New York Mets: Please keep Mickey Callaway around for a while

The New York Mets season is about to conclude and the quest for a new general begin will begin shortly after. Regardless of if this was even a threat or not, Mickey Callaway should keep his job.

The New York Mets are coming on strong towards the end of the season. They have even been one of the best teams since the all-star break in the middle of July.

Maybe the reason for their turn around is the bats came alive. Maybe it is even because the Mets’ three-headed rotation of Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, and Zack Wheeler are the best trio in baseball.

Either way, the number one thing to take away from the Mets last-minute surge is that they still played hard and tried to win despite nothing being on the line.

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That, that is all on Mickey Callaway.

The Mets are a little healthier than they were at this point last year, and maybe nothing should ever be compared to the train wreck 2017 Mets, but last year, the Mets did not care at all after they were out of it.

Terry Collins was canned, he was likely the scapegoat of the cheap ownership and lack of overall talent, but Callaway does not need to be the scapegoat for anything.

He has the talent looking promising for once. The Mets might have actually been building a respectable baseball team this whole time.

Callaway definitely had is learning curves and hiccups at the beginning of the season too. There are multiple reasons for that. Perhaps he became complacent when the Mets got off to a scorching hot start.

Perhaps it was throwing out horrible lineups for a while and having no consistency in what he was trying to prove.

But he proved me wrong. Hopefully, he proved some other people wrong too. Callaway, in what almost seemed like overnight, fixed this team up.

They got healthy, sure, but look at the lineups he is putting out. Amed Rosario is now playing every night. Dominic Smith is getting more time. Brandon Nimmo is a franchise outfielder. Michael Conforto is back to his perennial All-Star form.

His lineup is great now and the “core four” of Conforto, Rosario, Jeff McNeil, and Brandon Nimmo seems to be clicking. Callaway finally let them all play, and they have stepped up.

The biggest issue with Callaway, and something he can still work on his pitching management. The starters have been going deeper and deeper into games, but Callaway still needs to work on when to fire up the bullpen, when not to, and who to use, etc.

But, with more reps, he will improve the bullpen. But, please also consider the talent of the bullpen. There is almost nothing there. Besides brilliantly putting Seth Lugo in the bullpen, no pitcher has had a blemish-free season.

Drew Smith, Tyler Bashlor, Jerry Blevins, and Tim Peterson, might be better than some, but Callaway is not exactly working with Hall of Fame talent here.

The front office did nothing but trade away or not upgrade the bullpen. The Mets got rid of Jeurys Familia at the deadline and dropped a couple million on Anthony Swarzak in the offseason, that has not exactly panned out.

There are things well beyond Callaway’s fault that he is struggling with. He is not 100% perfect, but the Mets need more talent in general. There would not be many managers in this league who would have done much better than Callaway.

We all remember when the Mets batted out-of-order, but is that even 100% on him? He cannot do it all, someone else should have caught that too.

It is so easy to see the Mets and just think everything is negative. Usually not giving the Mets the benefit of the doubt is the correct thing to do.

But, Callaway, and without making more excuses, has done a decent enough job and has earned another year or two at the helm.

The fact that the Mets have been eliminated for what feels like three months now, and they are playing their best baseball since April is all on him.

The Mets do have decent players playing like the actual decent players they are, but it feels so easy to just milk a season once you know the postseason is not an option.

Plus, if there was any point where Callaway was fighting for his job for next year, if he ever felt there was doubt he would be back next year, the Mets players sure as heck stepped up to make sure he was.

Is Mickey Callaway the perfect Mets manager? No way.

Were there a massive consistency issue with his lineups and decision-making earlier this season? Yes.

But in the best example of “what have you done for me recently,” Callaway has taken strides and has this team in a groove.

I won’t get into the fact that once the postseason was over and there was no pressure that the team finally stepped up, there are other teams, even in the Mets Division, like the Phillies and Nats, that collapsed or succumbed to the pressure worse than the Mets did.

So, at the end of this all, whenever the Mets name their next general manager, and whoever it is, I just hope they keep Callaway around.

It would be great if a new manager was not on the new GM’s wish list.

To even put it more bluntly, if the way the Mets are playing now carries over into 2019 and lasts, this is a team that can win the Division and then some.

That sentiment alone should be enough to keep him around.

The “Metsies” might have a broken ownership group. They might be losing their Captain, David Wright, after this year, and there still might be a lot of divisive issues that tear the fan base apart.

However, the one thing that all Mets fans deserve to have and will never disagree on wanting, is a winner, a team that can contend year in and year out.

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Right now, Mickey Callaway gives this team the best chance to win. It would take a lot over a long period of time to prove otherwise. So, keep him around. Maybe give him some better talent to work with while at it.

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