Cleveland Indians: Mickey Callaway excelling early in new role

Former Cleveland Indians pitching coach Mickey Callaway led the pitching staff to new heights, and is now off to a great start in his new job.

The problem with having a great team is that both the players and the coaches become hot commodities on the open market. Cleveland Indians fans saw the effect of that in 2018.

Aside from losing some top talent, the Indians also lost pitching coach Mickey Callaway. The coach who oversaw one of the best staffs in baseball left to be the head coach of the New York Mets. Luckily, his absence hasn’t had any major negative effects on the Indians so far. Unless he was also secretly helping the batters.

While the Indians are seeing some great results from the pitching staff, Callaway is seeing great things from his entire team. His Mets are off to a 10-1 start and have won eight straight. That is the best record in all of baseball, which is still notable even when considering it is still early in April.

His team has only allowed 31 runs to opponents in 11 games, and the Indians are close behind with 34 runs allowed in 12 games. As for his offense, Asdrubal Cabrera is leading the way in several offensive categories, so the Indians relationships are all over the field in New York.

It is great to see Callaway succeeding so far and it would be hard to expect it to have gone any other way. He is a manager arguably ahead of his time when compared to some other people manning dugouts these days, and he is the perfect man to work with the talented pitchers on the Mets.

It is unfortunate he couldn’t stay with the Indians, but it is not like all his lessons were erased Men in Black style when he left.

The coolest way for this season to end would be for the Indians and Mets to meet up in the World Series. Callaway could square off with Terry Francona, only to get swept. But hey, making it there would be quite the achievement!

Next: Ranking Terry Francona among the team’s best managers

Jokes aside, it is great to see Callaway doing well and it shows just how great of a manager Francona is to have people working for him end up with successful jobs elsewhere.