In Jon Heyman’s Today’s Knuckleball piece, he states that Terry Collins is not only on the hot seat, but he also ranks him as the manager most likely to be fired this season.
Heyman noted that Sandy Alderson wanted to fire Collins two years ago. Ownership that intervened on Collins’ behalf. Collins rewarded ownership’s trust by leading the Mets to the National League Pennant. The very same ownership group that chose to kept Collins expanded the payroll in order to keep Yoenis Cespedes a Met. With that in mind, the Mets have underachieved this year putting Collins’ job in jeopardy.
There are many excuses to point to including a Cespedes’ DL stint. However, Collins is not accepting that excuse. As he stated, “We are not throwing in the towel, just because David (Wright) and (Yoenis Cespedes) aren’t here. I’ll do the best I can—end of story.”
It’s a common refrain from Collins who said in his epic August 11th rant, “I’m the manager here, it starts with me, and as I have said so many times, I don’t care who’s not here.” (New York Post)
Time and again, Collins has accepted the blame for the Mets underachieving, and it appears, the Mets are very close to laying that blame on Collins’ feet. It should be noted that Sandy Alderson has put off a meeting with the Las Vegas 51s regarding their affiliation past this season, and he has travelled to San Francisco to meet with the team.
In the event that Collins is indeed fired, Heyman suspects that Alderson may turn to Bud Black instead of Wally Backman to become the next manager of the Mets. Alderson had previously hired Black as the manager of the Padres after the Padres gave manager Bruce Bochy permission to speak with and eventually leave to manage the San Francisco Giants.
Last week, I wrote a piece on why I believed Collins should be fired and it’s beginning to look like more and more people agree with my sentiment.
