New York Mets all-time greatest managers – No. 4: Terry Collins
Do not get on Terry Collins’ bad side. I repeat. Do not make this man angry.
One could make an argument that Collins should have remained the Mets manager after the 2017 season. The disastrous campaign wasn’t the result of bad managing. The team suffered some pretty devastating injuries. By the time the trade deadline rolled around, many of their top players were traded which led to a further decline.
Collins is actually nowhere near the best manager on this list as far as winning percentage goes. In 1,134 games, his club went 551-583. The .486 winning percentage is something he would probably hide closer to the bottom of his resume.
However, let’s consider a few other factors as to why Collins deserves a spot on this list. He does have the second-most wins of any Mets manager. This is largely because he managed more games than anyone else.
To his credit, Collins also went to the playoffs in back-to-back seasons. In 2015 and 2016, the Mets made a postseason trip with the former ending in a World Series appearance. Collins is just the second manager in team history to go to the playoffs in consecutive years and just the third to go more than once.
One final important note about Collins’ tenure in Flushing is how he turned a downtrodden team into a contender. When he took over as manager, the Bernie Madoff scandal hit the owners and the payroll would no longer reach where it should. Collins made the most of what he had. We saw the development of many great pitchers under him. While he doesn’t singlehandedly deserve a tip of the cap for this, it’s certainly a point to reference.