Reese Kaplan -- Much Ado About Nothing

Athletes are like any other category of human beings.  You have winners and whiners.  The task for a manager is separating the two to try to stoke the fires of the winners and to minimize the malignancy of the whiners.  It seems that new field general Mickey Callaway has his first exercise in this regard in the person of Zack Wheeler.

Upon hearing the news that the Mets had signed Jason Vargas to start, Wheeler immediately announced, “I’m just here to be a starting pitcher. That’s what I’ve always been, and that’s what I’m going to be. When I’m healthy, I know I’m just as good as anybody out there, so that’s what I’m concentrating on.”

Maybe it’s just me, but in this hypersensitive, politically correct world in which we live everyone jumped to the conclusion that Wheeler was indeed whining, particularly when he added that he was not yet contacted by anyone within the organization about how this addition to the roster could impact his role.

Excuse me, but had he said, “Sure, Jason Vargas won 18 games last year and was an All-Star.  I haven't done diddly squat since getting hurt.  Tell you what, how about if I just throw in the towel and either head to the pen or to Las Vegas because he’s the better pitcher,” would we be congratulating him for being a team-first player?  No, he’d be roasted for being non-competitive.

Personally, I want to applaud Wheeler for essentially saying, “You’ll get the ball from my hand when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.”  I personally hope Callaway can instill this type of hyper competitive attitude into everyone on the team.  It’s then his decision on how best to deploy the resources he has on hand on a nightly basis and when situations demand one particular skill set.

Similarly, the whole non-story about Donald Trump, Jr. being out at the same shark fishing trip that Callaway was on with the players seem to set a great many fingers furiously typing to condemn that “plan.”  Nowhere was it actually said that it was arranged for these two notable figures to be in the same place at the same time – in fact, quite the opposite was reported.  If I happened to walk into the same room where David Duke or Louis Farrakhan appeared, did that necessarily mean I agreed or endorsed what they stood for?

It is incumbent upon Callaway to set the tone about expectations and to communicate with his players, but I think media and blogging types anxious for something to write about are seemingly creating firestorms where none exist.  Let’s hope Callaway is as good as advertised when it comes to his handling of players and media.