Well, it happened but not as everyone expected it to. The Mets hired a manager yesterday by the name of Carlos Mendoza. The Mets, who were the odds on favorites to land Craig Counsell if he could justify leaving Milwaukee just whiffed on that one. The Cubs hired Counsell. The Mets hired another team’s bench coach who has never managed a MLB game.
These aren’t the Wilpon Mets, who would try to save money by taking a chance on an unheralded guy in the hopes he could be good. These are the deep pocket Cohen Mets with the highly desired President of Baseball Operations David Stearns.
I was speechless at first. Then I was angry. Then I tried to take in all that was being said to find a bright side and rediscover my usual optimism. Here are the two sides of the story that I can see:
The bright side:
Carlos Mendoza is a young almost 44-year-old guy with six years spent in a MLB dugout. He has been with the Yankees’ major league staff since the 2018 season in a variety of roles and has an extensive background in player development.
Today’s managers are not tasked with the same responsibilities that go with the traditional role. The lineups, the rotation, and other elements of player utilization are often given to today’s manager as direction. If Stearns desired a guy that could take direction from above on tactical moves, build strong relationships with players, and provide a positive presence in front of the withering New York media, maybe Mendoza is the right guy.
It is a fresh start for the Mets and their manager. Mendoza, who has been with the Yankees organization for his entire career as both a player and as a coach has no biases, no ongoing issues with players, no grudges with leadership. He gets to write on a clean slate with a new piece of chalk.
People that know Mendoza in the Yankees organization speak highly of him. He is credited with having strong leadership skills which are essential in an MLB managerial role.
The dark side:
Carlos Mendoza has not managed a major league team. Carlos Mendoza has not managed a minor league team higher than single A. His credentials as a player and a defensive infield coach somehow got him to the role of bench coach with the Yankees on their 2020 squad, but that is the highest role he has attained. A few teams did talk to him this off-season, but no known offers were made.
We are just a few years removed from the Luis Rojas experiment. Rojas was a bench coach without MLB managerial experience. He had great knowledge and rapport with the Mets’ minor league system and its players. He was touted as someone that knew the game at a very deep level and related very well with players. He did not last very long. Neither did another first-time MLB manager named Calloway.
Once upon a time, the Yankees were the dominant team in baseball. Other teams coveted their players, coaches, and front office staff because they had seen how greatness works. The Yankees are not in that dominant category anymore, and Mendoza has not seen how champions are built. On the contrary he has only seen a Yankees team that underperformed to expectations. This is the pedigree that the Mets are trying to get rid of.
Eric Chavez is arguably the best hitting coach the Mets have had in a decade. Last year he was promoted to bench coach, likely due to his success. He does not have the experience to back up an inexperienced manager, so the Mets will need to hire someone with deep experience (likely a former MLB manager) to be their bench coach. This means that they lose Chavez unless he agrees to a demotion to his prior role.
Personally, I can't see how the positives outweigh the negatives right now. I don't see how this move is going to help attract the sought-after free agents like Yamamoto. Maybe his leadership skills will help motivate the players, but that is an untested theory and with the Mets in a critical stage of their build plan there is very little margin for this type of risk.
Now that you have seen both sides, where do you weigh in on this highly anticipated personnel move during the hot stove season?
They should have kept Showalker who was a proven manager. Now on a team that is supposed to be up and coming you have a new manager with no experience going thru the growing pains. Pathetic in my book. Even Carlos Beltran would have been a better choice than Mendoza.
ReplyDeleteIt seems clear from the way these negotiations with Counsell unfolded that he really was not excited or maybe even interested in taking the Mets job. If he was i have no doubts they would have worked it out. The question then becomes who Stearns thinks is the best man for the job. He could have gone with experienced or new candidates. He made his choice. I don't see if as the Mets wiffing. You can't make someone take a job if they really don't want it.
ReplyDeleteAs I said in a previous post I know nothing about Mendoza and I will reserve opinion
ReplyDeleteBut
The fact that I don't know anything about him speaks volumes
Your.point on securing Yamamoto is a wise one
I am clueless on Mendoza. I may refer to the Yankees frequently in articles, but I don’t watch them.
ReplyDeleteYou know,I think it means Ohtani is off the table,maybe Yamamoto too. It’s a growing let’s see what we got season,giving the Bany Mets a chance to do or die. Soto will be the guy they go after in 2025. Sort of like the Dodgers staying pat while waiting for Ohtani.
ReplyDeleteGood analysis, Paul. I would have rather Counsell signed here, but not just for more money. But taking a chance on Mendoza means the front office really has to make this work. If they're hiring a new manager 2 years down the road we're in trouble
ReplyDeleteHere is what I find interesting. This is all David Stearns. Sure, Steve Cohen has the ultimate veto power, but he is not going to reverse the first impactful decision that his new POBO makes - so this is what Stearns wanted.
ReplyDeleteStearns knew Counsell very well in Milwaukee. He probably came to NY thinking that Craig was the guy he wanted. Something about learning the Mets organization, strengths, and weaknesses told him that maybe that was not the right guy for this situation. Given that revelation, he looks at all the candidates out there - and it was slim pickings if you read Remember1969's piece last Tuesday - so Stearns decides to select from the ranks of people that had not managed in MLB.
The fact that so many people have said "Who?!!" indicates that this is a long shot on a guy that Stearns thinks he can control and move in the right directions. That means a lot of oversight on field level stuff with less bandwidth for "Baseball Operations". He needs a capable GM right away.
