Terry Collins' Line Up for September

Today, Saturday, September 2nd of the 2017 season, the New York Mets stand 22.5 games beyond the Nationals and 13.5 games out of the Wild Card spot.

Their record is 58 wins and 75 losses, or .436 percentage.

This means they are well below mediocre, out of the playoff hunt and now turn their attention to allowing younger players to begin to gain invaluable playing experience which may yield hope for 2018.

Right?

Wrong.

This is Terry Collins, who has always played his veteran players, no matter how poorly they performed, in order to maintain some semblance of popularity in a lost club house made up of divided loyalties.

He even signaled, once the pressure built from the fan base to promote thrilling Amed Rosario, that he would not simply let Rosario play the last 7 weeks of the season as any other manager would.  Collins warned us that the 21 year old with energy bursting from him, might get "tired" and need rest.

This is Collinspeak for "I heard Cabrera's complaints and demands and I will yield to them when I can just like I do for all veterans on this team."

Gavin Cecchinni, Matt Reynolds and Brandon Nimmo have ridden the bench, with only Nimmo cracking the line up due to injury.

Collins even went as far as to tell us that he had to play "some" vets (Cabrera) to "show" other teams what he could do.

The September First trade deadline for post season came and went without any meaningful offers for Asdrubal Cabrera.  The Mets would have taken a box of baseballs for him, had someone offered it.

                                   No one wanted him.  

He is poison in the club house.

Did you catch him showing up the Mets 3rd base coach gesturing, "why didn't you send him?" on the base hit?

Today, Saturday, September the 2nd of a lost season please note:

Jose Reyes is leading off and playing 2nd base, and Cabrera is playing 3B and batting third.

Few, outside of those who write here, expected to see either in the line up once the September 1 deadline had passed and the roster expansion hit.

Kudos to the Mack's Mets writers here who have noted both the language and the pattern of Collins' ineffective management this year, and have stated it plainly for its readers. 

The 2017 New York Mets were a divided leaderless team, acutely missing David Wright, with a few rotten apples infecting some of the youth, and the overall celebration of mediocrity that we witnessed.  It lacked the character to pull together after key injuries.  It allowed a few selfish "me first" players to go undisciplined which emboldened others.  

With the departure of Curtis Granderson and Jay Bruce went our veteran leadership, so what did Terry Collins do?

He scolded the lone all-star, Michael Conforto, privately and to the press, that he was not "ready" to be a leader. 

This was something he should have kept private, even if it was necessary.  

Jay Bruce was diplomatic when he spoke to the media, expressing hope that kids "would be" in the line up. It was as close as he could possibly come in appropriately pressuring management to bench (and discipline) slumping veterans and let kids play, without hurting his own future contract negotiations with other teams.

Reyes batted .174 in April, .216 in May, 
and .213 in June, along with poor defense and poor base running.  Those lost games would not be recovered by him heating up in July.  

It was leaked out in early August, Sandy Alderson's advised concern of promoting Amed Rosario into the troubled clubhouse, particularly with Cabrera.  Although I wanted Rosario promoted, this was a wise and informed vantage point of Alderson's.  

As Reyes attempts to teach Rosario and Dom Smith how to dance and celebrate sub .500 baseball, I continue to hope that we will see reactions such as Smith has shown; respectful acknowledgement of the veteran dancer, while also not sharing in the enthusiasm of it. 

Perhaps it is that Dom Smith has winning on his mind, instead of making a fair show for the camera in a lost game, over a personal success.    

This would be refreshing.  

It is the attitude of winning teams.  

Recall the 1967 internal "controversy" that Tom Seaver inadvertently caused when he, and a few other young players, failed to embrace the "lovable loser" mentality of the Amazin' Mets, since their birth in 1962. 

Suffice to say that any split in the clubhouse of 1967, including "put off" vets who did not like the 22 year old Seaver telling them to lift weights, mended with the shift of winning side, which lead to the miracle of 1969.  

Let's hope that Terry Collins is not back next year and that the "me first" players are disciplined, held accountable, traded or remain on the DL, so that the hungry young ones can, in the least, give it their all.  

Keith Hernandez said it best:  we know what Travis D'Arnaud brings.  Maybe the last month of the season we should see what Kevin Plawecki can bring.  This discussion went to the overall theme of the Mets looking towards next year.  Keith said that after giving up 7 runs in 2 innings, the Mets should let Harvey start the third inning, letting him try to work out what is wrong.  

Instead, we got Tommy Milone.  

At least we got to see Jose Reyes almost get picked off, then have Keith remind us of Reyes' poor base running decisions in the last series in Cincinnati, only to have Reyes then picked off...by a right hander.  

I understand that Collins is likely a good man.  This criticism is solely of his managerial style, including the 2015 World Series, the management of various Spring trainings, and the lost year of 2017.