Baseball lifer Terry Collins is ready to start his next journey as a special assistant to general manager Sandy Alderson after being the manager of the New York Mets for the last seven years.
He was replaced by first time manager and former Cleveland Indians pitching coach Mickey Callaway.
Collins began his time with the Mets in 2010 as the minor league field coordinator and that sounds like he will be in a similar role going into the 2018 season after telling Kevin Kiernan of the New York Post, “I will be another set of eyes, and one of the things is to make sure the instruction at the minor league level is efficient. We have to make sure, when they call up a player, he’s ready.”
GM Alderson said back in October that he was disappointed in the readiness of players that came from the minor leagues in 2017 and more specifically from the Triple-A Las Vegas 51s. The 51s’ have an entirely new coaching staff for 2018 but Collins hopes he can help in that area as well, “Hey, if you want to be a big-league player, you need to do this better, you need to get to here.”
Two of the big keys for the Mets in 2018 will be youngsters Amed Rosario and Dominic Smith and whether or not they prove they can be major league regulars. The Mets could also see quite a few young arms in the bullpen this year with Tyler Bashlor and Gerson Bautista being added to the 40-man roster this offseason while Jacob Rhame and Jamie Callahan also figure to get a long look this spring.
Both Rosario and Smith had plenty of bumps in their first taste of big league action Amed showing little plate discipline (49 strikeouts to only 3 walks) and Dom playing uncharacteristically bad defense (-7 DRS).
Collins will certainly miss managing and he’s still focused on winning, “I will do whatever I can to make sure Mickey has better players and the organization is better.”
