On Monday morning, the Mets introduced one of the most talented players in the club's history, Carlos Beltr¨¢n, as their latest manager. Now they need him to be as much of a star in the dugout as he was on the field, because you can make the case that the Mets have never made a more important hire with a manager, all the way back to Casey Stengel.
This is not just a big swing for them, with someone who has never managed before, it is an even bigger swing -- with amazingly high stakes -- for their general manager, Brodie Van Wagenen, who had never held a front-office job in baseball until the Mets hired him away from Creative Artists Agency after the 2018 season. Even if you are the best and most optimistic Mets fan on the planet, the context here is a GM with one year of experience in his job hiring a manager without any.
¡°It was Carlos¡¯ strengths that won the day,¡± Van Wagenen said at Beltran¡¯s press conference at Citi Field.
No one is questioning those strengths: Beltr¨¢n¡¯s baseball IQ, his standing in the sport, his two decades as a player, the fact that he has been preparing for this by working in the Yankees¡¯ front office. No one is questioning his communication skills or the credibility he will have with players who remember the kind of player he was until his retirement. Or the ¡°relatability,¡± that Van Wagenen referenced. Clearly, Beltr¨¢n hit the last home runs of his career across the interviewing process.
So did Mickey Callaway two years ago, when he pretty much had the Mets at hello.
We have seen that previous managerial experience has begun to matter less and less in baseball; even experience as the kind of bench coach Alex Cora was in Houston and Dave Martinez was in Tampa when he was Joe Maddon¡¯s top lieutenant there. Aaron Boone came from Sunday Night Baseball to the Yankees and is now the first Yanks manager to win 100 or more games in his first two seasons. David Ross now comes from television to manage the Cubs. Doc Rivers, one of the best coaches in the NBA, came from television to his first head coaching job with the Orlando Magic, and now has one title on his resume and is chasing another with the Clippers.
This can work, of course, and work tremendously, and put the Mets back on top for the first time since 1986. But it has to work for the Mets, who not only have to find a way to win in the National League East -- which looks as if it will be the best division in baseball next season -- but do something else: Look like winners again in their own city. And that means doing something better than 86-76.
The competition with the Yankees is real, even if they are in different leagues and only on the same field in Interleague Play. But far more real is the competition against the Nationals (now the champions of the world), the Braves (who aren¡¯t going anywhere) and the Phillies (who have to get better with a new manager, Joe Girardi, on whom the Mets passed).
And, by the way, even though this still sounds crazy right now in light of what we¡¯ve seen the last couple of years, I honestly believe the Marlins are going to be a good team again, maybe sooner rather than later.
The Mets were a now team last season. They will be even more of a now team in 2020. If they win next season, they aren¡¯t going to do it because they think another Pete Alonso will be coming over the hill from their farm system. They are going to do it with the starting pitching they have, and with Alonso, Michael Conforto, Jeff McNeil and J.D. Davis, all of whom gave them a lot more offense than we expected last season at Citi Field.
It is clear now that their last on-the-job-training manager was out of his depth, not just as a manager, but handling all the pressures and responsibilities of having a job like his in New York City. We know that Beltr¨¢n can handle New York. He did it with the Mets and then with the Yankees. He will eloquently handle the day-to-day aspects of it, in two languages, including with the media, something that has become as much a part of a modern manager¡¯s skill set as his use of analytics.
But after all that, and with all the propping up Beltr¨¢n will get from the Mets' analytics department and from Van Wagenen, it will ultimately be Beltr¨¢n in the dugout. Managing the game, managing his people and managing the big, bad city. Finding a way to get the Mets back in the postseason. And maybe winning them a World Series. You know how many Mets managers in history have done that? Two: Gil Hodges and Davey Johnson. Three others have managed them into the Series: Yogi Berra, Bobby Valentine and Terry Collins.
Now Beltr¨¢n gets his turn.
¡°I can¡¯t wait to rewrite our story with the New York Mets,¡± Beltr¨¢n said Monday.
No. He needs to write his own story. There have been 21 previous Mets managers. No hire has ever been more important than this one. Ask Mets fans: They want him to do more than communicate.