Cleveland Indians: Should Mickey Callaway return to the coaching staff?

The Cleveland Indians could decide to offer Mickey Callaway a job on the staff after he was let go as manager of the New York Mets.

Mickey Callaway was a hot commodity when he left the Cleveland Indians following the 2017 season. He headed to the Big Apple as the young manager of the New York Mets.

His stint there is now over after just two seasons. Callaway didn’t do terrible but some total bullpen collapses, when pitching was supposed to be his speciality, ultimately doomed him in 2019.

I won’t dive too deep into Callaway’s odd tenure in New York. The focus on him from an Indians standpoint is whether the team will try to bring him back on the staff in some capacity.

The only opening right now is bullpen coach after Scott Atchison was let go. Aside from that opening the entire staff is remaining the same in 2020.

Bullpen coach sure would be a step down from manager, but Callaway could get back into a pitching-focused role after what seemed like quite the stressful tenure in New York.

The other option is having him coach alongside Carl Willis, or even shift Willis to the bullpen. In any scenario, Callaway would have a major voice with the entire pitching staff.

He was the team’s pitching coach from 2013-2017 and we all know how great the staff was in 2016 en route to the World Series. No matter who stepped in, there was success all the way until the end of that season.

Does Callaway get too much credit? That is possible. The staff didn’t decline when he left for New York, but his teachings were also instilled by that point.

Getting Callaway back as the bullpen coach is a no-brainer. I think it is hard to argue with that, and not just because I said it. It is just a matter of whether he would want to go from manager to bullpen coach.

Baseball is a sport where coaches may get too much credit, and also too much blame, for stuff out of their control. Even if Callaway did get too much credit for his role with the Indians, he is obviously doing something right to rise from minor league pitching coach to manager in the past decade.

I would welcome him back with open arms. The key is finding a fit for him before another team snatches him up.