I’m more concerned about Stearns. Ross would be a better Manager option than Mendoza. He didn’t have to sign a Manager on November 6.
ReplyDeleteThe other small yet puzzling move was picking up Zack Short. We already have a better version of him in Guillorme. We also have 3 prospects who can play the Infield positions (Mauricio, Jett, Acuna) well and hit. A good fielding Mendoza line hitter is not what this team needs. Even in the Minors as he’ll take away playing time from our top prospects. Don’t be surprised when we have press conferences for Maeda, Giolito, Armando Benitez lol. I feel like I’m back in the Wilpon Sandy Alderson days. Or should I say nightmare.
I can't be angry.
ReplyDeleteThe Mets never really had a chance. How do you compete with 40 million in a market that is near his hometown. In a market that will give him resources and has prestige? In a market that has most everything the NY one does minus the current toxicity?
I'm not really sure how Counsell got anointed the best manager in baseball.
The risk with Mendoza is low. We don't always have to overpay and take other stars whether its on or off the field. I personally think the affect the manager has is overblown. Counsell wasn't going to magically make us a winning team...the talent on the field is far more important. Buck went from manager of the year to fired in the span of 2 seasons...so why overpay Counsell who likely had no interest in NY vs grabbing the guy already in the NY spotlight.
Paul,
ReplyDeleteUnless I am mistaken, Countsell had no managing experience in either the minors or majors before being hired as the Brewers manager. If Mendoza can be as successful as Countsell, we have made a good choice. I am on board.
Sorry I misspelled Craig's name. My mistake.
ReplyDeleteI think Remember has to do some rambling here.
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts on the current manager situation are all over the board.
- I guess I agree with most everyone that Craig Counsell would have been a good get as manager.
- There are a bunch of things that we do and do not know:
(1) In 2023 the highest MLB manager salary was Francona's at roughly $5M.
(2) Counsell seemed to be about money - the most of what I read about him was that he wanted to be the guy to raise the bar on Manager salaries
(3) Did the Mets make him any offer at all? If so, what was it?
(4) Did Counsell 'throw Stearns under the bus' by just taking the Cubs offer which is on average about $3M more (60%) than the 2023 high salary without giving the Mets a chance to match?
(5) . . .
With all that, it really appears that Counsell did not really have any real interest in managing the Mets or working with Stearns.
As someone (I think Dallas??) said? Who crowned Counsell the King of Managers? I come back to the facts that Yes, Counsell has won more than lost in Milwaukee, and No, Counsell has never been to the World Series. Counsell won some division titles in the very weak NL Central and this year would not have had the Cubs not crumpled up their season in the last two weeks. He has been given the pitching to manage against the Pirates, Reds, Cubs, and Cardinals. I wonder what his record would look like had he managed in the NL East or the NL West over the last 7 years.
DJ correctly called it that Counsell had NO minor league managing experience when he took over Milwaukee.
Just a minor history check shows that the Mets hired Joe Torre as a manager. He didn't win and the kicked him to the curb. He then became a genius Hall of Fame
manager when he took over the Yankees who gave him the players to win.
Another history check shows that Art Howe was a combined 296-189 in the three years with Oakland (an average of 98 wins to do the math) before being hired as a 'hot commodity' manager by the Mets in 2003. I won't go into the rest, but there aren't many Mets fans that look back fondly at his time in NY.
One last history check: Mickey Callaway was hired with no previous managerial experience in 2018 taking over a rather poor team going 77-85 in year one before turning it around with an 86-76 record in year two, coming up just short of the playoffs. Had he not self-destructed with his own idiotic behavior, he was doing a pretty decent job. I recall the Mets had the best record in the majors after the All-star break in 2019. He was doing something right.
Lastly, because as a Mets fan sitting physically a couple hundred miles away and professionally a universe away from being able to do anything at all about this hiring, I am not going to waste any negative energy and just hope that Stearns come up big here. Who knows, but there isn't anything that I can do about it.
Let's give Carlos Mendoza a chance to show what he can do. Now let's go get the players that can make or break a new manager.
I have a feeling that with all the animosity directed towards him within the ranks of other owners/FO’s over the money he has and has already spent, Cohen didn’t particularly relish the idea of also being the guy who blew up the pay scale for managers. He likely would have done it if Stearns had his heart set on Counsell, or perhaps if Counsell legit wanted to be here, but clearly that wasn’t the case.
ReplyDeleteI trust Stearns here. He presumably knows what he wants in a manager, and he has relationships all over the game to help him find the right person. Given the opaque nature of both the true natures of the possible hires, and also of how dugouts/clubhouses are actually functioning at any given time, and finally how Stearns wants things run, I don’t think that any of us is in position to do anything but trust and hope for the best at this point.
My soul needs this honeymoon of trust with the management of this franchise. It’s been a long, long time.
There was absolutely NO reason to think that Councell was “THE GUY” and could handle NY better than Mendoza will. And that is the hardest part about managing the Mets. The easy parts: sounds like Mendoza is great with the players, and is sharp with baseball experience. He is bi-lingual, and a New Yorker, and spent time in a dugout in NY for the last 4 years. And, it is said, has been tough on Skankees, when called for. There has not been one bad word said about this guy, by anyone. If Uncle Steve and DB are satisfied, then I’m satisfied.
ReplyDeleteRemember, too, if you make mega millions in Queens, the NYC and NYS local taxes are killers. Not sure how much better in Illinois, but...
ReplyDeleteThank you all for these great comments. Keep 'em coming!
ReplyDelete