Reese Kaplan -- Is Carlos Mendoza Going to be Fired?

Back in 2024 the Mets made a somewhat curious hiring decision when they inked a deal with former Yankee coach Carlos Mendoza to take the helm as manager of the new David Stearns-led Mets.  He had no real major league managerial experience save for a few games as substitute manager when the primary was bounced by the umpire.  

It seemed an unusual choice considering the outgoing manager after the 2023 season was four time Manager of the Year and future Hall of Famer Buck Showalter.  Still, with a new front office looking to build for the long haul it was an interesting roll of the dice on someone who was likely going to have to go through an adjustment period before establishing himself as the field general to the players in his dugout.

His first year made Steve Cohen and David Stearns look like relative geniuses as he helped the club finish third in the division with an 89 win season and made it up to the NLCS game which left them within a hair’s breadth of making it to the World Series.  While everyone was understandably disappointed that the team didn’t progress to the game’s biggest stage, the naysayers were sufficiently suppressed that no one questioned Mendoza returning for the 2025 campaign.

Unfortunately the combination of injuries and slumps made the previous season’s team virtually unwatchable from June through the end of the year.  Not enough was done by the front office to impact the roster in a positive way and despite the Bad News Bears level of incompetence the club did manage to finish that terrible six months of baseball not with a playoff appearance but with a winning record of 83-79 which ironically was good enough for second in the division.  

Mendoza lost some of his converted fans but most understood that having nearly every starting pitcher, many relievers and countless position players hurt would have made it mighty difficult for even Earl Weaver to finish better than Mendoza did.

Then came the 2026 roster purge with free agency and trades breaking up the core that the club had relied upon for the past several years.  Gone were Pete Alonso, Brandon Nimmo and Edwin Diaz among others.  The replacements bought in generated a mixed reaction where uncertainty vacillated with the excitement of Stearns producing his own roster that theoretically addressed the issues he identified as being in need of major improvement.

Thus far the newcomers — Bo Bichette, Jorge Polanco, Marcus Semien, rookie Carson Benge, Devin Williams and Luke Weaver — have not exactly set the world on fire.  Granted it’s only 19 games into a 162 game season but the whispers have already grown in frequency and volume that Carlos Mendoza is simply not the man for the job and should be the first highly visible pawn to fall.

Recently writer Will Sammon suggested that Mendoza is safe for now since he is not the one failing at the plate and on the mound.  His career managerial record is still over .500 and even a tough cookie like Tommy Pham gave an unsolicited endorsement of the preparatory work Mendoza has his club doing in anticipation of upcoming games. 

Stearns has not in his career done the mid-season termination of a manager but there’s a first time for everything.  The question is with Mendoza existing in the final year of his initial three year contract he may be treated like a free agent to be and pushed out the door while using someone else to create a new clubhouse culture and help put the team into a more winning direction than has been experienced since 2024 ended.

The huge question, of course, is who in the world would the Mets consider as a replacement sooner or at year’s end if they determine Mendoza has not demonstrated the output they had hoped to achieve.  The usual batch of decent unemployed managers exists but with them the experience also comes with set-in-his-way red flags which might need to be considered as an offsetting attribute.

Assuming Buck Showalter is not coming back and some of the other elder statesmen in semi-retirement are off the table, then in no particular order you have the following:

Bruce Bochy — Former Mets player Bochy is now 70 years old and despite having demonstrated a solid managerial record in his post-playing days, he would seem more like a one year temporary candidate for a team rather than a long term strategy.

Brandon Hyde — Bounced from Baltimore after turning them from perpetual cellar dwellers into a 100+ win team, Hyde is an interesting candidate.  After four straight terrible years he was able to get them to finish the 2022 season over .500.  He then made it into October baseball in 2023 and again in 2024.  He was fired by Baltimore just over 1/4 of the way through the 2026 season.  

He’s currently doing some front office advisory work for Tampa but is not managing at the moment.  He has 6+ seasons of major league managerial experience and is still young enough that he could be a longer term solution as skipper.

Dave Martinez — He’s another former manager still out there and likely for his track record.  Despite one highly positive season, his overall record in charge is 500-622 though whatever won/loss numbers he achieved with the less-than-stellar Washington Nationals should be taken with a whole silo of salt.  He’s in his early 60s but doesn’t jump off the page with the positive vibe the club would likely be seeking.

Bob Melvin — Veteran skipper Bob Melvin has done more good than bad as a manager but is again on the outside looking in for his next gig.  His career numbers are a .514 winning percentage having won 1676 games while losing 1588.  During his 23 years as a manager he’s had eight playoff appearances and would certainly add authority as a veteran who doesn’t easily get rattled but that similar profile from Buck Showalter didn’t exactly work out too well.

There are two highly visible in-house candidates who come with some of their own baggage and lack of experience:

Edgardo Alfonzo — Team icon Alfonso worked with the Brooklyn Cyclones as a bench coach for three seasons before being tapped to be the manager.  For the next three years he did well, including a championship for the team before new Mets GM Brodie Van Wagenen terminated him as he wanted to earmark his own direction with personnel he selected personally from other respected organizations such as the Boston Red Sox.  

Fonzie has not gotten another MLB-affiliated managerial gig since then other than a woeful 2022 trial as manager of the Staten Island Ferry Hawks which ended after a single season.  It would be an odd albeit good headline news type of transaction as he is unknown for his managerial tenure to Steven Cohen nor to David Stearns. 

Carlos Beltran — Back at the end of 2019 the Mets hired former All Star player Beltran to be their new manager but reversed course a few months later due to the publicity surrounding the sign stealing scandal of the Houston Astros where he was a central figure as ballplayer at the time.  

Sufficient time has likely passed to allow the club to look beyond that incident and in fact the Mets currently employ Beltran as Special Assistant to the President of Baseball Operations working in the front office as the right hand man to David Stearns.  Whether they see his future with the organization on the field or in the executive office is still unknown but he is another positive headline generation option for them to consider.

For now, however, it would seem that Carlos Mendoza is the guy in charge in the dugout.  Whether or not a change will be made has much to do with the club’s record moving forward and how much of it is attributable to perceived loss of clubhouse control or flawed on-the-field decision making.