The hiring of Mike Redmond by the Miami Marlins was a shocking yet respectable pick by the Marlins. Names like Valentine, Tony Pena, Lloyd McClendon were thrown out as potential candidates quickly as news broke that Guillen was fired.

Along with the names above, former players like Brad Ausmus, Mike Lowell, Jeff Conine and the eventual hire Mike Redmond.

This is a very interesting trend going on in Major League Baseball right now. When Ozzie Guillen left Chicago, the White Sox chose to go in the polar opposite direction and hire Robin Ventura as their Manager.

Following suit, the newly crowned World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals had legendary Manager Tony LaRussa “retire”, and decided to hand over the reins to Mike Matheny.

Currently, the Rockies and Blue Jays are searching for the right Manager. The Rockies reportedly are considering Matt Williams, Walt Weiss, Jason Giambi, and bench coach Tom Runnells as their final 4.

For the Blue Jays, they have stated they want a Manager with experience but they just watched their own minor league coach Redmond get hired to do the job in Miami. It’s probably no coincidence that they recently requested permission to speak with Matt Williams, possibly ditching their previous feelings of an experienced manager.

Still, the trend is starting to set in. Former players from the 80’s, and 90’s managing for teams they once played for regardless of their experience.

This has me wondering, if Terry Collins isn’t brought back after 2013, would the Mets follow suit? We already know for certain two former players would love the job: Tim Teufel and Wally Backman. I imagine whenever the Mets have an opening, they will certainly get a good hard look.

But the Mets as a franchise may have a lot of other former players from the 85-00 era who could be potential candidates.

Some names to toss out there:

Mike Piazza – Hitting coach for Team Italy, and Manager of the 2011 Futures Game.

Keith Hernandez – Most fans would probably love this, he has 0 experience and possibly 0 desire for a 162 game schedule.

Edgardo Alfonzo – His older brother Edgar has coached in the Mets system. He is a beloved all-time Met.

Brett Butler  – Butler has been coaching in the minor leagues since 2005 in the Arizona organization.

Dave Magadan – Recently hired to be the Texas Rangers hitting coach after working for Boston since 2006. He worked within the Padres organization from 2002 prior to that.

Those are just a few names to throw out there. If the Mets were to look at former players from teams dating back to the mid 1980’s, who would you hope to see on the candidate list and why?