Former Mets’ manager, Terry Collins, spoke with Christian Red of the New York Daily News in what was a fantastic interview on Monday about the situation that occurred between Mickey Callaway, Jason Vargas, and Tim Healey of Newsday.
Collins, 70, is currently serving as an assistant to GM Brodie Van Wagenen, but was pretty honest about what his view of the situation was.
“I wasn’t there so I don’t know anything about it. I just know — times are tough with the way things have been going (for the Mets). But you’ve got to respect everybody’s jobs. That’s the way I look at it.”
If anyone has the right to talk from experience, it’s probably him as the team only finished above .500 twice in his tenure that spanned from 2011-2017, meaning he had many rough days in between.
However, he stopped short of saying that Callaway should be fired, saying that a decision like that should be deferred to Van Wagenen since Collins doesn’t feel he’s involved enough in the day-to-day activities of the team to decide on something like that.
“Again, that’s Brodie’s decision. I’m going to pretty much divert that stuff to him. I’m not around enough to know what’s going on. I don’t know what happened, what provoked it. All I can tell you is what I did, and that is you gotta respect the position. You can say what you want about (the media), but you’ve got to respect the job. ”
“A lot of days are tough. I’m sure (Callaway) is doing the best he can, with some of the guys hurt. You lose your good players and then when they come back, they’ve got to play good. That’s the name of the game. I certainly watch as much as I can, and root them on and hope they get hot. I know they’ve got a long, long way to go yet. Anything can happen as we all know.”
Collins did admit, though, that he really doesn’t know much about what happened in Chicago on Sunday, but is just hoping that Vargas and Callaway can put this situation past them and that everyone can move on.
“Jason’s been around a long time. Again, I wish I (knew) more. I don’t. I don’t know Jason very well. I just feel bad for him. That’s a tough situation the way things have gone. I just hope (Callaway and Vargas) can get through it.”
The Mets fell to a season-worst five games under .500 last night. With the team now standing at 37-42 and nine games behind the Atlanta Braves in the NL East, things are starting to look very bleak for the team. Hopefully, this incident isn’t something that continues to repeat itself and that this isn’t a sign for things to come.
