Flores and Juan Lagares).”
– um, no he’s not. he never sits Wright or Murphy when it’s clear to everyone they are running on fumes. He regularly sticks with the cold-hand about a week longer than he should, still spouting about how well ruben tejada is playing after going 8-38. And he cools off hot players all the time by benching them or changing their spot in the order.
“Collins simply cannot get any worse than he has already been. (at managing a bullpen”
-um, yes he can. Freddie Freeman is now what, 4-8 against Edgin, yet Collins will continue to bring in Edgin to face him because he’s a lefty, even though Edgin has proven to be better against righties. He’ll continue to waste a valuable arm like Josh’s on one batter, and tax the rest of the bullpen because of some disproven theory about lefty lefty/right righty matchups.
No. Sounds like your just as frustrated as most of us here.
Those are sad positives, but positives none the least. I for one should start accepting that it’s another year of Collins. If the excuse has been bad talent before, 2015 should leave no excuses left.