Was Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen out of line earlier this month when he reportedly ordered manager Mickey Callaway to pull his ace pitcher? That was the hot topic on Tuesday's "Boomer and Gio" show.
According to the New York Post's Mike Puma, Van Wagenen was watching the road game against Arizona on TV when he called a member of the Mets' support staff to relay the message to Callaway to remove Jacob deGrom in the seventh inning. DeGrom was dealing with a hip cramp at the time.
DeGrom was visibly frustrated when he was yanked. The Mets were leading 4-1 when he left, but their bullpen imploded, a familiar theme this season, in a 6-5, extra-innings loss. Callaway was grilled over pulling deGrom but insisted the decision was his.
"I've never heard of anything like this," WFAN's Boomer Esiason said Tuesday. "I've never seen anything like this. But we've actually made fun of being a manager in today's Major League Baseball. Why? Because we believe that analytics guys are the ones that are sending down the lineups to the manager and saying, 'This is who we're playing today. This is who's off today.' That's why (Jeff) McNeil didn't play on Sunday, because he needs a rest and all this other crap and all this other analytics now."
Word of Van Wagenen intervening came out a day after Callaway and pitcher Jason Vargas got into a clubhouse confrontation with Newsday beat reporter Tim Healey.
"Somebody is giving intimate secrets to the media to show how ridiculous the Mets are being run," Esiason said.
"And also to defend Mickey Callaway in a sense because Mickey right now is getting pulled in a million different directions and he's also taking the brunt of the criticism, and maybe he shouldn't be," said Esiason's co-host, Gregg Giannotti. "And if I'm Mickey Callaway, maybe it wasn't Tim Healey of Newsday that set me off; maybe it's my general manager, maybe it's my PR staff, maybe it's my owner, these people that are pulling me in a million different directions, the same people that are trotting him back out there again after he faced the music just to say, 'I'm sorry, I apologize.' That had puppet written all over it."
Van Wagenen insisted to reporters Monday night that Callaway "has control of baseball decisions," but added that the front office does communicate with the training staff when a player suffers an injury.
To listen to the open from Tuesday's show, click on the audio player above.
