Time for Mets to right a wrong and return Terry Collins to fold -- and fortunately, David Stearns is open to it
PORT ST. LUCIE -- One of the distinct pleasures of spring training for players and fans is the connection to history. The Mets typically do this well, inviting the likes of David Wright, Mike Piazza, Darryl Strawberry and others to don a uniform, help players, and bask in hard-earned cheers as they stroll the complex.
The team has gone a step further with Carlos Beltran, hiring him last year as a special assistant to then-GM Billy Eppler, and retaining him in that role under new president of baseball operations David Stearns. Beltran has been in uniform in recent days, doing meaningful work to help the team.
All of that is great, but it still leaves a noticeable hole: the absence of Terry Collins, the longest-tenured manager in franchise history, the most recent skipper to guide the team to a World Series, and an extremely popular figure on the streets of New York and Port St. Lucie.
For years, Collins, 75 years old and still as vivacious as ever, has lived five minutes by car from Clover Park, but has essentially been in exile since Steve Cohen and Sandy Alderson took over the team in 2020. He attends the occasional event at Citi Field, appears at fantasy camp in Port St. Lucie, and contributes to SNY -- but is not a Mets employee. That is a significant oversight.
According to people around the organization, the dynamic between Alderson and Collins, which was up-and-down during their shared time as GM and manager from 2011-2017, was likely what prevented Collins from being welcomed back into the fold during the Cohen era. Alderson was team president from 2020-2022, and an advisor to Cohen in 2023.
When Buck Showalter was manager, he tried to bring Collins to spring training as a guest instructor, and was told that he could not.
It also did not help when, in 2022, Collins overshared about private conversations about Matt Harvey’s mental health. That brought internal criticism, and blowback from ex-players like catcher Kevin Plawecki. But, considering the sum total of Collins’ contributions, did it really merit a virtual banishment?
Last season, Collins read the vibes in Port St. Lucie and joined the Miami Marlins front office to work under his longtime friend, Kim Ng. When Ng left that organization after the season, Collins followed.
Now that Alderson is retired, there is clear softening about letting Collins back through the gates.
“Terry was a great manager in this organization,” Stearns told SNY on Saturday. “It’s important that we recognize the teams he helped to lead. We’re certainly open to him being part of the organization.”
At minimum, that should involve being a spring training instructor for Carlos Mendoza next season, and basking in cheers. Incoming head of player development Andy Green should also call Collins -- once dubbed a “player development star” by his old Dodgers and Mets boss Paul DePodesta -- over to the complex for substantive coaching with minor leaguers.
But however Stearns, Mendoza or Green wants to use Collins, it should be more than it is now: Collins poses for selfies with grateful fans whenever he leaves his house, but is on the other side of the team’s velvet rope.
Fortunately, that velvet rope could open for him again.
