“Do what the back of your baseball card says you do.”

Terry Collins was on with Mike Francesa, king of the sports blow hards, earlier today. They discussed Spring Training and more.

• Fundamentals is a huge part of his game. He plans on working hard on that with these guys. I like hearing this because it seems that over the past year or two, some of the players are lacking fundamentals which leads to poor results, like finishing the season in fourth place.

  So expect to see Jose Reyes and David Wright play much better among others. Plus, with all of the young kids coming to ST, it is nice to know they will be get some great lessons. He compares the Japanese players to American players.

• Collins stated that one of the biggest question he has had to answer so far was regarding Carlos Beltran and Angel Pagan. Who will play center field and right field respectively?
  The answer: Collins and company will be sitting down with Beltran to discuss his knee. Beltran will have a chance to prove he can play CF during the early part of the exhibition games. If he fails to prove it, he could possibly be playing RF. Beltran says he will do whatever is best for the club. This will be settled within 10-12 games of camp.
• Second base? There are four names being discussed with Luis Castillo being among them. An interesting comment that Collins made about Castillo which nobody really wants to own up to because they hate him so much is “[he] is still one of the toughest guy in the National League to strike out…Daniel Murphy, we need to figure out a way to get his bat into the lineup. Justin Turner and Brad Davis we just got in the Rule 5 Draft who people are saying they are going to be very good offensive players“.
• “At the end of camp you take the best 25.” Contracts does not determine who makes the team out of ST. So if Castillo and Oliver Perez suck, they are staying down South. Personally, I would like to see Perez stay South of the border. But that’s just me.
• Collins feels that Young is a perfect fit for the Mets, especially with the dimensions of Citi Field since “he is a fly ball pitcher“.
• Reyes will be the leadoff hitter. Collins feels he is quite possibly the best leadoff hitter in baseball. He will allow Reyes to fly if he feels he has the opportunity. Collins feels he will have a big year. He feels you have to let Reyes do his thing and taking pitches, by the second batter, will do that. Angel Pagan is probably that batter because he has grown into his own over the past couple of years.

Personally, my favorite quote of the interview was this:

The Blow hard: Reyes, Pagan, Wright, Beltran, Bay, Davis, that’s a pretty good 1-6.

Collins: I totally agree and I totally believe in that line-up. You know I have explained it to each and every guy…why I’ve done what I’ve done…I’ve told them that if they just do what the back of their baseball cards  says that they do every year, we’ve got a chance to put some runs on the board and if we do that, our pitching throws the ball over the plate, and our defense will take care of the rest, I think we have a chance, we can at least compete on a nightly basis.

Maybe while Collins is down in Port St. Lucie waiting for the players, he should take the baseball card of each player and hang it in their locker.

Collins has a style, and image, that he wants this team to project going into this season. I could not agree more:

When you know the Mets are coming to town, your defense had better be on its toes because we are going to run the bases. We have foot speed, we’ve got guys throughout the lineup that can steal a base, they can score from second, they can take an extra base. We’re going to play defense behind you. We’re not going to beat ourselves.

I’m looking forward to Spring Training and the 2011 Mets season. I liked what I heard with Collins. He seems like he is a no nonsense type of guy. I am definitely in his corner. He has my full support. This is a guy the Mets really needed. I think he might actually be better than Bobby Valentine.

To catch the entire interview in case you missed it, click here.