Credit Mets with making bold call

THE METS earn a lot of derision for a lot of the things they do — fairly earned — so it is important to praise them for this: They did not fall into the oldest trap in the manual of hiring managers. They did not use familiarity as a crutch. They did not give extra credit to pre-existing relationships.

They were willing to be impressed.

And Mickey Call away impressed them.

And this is the first thing you should know about Mickey Callaway: That’s not only how he got to Flushing, how he got to the Mets as their new field manager, but also how he was ever in position to come here in the first place. The way he clearly wowed Sandy Alderson in his interview? Terry Francona understands.

Not long after the Indians hired Francona to be their manager on Oct. 6, 2012, he set out to fill out his coaching staff. A two-time World Series winner, it went without saying Francona would be empowered to hire whoever he wanted, but his bosses started talking up the franchise’s minor league pitching coordinator. His name was Mickey Callaway. “Never heard of him,” Francona said. Still, Francona was smart enough to know that shouldn’t eliminate Callaway from being someone he should talk to. So he did.

“He makes you feel comfortable right away,” Callaway told the Boston Globe not long after Francona hired him. “I spoke to him for an hour on the phone during an initial interview and then, in the in-person interview, in the first five minutes I felt like I had known him a long time. His way of dealing with people is unbelievable and that’s been the main key to our success. He’s definitely done that for us as a coaching staff. He’s made it fun.”

For his part, Francona said, “Five minutes in, I knew I wanted to work with this guy.”

It’s apparent something similar happened when Alderson talked to his new skipper. All along, the prime assumption about the Mets’ next manager was that he needed to have two non-negotiable traits: 1) He had to be one of Alderson’s “guys.” 2) He should be eager to use the term, “Yes, boss.”

And a lot of the candidates that seemed to have the most favorable track to the job certainly had No. 1. The early favorite, Kevin Long, has been in the Mets’ employ for three years. There was little mystery there. Manny Acta’s days with the Mets pre-date Alderson, but he was long a favorite of Jeff Wilpon’s.

Call away? Admit it: There’s a better-than-average chance you had to Wikipedia his name when you first saw it. Of course, when you did, it seemed doubly intriguing: not only his close alliance with Francona, one of the game’s best managers, but the fact that the Indians had developed one of the best top-to-bottom pitching staffs in baseball. And the Mets, in theory, at least, are still supposed to be a pitching-first team.

And if the Francona-Callaway relationship started as strangers, they have developed into one of the closest 1-2 management teams in the sport. Francona insisted Callaway join him on the press conference podium before Game 5 of the 2016 ALCS, the night they qualified for the World Series. He wanted Callaway to get his due.

“We’re on the same page,” Francona said that night. “We’re going to make a pitching change and he’ll walk over. I’ll start to say who it is I want and he knows who it is, he’ll spit it out before I ever get there.”

Francona said he’d ask Callaway about a certain hitter/pitcher matchup “because I think he certainly has a better feel than I do.”

It’s a terrific pedigree. It’s a fresh voice for the Mets, a fresh set of eyes. And comes with no guarantees. For every John Farrell, after all, an ex-Francona lieutenant who won a World Series and three division titles, there’s someone like, say, Brad Mills, another close Francona protégé, who wound up a caretaker in Houston while the Astros were losing enough games to build their present powerhouse. Only the baseball will yield those important truths.

But credit to Alderson, and credit to the Mets: They allowed themselves to be impressed, and allowed themselves to think outside their comfortable cocoon. They’ve given themselves a shot with Mickey Callaway. Now it’s on Callaway to prove they were right.