Buck Showalter is willing to have his hat in the ring, but he’s not running to Queens to throw it in there.
The former Yankees, Diamondbacks, Rangers and Orioles manager hesitantly said he would have interest in the Mets job, hours after Mickey Callaway was fired on Thursday.
“Yeah, I’d like to be talked about it, but I’m not going to campaign about it, and I’m real uncomfortable even talking about it with you now because there’s a lot of good people out there and they’re going to make a good decision,” Showalter said Thursday night on Steve Somers’ WFAN show. “They’ll have reasons why and why not, and, you know, I respect that.”
Showalter is one of the veteran managers available for hire, along with another ex-Yankees manager, Joe Girardi.
General manager Brodie Van Wagenen and the Mets may find that experience attractive as they search for the person to take over a promising young core and strong rotation and try to guide them to October.
Callaway, a first-time manager, went 163-161 in two seasons with the Mets.
The 63-year-old Showalter is currently working as a YES Network analyst, a year removed from getting fired as Orioles manager after nine seasons in Baltimore. He is a three-time manager of the year and led his teams to the postseason in five of the 20 years he managed.
While some believe a veteran manager might not work as well with a Mets front office that wants to have input in his day-to-day decisions, Showalter indicated he would not have a problem with it.
“It’s always been that way,” Showalter said. “[Former Yankees GM] Gene Michael and I used to sit down and talk about the lineup every night. [Former Rangers GM] John Hart and I used to sit down and bang it around, and you bang it around with your coaches. I welcome that. I’d like to think that we have good reasons for the things that we do. And the best organizations are the ones that are able to bridge all the departments into pulling on the same rope.”



