Mets' Carlos Beltran won't close door on managing in future
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Carlos Beltran is officially back in baseball, having arrived at Mets spring training this week to begin his new front-office job, returned from years of scandal-induced exile to a role that allows him to do exactly as he wants: Help shape the organization by talking about baseball with baseball players.
Regarding the future, though, Beltran is leaving open the possibility of managing again.
“But you can never say no, right?” Beltran said Wednesday during a 13-minute media session in the home dugout at Clover Park. “You can never say no when you love the game and you love being around guys and being able to impact players and make players’ careers better. At this point, I’m OK where I am. But later on, I don’t know.”
Beltran, a five-time All-Star in seven seasons with the Mets, returned during the 2019-20 offseason as manager. But he lost that job just weeks after getting hired when MLB, upon completing its investigation, pinned him as a face of the 2017 Astros’ illegal sign-stealing scheme. The Mets parted ways with him in the fallout. Lauded during Houston's World Series championship run as a highly respected veteran leader, Beltran was the only person on that roster to serve a punishment beyond getting booed.
In the years since, a bunch of teams reached out, interested in hiring Beltran as a coach, he said. He wasn’t interested in that full-time, in-uniform, non-manager responsibility. The YES Network hired him as an analyst for Yankees games last season, but he said that just wasn’t the same as working for a team.
And then the Mets called during the offseason.
“When this opportunity came, it was a no-brainer for me to say yes to be back and be around,” Beltran said. “This organization is part of who I am as a ballplayer.”
He is a special assistant to the general manager, a common title with about as many interpretations as there are people who hold it. Billy Eppler said the Mets intend to have Beltran visit with minor-league teams and assist with evaluating elite amateur talent prior to the draft and international signing period.
Beltran mentioned another area in which he can be helpful: Advising star players with big-money contracts about getting used to New York, a dynamic with which he has first-hand experience. His seven-year, $119 million deal signed before the 2005 season remained the biggest awarded to a player new to the organization until Francisco Lindor (10 years, $341 million) two years ago.
As Lindor struggled with the adjustment in his first year, Beltran helped him through it.
“I went through a lot. That was a lot of growing process for me, so my job as a player [who] experienced playing in New York, which is not easy, I have to find a way to be able to support the guys that come here as a new contract,” said Beltran, who spent part of the Mets’ workout chatting with Lindor, Ronny Mauricio and Brett Baty. “First year with the Mets, even though we feel it's baseball, the attention the players receive here in this city, it's different. They test you, they push you, but most importantly they push you to be better. They push you because they want to see a guy going out there playing hard to contribute.”
Beltran largely declined to discuss the 2017 Astros, referring to it obliquely — “I went through a moment in my career that was tough,” he said — or avoiding it altogether.
“Today's not about the Astros,” he said, adding later: “Honestly speaking, there's a lot of things we could have done differently. But we didn’t do it.”
Was he surprised by the way things unfolded with the Mets in January 2020?
“I move on, honestly,” he said. “That was a moment that needed to happen, and I moved on. I went home, reflect on what happened, how it happened and that’s it. That’s all you have to do. We grow from moments that are tough. But at the same time, we learn a lot from people and people around you. In my case, I’m OK where I am today.”
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
