Mets hire Callaway as skipper

Looking for a fresh voice to shepherd their prized pitchingarms, the New York Mets found it in new manager Mickey Callaway.

NewYork agreed to a threeyear contract with the Cleveland Indians pitching coach. A news conference to officially welcome Callaway as Terry Collins’ replacement isexpected within a few days.

With his contract set to expire, Collins stepped down at the end of the season after seven years as Mets manager and accepted a position as a special assistant to general managerSandy Alderson.

Callaway, 42, who has never managed at any professional level, has done an excellent job as Cleveland’s pitching coach for the past five seasons under highly successful skipper Terry Francona.

The Indians led the major leagues with a 3.30 ERA and 1,614 strikeouts this season — one year after reaching the World Series and losing to the Cubs in seven games.

“The first thing that I noticed our first year was his level of confidence,” Francona said recently.

“It seemed to me that it exceeded his experience. Then, as you watch him and you’re with him every day, you see that that confidence allowed him to have other voices, and get input from other people, and sift through that and take what he wanted. But my goodness, he had such an impact on the pitching staff. He’s so good.”

This season, Cleveland won an American Leaguebest 102 games and its second consecutive AL Central Division title. But the Indians squandered a 2-0 lead in a division series and were eliminated by the New York Yankees in five games.

Red Sox

Boston hired Houston bench coach Alex Cora to be the new manager, turning to a player from their 2007 World Series championship roster to help the team out of its current playoff slump. The Red Sox announced the hire a day after Cora’s Astros eliminated the New York Yankees in the ALCS. With two days off before Houston opens the World Series against the Dodgers, Boston had a chance to hire Cora without running afoul of baseball’s ban on major moves during the Series. Cora replaces John Farrell, who led the Red Sox to the 2013 title and in the past two years claimed the first backto-back AL East championships in franchise history. But Boston also finished last twice in Farrell’s tenure, and has won just one playoff game since winning it all in his first season. A native of Puerto Rico, Cora is Boston’s first Hispanic manager.