See Ya, Handsome Art Howe

#Mets announce firing of manager Mickey Callaway.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) October 3, 2019

Some initial thoughts on this, with the caveat that I wasn’t Handsome Art’s biggest fan:

• I think his fate was sealed with the Tim Healey thing. He made a lot of questionable moves and showed a severe lack of feel for the game. But if that didn’t convince the Mets that Callaway wasn’t suited for the job, then the blow up at the reporter did.
• Of course, it’s entirely possible that Callaway was axed because the Mets thought they had a real shot at a big time name, whether it be Joe Maddon, Joe Girardi, or Buck Showalter. But that kind of hiring hasn’t been in the Mets’ or the Wilpons’ DNA for years, so I wouldn’t say this is a sure thing.
• Carlos Beltran is an interesting name to throw around, but his relationship with the Wilpons was strained after the controversy surrounding his knee surgery back in 2010 (-ish), so I’m not sure that can happen.
• David Cone is another interesting name. His penchant for advanced stats might put him in line with the thinking of Brodie Von Monorail and the rest of the newly created analytics department, such as it is.
• David Wright? That would seem to be a Wilpon move. Hire the popular name since we’re already paying him. I don’t know what kind of relationship Wright has with the players on the roster that he played with … and I don’t mean whether it was good or bad, but whether it was good enough that he could get on them if needed without there being fallout. Hiring Wright would appeal to the fan base, but be very, very risky.

We shall see. But the Mickey Callaway experiment is over, and suffice to say it was a failure.