New York Mets: Next Season Could Be Terry Collins’ Last
New York Mets manager Terry Collins has indicated that the 2017 season could be his final one leading the club.
New York Mets manager Terry Collins has one more year on his contract, and according to him, 2017 could indeed be his final season with the club. Collins informed Adam Rubin of ESPN.com that he will see how he feels after next year’s campaign before deciding whether he will continue in the dugout.
“I just need to re-evaluate at the end of this coming year what’s going on, where I am, how I’m feeling,” he said. “I’ve always said a lot of it will be dictated by how I’m feeling. This was a tough year.”
It was a challenging season in more ways than one for both Collins and his team. After reaching last year’s World Series, the Mets experienced an avalanche of injuries, primarily to their vaunted starting rotation. Pitchers Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom and Steven Matz all missed significant time and were unavailable when the Mets fell to the Giants in the NL Wild Card Game. Zack Wheeler was also forced to sit out the whole year as he continued working his way back from Tommy John surgery.
Collins dealt with some health issues of his own over the course of the summer. He was briefly hospitalized after feeling unwell before a game against the Brewers in Milwaukee on June 12. He was kept overnight for observation and released the next day after checking out okay. Collins also described feeling fatigued late in the season to ESPN, particularly during a day game on Labor Day in September. At 67 years old, Collins is the oldest manager in Major League Baseball.
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Of course, Collins is going to focus on preparing for next season before worrying about his long-term future. He did an admirable job of steering the Mets through an August rough patch to clinch the league’s top Wild Card berth. Although the team didn’t advance to the NLDS, the myriad injuries and other factors should be kept in mind in evaluating the squad’s overall performance this year.
If all of the Mets’ key missing players get healthy and are able to contribute throughout next year, that will be a major boost to the club in 2017. They will also likely need to re-sign slugger Yoenis Cespedes after he opts out, which the team is reportedly confident they will do. If that happens, Collins’ men should again be one of the more competitive groups in the National League.
Collins has helmed the Mets as skipper since the 2011 campaign. In that span he’s earned 481 wins, trailing only Davey Johnson (595) and Bobby Valentine (536) in franchise history. If the Mets can achieve their goal of bringing a championship back to Queens next year, it would definitely make Collins’ potential retirement more palatable.
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On the flip side, falling short again could mean the team would want to move on from Collins anyway. In any case, he has already become one of the organization’s most successful managers.