The Mets are letting former fan favorite Wally Backman back in the family.
Backman, whose personal problems practically got him drummed out of baseball earlier this decade, is being hired by the Mets to manage the Single-A Brooklyn Cyclones, a source said yesterday.
A formal announcement is expected early next week.
The fiery Backman, one of the heroes of the Mets’ 1986 world-championship team, has been stuck coaching in the independent leagues since his ill-fated stint as manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks in November 2004. That promotion lasted just four days after reports of serious legal and financial problems surfaced.
Backman, named “Minor League Manager of the Year” by The Sporting News in 2004, most recently managed the independent league Joliet (Ill.) Jackhammers for 1½ seasons before being fired this summer with the team in sixth place in the Northern League at 24-42. Before that, he was the manager of the South Georgia Peanuts in the South Coast League
Backman, 50, had been in line to manage the Mets’ Double-A affiliate in Binghamton until the club decided to give that job to another ’86 title vet, Tim Teufel.
The Mets cleaned house this offseason as far as minor league managers are concerned, after Brooklyn was the only affiliate in their entire system to post a winning record.
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Acting on numerous complaints from fans and opposing teams about being unable to see the field, the Mets are reconfiguring the Citi Field bullpen in time for next season.
Instead of being stacked horizontally with the visiting bullpen in back, the bullpens will now be side by side vertically in center field to give both teams a view of the action.
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General manager Omar Minaya still will not rule out bringing back veteran first baseman Carlos Delgado in 2010 as a one-year free agent bridge to top prospect Ike Davis at that position.
Minaya said yesterday he plans to go to Puerto Rico next month to watch Delgado play winter ball as part of the 37-year-old slugger’s plan to show he is healthy. Delgado played in just 26 games last season because of right hip surgery and a strained oblique.
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Minaya said right fielder Jeff Francoeur, who had been considered a non-tender candidate, will be back with the Mets in 2010.
Francoeur is one of eight Mets who were deemed eligible for salary arbitration if the club tenders them by baseball’s Dec. 12 deadline.
The other seven are right-hander John Maine, righty Tim Redding, lefty reliever Pedro Feliciano, righty reliever Sean Green and outfielders Angel Pagan, Jeremy Reed and Cory Sullivan.
Of that group, likely non-tenders are Reed, Sullivan and possibly Redding.