Mets: Terry Collins keeps plugging away despite lost season

This season has been far from expectations and may be Terry Collins‘ last as a manager, but he is looking to avoid what happened in prior stops

Terry Collins is almost certainly at the end of the line in his managerial career with the New York Mets. If 2017 is his last year in the dugout, it’s a bitter ending to a career that finally reaped benefits after two previous stops went south quickly. However, that’s not stopping him from trying to keep the clubhouse as positive as possible.

Many have been critical of Collins’ in-game management, but he deserves some credit. He has kept the Mets’ locker room mostly drama free, something he did not accomplish in his days with Houston or Anaheim. Collins compared this season to the 1999 Angels, but the difference (at least from the outside) is the players have not turned on Terry or rebelled as they did in Anaheim.

In his stop with the Astros, Collins had a winning record but could not get Houston to the playoffs in any year from 1994-96. In his final year there, Collins led the Astros to 11 games above .500 and a 2.5-game lead in the NL Central by the beginning of September. The team quickly collapsed though and went 8-17 over the last month.

Collins didn’t break 80 wins in any of his first four seasons in New York. However, the pitching depth grew exponentially. Combined with some shrewd moves by Sandy Alderson, Collins had his best team to work with in over a decade. The result was a berth in the World Series. The Mets managed to battle their way into the postseason again in 2016.

This year was supposed to be another year of contending for at least a playoff spot. Instead, the Mets have turned into one of the biggest disappointments this season. No matter the opinion on Collins, it’s nearly impossible when you lose some of your best players for weeks or months at a time. The look toward 2018 has already begun with the recently passed trade deadline. More decisions will be made in the coming months involving several players. It’s a far cry from what many expected at this point in the season.

Even though the Mets are at their low point of the season, Collins is still saying all the right things and doing his best to keep the team engaged. That may not be believable after Sunday night’s loss, but the Dodgers have made a lot of teams look silly this year.

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If this is it for Collins, then it’s a bitter end to what looked like an opportunity to taste some success for a longer period of time after two previous tenures ended on a sour note.