Terry Collins: Talk To Him About The Living

In the aftermath of “The Trade” (Carlos Beltran to San Francisco for Zack Wheeler, of course), I was encouraged by the Mets going on like gangbusters in Wednesday’s 8-2 win over the Cincinnati Reds. 

I have a few reasons regarding that line of thinking.  One is that when Xavier Nady was traded to Pittsburgh in the Panic Move to end all Panic Moves (Nady for Roberto Hernandez and Oliver Perez, after Duaner Sanchez had the munchies and got in a cab in Miami), I had hoped the Mets were strong enough to take the first game after that against the Florida Marlins.  The Marlins won in a walk off, treated it like a playoff victory, actually.  People told me I was crazy if a) I thought trading Nady would have a negative effect on the team (the curse of the lefty masher still lives, in my opinion) and b) if a middle reliever injury would hurt the team that year.  So yeah, we’re still paying Oliver Perez to play in AA ball for ANOTHER TEAM…and we still haven’t gotten over that.

The other is how Terry Collins would handle the situation, of losing his best outfielder and arguably his best power threat (realistically, since Ike Davis is not in the lineup, Beltran is more a power threat than say, David Wright).  Collins took it in stride.  He spoke mostly of how the trade rumors were a distraction, he told the players to ignore it, and it seems like they listened to him, coming together as a cohesive unit more so than any other time I can remember.

In fact, I can believe that if Willie Randolph or Jerry Manuel were still managing the team, the team might not have played as hard last night, after losing obviously a beloved teammate like Beltran.  There’s no way to determine that, but I can believe it.  After all, taking Manuel as a “for instance,” he concentrated on who was missing on the roster, and not maximizing who was actually ON the team.

Therein lies the difference between the leadership reigns from previous years to now. 

As manager, I believe that Terry Collins is not a long-term solution to the Mets’ lack of adequate leadership in the clubhouse and for the team, but he has done a tremendous job with handling the situations that have been thrown at him this season. 

He lost two major power bats in the lineup, David Wright and Ike Davis, at roughly the same time.  No Wright or Davis, hey, no worries.  We’ll just slot cult hero Justin Turner and Daniel Murphy in those spots and forget about it. 

He’s been this whole season without Johan Santana, and if we are lucky, we may seem him return in August.  Perhaps having not dealt with a roster with Santana being active on it has given Collins a perspective to not dream about “if only we had Johan” and be dismissive about the pitchers he did have.  Oh and Chris Young, a high-risk/high-reward pickup for Mets GM Sandy Alderson also suffered a season-ending injury after providing some quality starts.  Let’s get Dillon Gee in there, a shame we lost Young, but let’s forget that he even played for now.

I’m not going to say it’s been tough or easy, but the methodology of how Collins has handled the team has been outstanding, given what he’s had to work with.  The best part has been the attitude.  He’s never once made excuses for poor play, and when there has been poor play, he’s done the right thing by maximizing what he has rather than play the guys he’s supposed to.  Jason Bay has not exactly panned out this year, and he’s been benched a few times.  Whether it’s a characteristic of Bay, or how Collins has handled the situation, both parties have taken it in stride and have done the moves necessary to help the team.

We’ve been through a tremendous amount of hardship in the last few years as fans.  Yes, we’ve seen injuries to key, core players, but we’ve seen excuses mounted and piled higher and deeper for the team to take the easy way out.  “Well, what do you expect?  We’ve lost this guy/that guy/the other guy.”  Meanwhile, we saw the Phillies and Red Sox, as examples, play that much harder to compensate for the losses of key players.  We saw the Phillies win a fourth straight division, and Red Sox play spoiler in their own division down the stretch. 

Talk to Terry Collins about the living, and who he has, not who he lost or who might be coming back or who isn’t playing to par.  He works within his means, and has done a great job of identifying the strengths and weakness of his roster simply by concentration on the undead.  This was evident when the team, obviously reeling from the loss of a great Met, they were able to take that out on the team they were playing. 

Collins may not be Mr. Right for the job forever, but he’s Mr. Right Now for the job, so let’s concentrate on him keeping the job well done for now.