Sandy's Surprise

I won't go as far as saying the cat changed its stripes, but Mets GM Sandy Alderson made an unexpected choice for his club's new manager. The selection of well regarded Mickey Callaway to be Terry Collins' successor came as a surprise -- most speculation centered on someone such as Bob Geren or Kevin Long, who have previous or current ties to Alderson. Instead, it's the mentor who in the last few years turned Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco and Trevor Bauer into top shelf starting pitchers.
That accomplishment likely played well as the Mets try to build around their talented but injury-riddled rotation. Jacob de Grom was the standout in 2017; Callaway's challenge will be to get the most out of the guys whose past season graded out as D or below: Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard, Seth Lugo and Steven Matz again were unable to make it through a full season. Robert Gsellman was an enigma whose ERA leaped from the mid 2's to the wrong side of 5.
My challenge was finding a photo of Callaway: the one time I got a good glimpse of him was this dugout shot at Progressive Field following a Carlos Santana home run. Callaway is in the center, and stands out thanks to his wrist watch. New York baseball fans will get plenty of better looks at him starting in February when pitchers and catchers report to Port Saint Lucie.

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