Let’s play along that Mets officials will meet this week and that Mickey Callaway’s fate is yet to be determined.
In that scenario, the Mets will have to ponder this: If they bring Callaway back, it will almost certainly be as a lame duck. Does anyone really see the Wilpons/Brodie Van Wagenen tacking a year or more onto his contract just to give him peace of mind and some leverage?
So the Mets would be sending a lame duck back into a clubhouse in which no one would use “beloved” or “respected” to describe the manager. Callaway is not disliked. He just lacks the emotional tether or tactical esteem that creates sturdy support.
Thus, what happens if rather than one of those excellent starts the Mets have enjoyed the past few years, they endure one of their dreadful recent Junes in April 2020? What if they head into May at, say, 12-17? What do the Mets do then in another season in which they will be playing to, at minimum, contend?
They could fire Callaway then, promote Luis Rojas into the job and test if the current 38-year-old is ready. Rojas has lots of internal cheerleaders, including Robinson Cano, who has the ear of his former agent, Van Wagenen. Rojas managed throughout the Mets system from 2011-18 and was the major league quality control coach this year.
But that presupposes that Rojas does not get opportunities elsewhere. The initial buzz is that Moises Alou does not want the Padres managing job, for which he would be the perceived frontrunner as a favorite of GM A.J. Preller. I will believe Alou is not getting that job when someone else is at a press conference. If it is Alou, there would be no surprise if he named his brother the bench coach. That would be Rojas — both are the sons of former manager Felipe Alou.
The biggest problem, though, with the interim scenario for the Mets is it would mean that — at best — Van Wagenen has the ability to pick his own manager tabled for a year. He would be going the first two years of his administration without his choice in the dugout. And Year 1 did not go well for Van Wagenen. So he would be risking still having the power (and perhaps his own job) a year from now to do a full search.
If Callaway is dismissed this week, Van Wagenen would have a smorgasbord of choices. He can target the experienced such as Joe Girardi, Joe Maddon, Buck Showalter. But will the Wilpons pay for such a manager at a time when most teams are going young/inexpensive? Van Wagenen has demonstrated loving the big, splashy move, but will he hand the job to someone who while lower in rank would be considerably larger in status?Van Wagenen could look at off-the-field options such as Mark DeRosa or David Ross, or coaches such as Joe Espada or Derrick Shelton, or even an information coordinator such as Sam Fuld, who shares Stanford ties with Van Wagenen and does a similar job with the Phillies as Rojas does with the Mets — and Rojas almost certainly would get consideration.
Is Van Wagenen really going to risk that he never gets an opportunity to look at all of this via a full search to trust Callaway with the team for another year?
The Callaway case is what? He talked a lot about the team never quitting. But this is the major leagues. No team quits. Everyone, at minimum, cares about their numbers enough to give effort to the end.
The Mets improved their record for a second straight year under Callaway, up to 86 wins in 2019. But they were 25-33 vs. the five NL playoff teams, despite a 12-7 record against the Nationals. It was 12-21 against the three division winners. The Mets got the putrid AL Central this year and went 13-3 against it. Next year their interleague series are against the AL West, including a four-game home-and-home with the Astros.
So forget about record improvement, did the Mets see enough managerial improvement from Callaway to warrant letting him keep the keys for another year? The Wilpons and, especially, Van Wagenen are going to have to believe that there were real upgrades in areas such as strategy and presenting the organizational message internally and externally — plus the capability to grow even further. If they saw that, they would be part of a pretty exclusive club.
If they didn’t see that, then the meetings this week have a foregone conclusion on the agenda — a thank you note to Callaway. Then comes the tougher call. What kind of manager would best lead a team built to win that has limited farm help coming, probably sparse financial wiggle room for payroll and, at minimum, the perception of dysfunction from the top of the organization down?