Reese Kaplan -- A Managerial Candidate Review

One thing we’ve seen from Brodie Van Wagenen in his short and somewhat tumultuous first season at the helm of the NY Mets is that he doesn’t play things out in the media and often has a tendency to zig when others would zag.  Sometimes that approach serves him well and other times it is a high-risk recipe for disaster.  We’re seeing that same scenario playing itself out once again in the quest for a new skipper. 

When he took the job, many felt his first order of business would be to fire the manager and bring in his own guy.  After all, he inherited Mickey Callaway from the three-headed monster of a front office that preceded him.  No one would have blamed him with Callaway having come off a rookie managerial season in which he went a less than inspiring 77-85, finishing the season in 4^th place, 13 games out of first.  This result was actually a significant improvement over his predecessor’s 70 win season in 2017.

When Callaway started off poorly in 2019, the handwriting appeared to be on the wall.  However, a mid season rally carried through towards the end of the season during which Mickey improved the team’s fortunes to the tune of an 85-win season, still eleven out of first, but he had the Mets in the post-season chase until the final week or so of the season.  It was then BVW wielded the axe and sent Mickey on his merry way.  It was the first time ever the Mets fired a manager off a winning season which was a change of pace from renewing managers again and again after continually losing.  Most felt that it was a good move to take the team to the next level and signified an honest interest in winning instead of treading water.

When the well known names came out as prospective candidates for the Mets managerial vacancy, everyone assumed Dusty Baker, Joe Girardi, Joe Maddon and Buck Showalter would be at the top of the candidate list.  Consequently, it’s come as a bit of a surprise that only Girardi of these four horsemen of winning baseball was actually asked to come in for an interview. 

Girardi has a long track record of success with the Yankees (and one season of failure with the Marlins, but that can be easily forgiven as they have always been a challenging franchise).  Girardi averaged over 90 wins per season but many feel that with the roster he had he actually underachieved, only bringing a single World Series title in his decade in the Bronx.  When he was fired, it was his disconnection from the players cited as the primary reason for his contract not being extended.  Considering that the Yankees are in contention to go back to the World Series just two years after his departure, one would think that there might have been some substance to what was being said.  Gone are the days of Yankees getting onto the back pages for the wrong reasons while under Aaron Boone’s leadership. 

Some would question why Girardi would want the gig in New York given the meddlesome front office who seems to expect their manager to kowtow to their every whim.  Girardi is also interviewing for the Cubs job and he has ties to that city as well which might make it a good fit for the man.   And let’s not forget he would by far be the most expensive option under consideration – always a major factor. 

So what of the others the Mets have interviewed?  They say Mike Bell, a player development executive from Arizona, did quite well and is also being wooed by Pittsburgh for their opening.  He’s a buddy of BVW and as we have seen from his roster of former clients he put on the Mets payroll, that seems to count for a lot.  He does have more experience as a minor league manager than did Mickey Callaway, having led the Yakima Bears and Visalia Rawhide for a total of three years from 2007 through 2009.  I find it interesting that he did not receive any further managerial or coaching opportunities higher up in baseball.  That’s now ten years out of the driver’s seat and he may be a bit rusty.

For all of the team history, strong playing career and Yankee post-playing credentials Carlos Beltran brings to the table, he’s still not remembered particularly fondly among the fans.  The image of his Adam Wainwright called third strike is burned into Mets fans’ brains like, “It gets by Buckner!”  Like the man he would hope to replace he has zero managerial experience and as such it would seem to be somewhat foolish to repeat potentially the same mistake made when they hired Callaway. 

Current broadcaster and former manager Eduardo Perez was kind of a latecomer to the process whose name was not bandied about by anyone until the interview was actually confirmed.  He won Manager of the Year in Puerto Rico and has three seasons of minor league managerial experience under his belt before moving into the broadcast booth.  In a weird way this approach mimics what the Yankees did with Aaron Boone, recognizing that the ability to appear poised on camera is a large part of the major league managerial job. 

Twins bench coach Derek Shelton has interviewed for major league managerial positions in the past but not gotten them, losing out to less-than-stellar competition.  Yes, he’s coming from a winning organization and has some minor league managerial experience, but another AL guy getting his first gig seems somewhat unlikely.

According to Jon Heyman, another bench coach late into the consideration for the opening is former Met infielder Tim Bogar.  Unlike several of the others, he has had a longer and stellar minor league managerial record while also working under some of the brightest baseball minds in the majors on the coaching lines.  The three-time Manager of the Year in the minors has a career .576 winning percentage and he has worked with Joe Maddon, Bobby Valentine, Ron Washington and Terry Francona.  He did front office work as a special assistant to Jerry Dipoto in Seattle and currently is on the coaching staff of the NL Champion Washington Nationals.  He's probably not going to be released for an interview until after the conclusion of the World Series, so that timing may not work for the Mets who probably feel some implicit pressure since Joe Maddon is now off the table already. 

Finally that bring us to the sole in-house option being considered at this juncture, Luis Rojas.  He too has minor league managerial bonafides, with eight years in the Mets organization managing many of the current players.  Last year they created a job for him as a liaison between the front office and the clubhouse, so he’s already in BVW’s inner circle.  Given it would be his first big league gig, he would work cheap and not contradict the input of his boss.  For these reasons I think he’s quietly becoming the front runner for the position.