CBS Sports Radio’s Zach Gelb came home for one night, taking over the WFAN airwaves on Saturday evening, and he brought another old favorite with him: former Mets manager and special assistant Terry Collins, who weighed in on a lot of Mets topics, including the current state of the franchise.
His synopsis: it’s great.
“I’ve only met Steve Cohen one time, but I know Sandy (Alderson), and one of the things he’s been a master at is building a team on a low budget. He did it in Oakland, and in San Diego, and then in New York…but now he’s got a chance to have some money and he’ll do it right,” Collins said. “He has the right people around him, and he’s the best person in that position. I’m sitting here rooting that the Mets will be a team to contend with next summer.”
One of the decisions Alderson has already made that Collins loves: bringing Luis Rojas back for a second season as manager.
“I like Luis. I loved him when I was the field coordinator and he was just starting out,” Collins said. “He’s from a great family lineage (his father is Felipe Alou), and I think he’s going to be really good.”
One thing we didn’t know? Collins apparently talked to Rojas often last year while serving as a special assistant to Brodie Van Wagenen.
“Last summer, as bad as things were, my weekly phone calls weren’t from Brodie or Allard (Baird), they were from Luis asking me my thoughts on things,” Collins revealed. “I said, ‘I’m not there, so I can’t really say, but here’s some options to think about.’ That tells me he wants to grow and get better, and I’m happy Sandy gave him another chance to manage.”
Collins worked under Alderson as manager, and then under Van Wagenen as a consultant, and is one of the seemingly few to have positive things to say about the recently-departed ex-GM – especially as it relates to the Robinson Cano/Edwin Diaz trade, already one much-maligned before Robinson Cano’s full-season suspension for a second positive PED test.
“He did the best he could, and he was aggressive; in all the years I was in the minor leagues, our job was to produce players that can help your team get better, and he used those pieces to get better,” Collins said. “You can’t tell me that if you go back three years ago, and Diaz was available, 29 other teams wouldn’t have wanted him! They took a shot and it didn’t work out, but you make decisions that you think will make your team better.”
Diaz was much better in his second season in Queens, posting a 1.75 ERA and career-high 17.5 K/9, and Cano did hit .316 after hitting .256 in 2019 – and that, Collins said, is the crux of the issue: no matter what, the players still have to perform.
“Players have to go play. That is the biggest thing. Especially in New York, people blame the front office or the manager…but the players have to go play,” Collins said. “When you get good players, you win if they play good, but you don’t if they don’t. That’s why the game is hard. If the game was easy, we’d be watching others play it.”
All that said, Collins thought Van Wagenen “did a great job and made some tough decisions,” and if that one trade comes back to bite the Mets even more, so be it.
“If Jarred Kelenic becomes a superstar, well, we look back at Jeff Bagwell and John Smoltz,” Collins said, recalling trades Boston and Detroit once made to get veteran pitchers for then-unheralded Double-A players in Bagwell and Smoltz. “Those things happen in the game, but you have to make decisions for that you think are best for right now.”
You can check out Collins’ entire interview with Zach Gelb below!
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