After the Marlins trounced the Mets 13-2 on Monday, president and owner Fred Wilpon called Terry Collins into his office for a 20 minute closed door meeting.
I thought nothing of it myself when I heard about it, considering how close the two are. But after reading quotes from Collins via Adam Rubin on ESPN New York, maybe there’s more than meets the eye.
“He just wanted to talk about the club, which he loves to do,” Collins said. “He loves to talk baseball. But he’s not mad at all.”
Collins said the two discussed areas of concern with the team, including the high number of walks (now 36 in 61 innings) as well as unimpressive lefty relief.
“He likes to come in and just run through the roster — talk about, ‘Hey, what are you looking at right now?’” Collins said. “He’s got great passion. He wants to win so bad. … I said, ‘Listen, you’re going to like what’s going to come out of here.’
“I mapped out the next four days of who’s playing and who’s not and days off. … And he asked me about a couple of spots that have been a concern. I said, ‘Yeah, they’re still a concern. We’re going to bear down on those areas.’ But I said, ‘For the most part, you’ve got to like what our starting pitching can do. And [Jeurys] Familia is throwing good, [Vic] Black is throwing good. So there’s some positives. We’ve just got to stop walking people, especially in spring-training games.’”
Wilpon also vowed to be around much more this spring training.
“He expects it to be a much better team. There’s no doubt about that,” Collins said. “He told me two weeks ago, ‘Look, I’m going to be here a lot — a lot,’ where, in the past, he’d come in and he’d be gone for a week or 10 days.”
I mean that’s good I guess, but if there’s no accountability – and there hasn’t been in years – what does it really mean?
Knowing this would go widely reported, could it just be some more showmanship? Putting on some false bravado for a weary fan base?
Hey, if it’s one thing I know, these owners know how to play to an audience and oh how they’ve mastered the art of spin. Couple that with some ownership friendly media members and their own blog and cable network and… voila.
I don’t know what to make of this so I won’t make more of it than some of my other fellow bloggers will, I’m sure.
