5 questions for Carlos Mendoza now that he's officially the Mets' manager
New York Yankees bench coach Carlos Mendoza has been hired as the manager of Mets. Credit: AP/Erin Hooley
The Mets are ready for the world to meet their next manager.
A week after they initially agreed with Carlos Mendoza, the Mets made his hiring official Monday, formalizing the addition of the longtime Yankee. They will introduce him in a news conference at noon Tuesday at Citi Field.
Mendoza received a three-year contract with a team option for a fourth season, according to the Mets.
“I couldn’t be more excited to manage this tremendous franchise,” Mendoza said in a statement. “I want Mets fans to know that I will pour every ounce of energy into this job and we share a common goal of bringing a championship to Queens.”
He is the 25th manager in team history and the fifth in six seasons.
“Carlos is full of energy, passion and it was easy to see he’ll have a great rapport with both our veteran and young players,” Steve and Alex Cohen’s statement read.
President of baseball operations David Stearns said in a statement: “Carlos has a brilliant baseball mind and a finely honed ability to collaborate with others. He comes with a fantastic reputation as a trusted leader and someone who has been beloved in every stop of his career.”
Mendoza, 43, joins the Mets after four seasons as Aaron Boone’s bench coach with the Yankees, with whom he had held various minor- and major-league roles since 2006.
Here are five questions that will be relevant at Mendoza’s introductory news conference.
What does it mean to manage in New York?
This question is inspired by Stearns, who said last week: “The candidates that we spoke to . . . had really thoughtful perspectives on not only our situation, but what it means to manage in New York and both the opportunities and challenges that that can present.”
What opportunities and challenges does New York present? And the Mets? As someone whose entire big-league career has been in this market — and has experienced, for example, the criticism Boone and the Yankees have faced in their perennial falling short of a championship — Mendoza surely has thoughts.
How would Mendoza describe his managing style?
In a major-league context, the answer necessarily is theoretical, since Mendoza has never done this before. But he has managed in the minor leagues, Venezuelan Winter League and Arizona Fall League, so he isn’t coming in completely green. Seeing as he has been working toward this job for a decade and a half, ever since he transitioned to coaching after 10 seasons of playing in the minors, he has had plenty of time to think about it.
What does Mendoza think of the Mets as currently constituted?
The Mets were a mess last season, and Stearns & Co. have lots of roster-building work to do. Mendoza’s take on what is needed and how the Mets can fix things should have come up during the interview process. Hopefully he will be willing to share that insight.
Relatedly, Mendoza might be able to shed light on the state of his coaching staff and what he values as he fills out those roles. Since he is a rookie, does he want a former manager as bench coach? Will pitching coach Jeremy Hefner be back?
Who are his greatest personal and professional influences?
Managers never behave as exact replicas of those they learned from, but inevitably they observe what to do — and what they don’t want to do — from those they have been around. Perhaps Boone, the only major-league manager he has worked under? Or Phillies manager Rob Thomson, who ran the Yankees’ spring training setup before Mendoza took over? Or someone less obvious from his Venezuela days?
What does it mean to “collaborate” and be in a “partnership”?
Those are major buzzwords in the modern baseball landscape, the early days of the Stearns regime included. He has used both on multiple occasions in the context of hiring a manager since taking over the team last month.
The most cynical view sees the manager as a puppet of the front office — using the lineup he is given, making the moves that are scripted before the game, strictly sticking to what the advanced numbers suggest is optimal. Mendoza, though, is described by those who know him as fluent in analytics but not beholden to them, literate in the sport’s tools of today but experienced enough as a baseball lifer to have a human touch.
How does he imagine a relationship with Stearns? We’ll get to find out starting Tuesday.
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.
