5 candidates to replace Terry Collins as New York Mets manager

3. Ron Gardenhire

Gardenhire is currently in is first season serving as bench coach for the Arizona Diamondbacks. But his mostly successful run as manager of the Minnesota Twins from 2002-2014, including six division titles in his first nine years, makes him an automatic candidate to manage again if he wants to.

Gardenhire was drafted by the Mets in 1979, and he spent his entire major league playing career (1981-1985) with the team. That past tie may not matter in the big picture, at least to the current regime, but it may make the Mets’ job a unique opportunity in Gardenhire’s eyes.

Much like Collins, Gardenhire is an old-school cliché, sometimes too rigid “baseball man” and is relatively older approaching his 60th birthday in October. He was also diagnosed with prostate cancer earlier this year, taking a leave of absence from the Diamondbacks in mid-February to have surgery. But as long as his health is good though, Gardenhire will probably surface as a candidate for managerial openings.

Gardenhire did not always take well to any scrutiny of his decisions as Twins’ manager, and that scrutiny would obviously ramp up big time in a bigger media market as the Mets’ manager. But I still like “Gardy” as a candidate to replace Collins, and the Mets should at least consider him.