Joel Sherman

The team tells you. Not Brodie Van Wagenen preening that the Mets are the club to beat in the NL East. Not Mickey Callaway with his near-daily pledge that the Mets are on the brink of taking off. They are paid spokesmen for the organization. Their jobs, particularly Callaway’s in the short run, rest on...

Brodie Van Wagenen, several hours before Sunday’s Rockies-Mets series finale, addressed a group of season-ticket holders sitting down the left-field line at Citi Field and mentioned anticipating earlier than standard action in the trade market, in part because waiver deals will no longer be allowed in August. And a few teams have become aggressive with...

The MLB draft ran from Monday through Wednesday. As the process was concluding, word began circulating that Craig Kimbrel would be signing with the Cubs. Twenty-four hours later, Dallas Keuchel was in agreement with the Braves. With that, the trade market opened in a broader way. Teams deploy so many resources and so much attention...

Someone above the managerial pay grade — the owner, the GM, maybe the seasoned-in-all-things-Mets Omar Minaya — needs to inform Mickey Callaway that it is September now. It is not just that Callaway’s hold on his job is tenuous — actually tenuous might be too sturdy of a word to describe Callaway’s hold — it...

Mickey Callaway referred to the rotation as the Mets strength yet again before Tuesday night’s series opener against the Giants, and he indicated how important it was for the starters to get on a roll of excellence to carry the team. A few hours later, Noah Syndergaard was on an excellent roll and the Mets...

Watching Mickey Callaway after the past two Met losses in Arizona made me think about Arnold Schwarzenegger playing Hamlet. Schwarzenegger is an actor. Hamlet is a part. But not all actors were meant to play all roles. And not all managers have the emotional range to go from sunshine to darkness. On Saturday and Sunday,...

Scott Boras does hyperbole like Stephen Curry shoots — in volume and effortlessly. The agent inflates, conflates and overstates in the name of embellishing clients, creating leverage and making sure no one sees him sweat even when the market is working against him. On Monday, Boras was doing his best P.T. Barnum, mentioning on MLB...

Pete Alonso is on the path to the best season ever by a Mets rookie position player. Yet, he may not win NL Rookie of the Year and might not even appear on every ballot. With the season one-third complete, the NL Rookie race is setting up as the best of any award. If the...

Mickey Callaway is still the Mets’ manager for many reasons. The most important, though, has nothing to do with his likability, wealth of pitching knowledge or even ownership’s distaste for eating around the $1.7 million he is owed through next year. Callaway’s greatest defense is simply, if not him, who? If your knee-jerk response is...

Ten on my mind: 1. Brett Gardner and Aaron Hicks homered Sunday. It underscored a Yankee rarity — just the second time the 2019 Yankees had two homers hit left-handed in the same game. Gardner and Mike Tauchman did it April 19. In fact the organization of Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle, Berra and Reggie had just...

The 2019 Mets are more about the culture of Wilpon ownership and a roster forged by Brodie Van Wagenen — first as an agent, now as the general manager — than the managing of Mickey Callaway. But the terms of engagement for this team have been understood for months. Neither the old owners nor the...