☕️ Good Morning: A crazy first day of Hot Stove season ends with Carlos Mendoza as the Mets’ new manager. Craig Counsell lands in Chicago. Adam Ottavino declines his player option. Grab your coffee for your morning dose of Mets Fix!
Happening Now: In news that is somehow both shocking and expected at the same time, we learned on Monday that Carlos Mendoza, not Craig Counsell, will be the next manager of the New York Mets.
The unsurprising part was for Counsell to end up close to home, avoiding the boiling pot of New York City, a situation he seemed to never prefer.
The shocking part is twofold:
The reality of the Mets ending up with an inexperienced manager after a long public courting of Counsell.
That Counsell wound up inking a record-breaking $40 million deal with the Cubs after it seemed the decision was down to either staying in Milwaukee or accepting a boatload of money in New York. The Cubs didn’t even ask for permission to speak to Counsell before November 1, so everything reportedly came together within the last few days.
Hot Take: Evaluating a manager, or comparing which manager fits a team best is a challenging task, but especially so from afar. If Mendoza can effectively translate David Stearns’ vision to the day-to-day operations of the club — building relationships with the players, executing game plans and effectively communicating decisions to the media — he is the right guy for the job.
Unfortunately, in a sport full of numbers, we lack adequate data and metrics to quantify the value of a manager. Many of the desired attributes are revealed behind closed doors. It’s truly an area where fans and commentators, alike, have a blindspot. It’s ok to say “I don’t know” when evaluating whether Mendoza is a good hire.
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🍎 Who is Carlos Mendoza?
The 43-year-old joins the Mets after spending 15 seasons with their crosstown rivals in multiple roles, including two as a manager in the low minors and the most recent four years as Aaron Boone’s bench coach.
Hot commodity: Mendoza was pursued by several other teams. He was a finalist for the Guardians (who hired Stephen Vogt), Padres, White Sox and Red Sox. The Giants also considered him before hiring Bob Melvin. Former Mets GM Zack Scott posted on X that Mendoza was one of three finalists in Boston before they hired Alex Cora.
Player development: Mendoza offers a change of management style from Buck Showalter as an up-and-coming leader with a background in player development. He has a “strong reputation in the industry for being detail-oriented, well versed in analytics and earning respect over the years from players,” per multiple accounts.
The Venezuelan native is the Mets’ fifth manager in six seasons (Buck Showalter, Luis Rojas, Carlos Beltran and Mickey Callaway) and the fourth without prior managing experience. The Mets are expected to add a veteran bench coach to Mendoza’s staff.
“He is very strong, very confident,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone told Andy Martino. “But also very open-minded and in tune with everything in the game. Dealing with players. He’s not afraid to debate, talk. He has the ability to push back on anything, but he knows he doesn’t know everything.”
“He is a baseball lifer,” Yankees player development head Kevin Reese said to Martino. “He is very knowledgeable about the game as the game has changed. He is not afraid to hold people accountable.”
💰 Getting Paid
Mendoza will reportedly make $4.5 million over three years with a club option for a fourth year. A far cry from the record-setting 5-year, $40 million deal signed by Mr. Counsell.
Counsell will be paid $8 million per season after earning ~$3.5 million last season with the Brewers.
There are six managers earning less than $1 million and 15 managers earning $1.75 million or less, per USA Today.
Learn More: 'Just an embarrassment:' Major League Baseball managers are grossly underpaid
Negotiations: The Cubs’ offer to Counsell was “significantly higher” than what the Mets were offering him.
Steve Cohen and co, believed Counsell only had mild interest in coming to New York and did not want to be used as leverage in negotiations, per The Athletic and SNY. Counsell reportedly didn’t give the Mets a chance to match Chicago’s offer.
JB’s take: I know the Mets floated how much they liked Mendoza to local reporters, but wouldn’t you push the narrative even stronger if you knew you weren’t getting him? The strongest case for Counsell to leave the Wisconsin area was assuming Cohen would make a crazy offer. They didn’t make a crazy offer, so why lead people along like they were in the race?
Peter’s Take: It’s all bullshit. I think the Mets wanted Counsell and probably offered to make him the highest paid manager in the sport. And they thought he was bluffing about a higher price and just missed him. There’s some PR spin going on about the offered amount.
Taking the plunge: Given the difficulty to quantify a manager’s direct impact on winning, it makes you wonder how the Cubs can justify firing a popular manager in David Ross to make Counsell, who has won one playoff game since 2018, the highest paid skipper in baseball history.
This isn’t the Bears hiring Vince Lombardi. As much as the Mets are taking a chance on Mendoza, the Cubs are taking a risk by pushing all their chips to the center of the table for Counsell.
There are a lot of hurt feelings:
Brewers owner Mark Attanasio: “We’re all here today because we lost Craig,” Attanasio said in his opening statement. “But I’ve reflected on this – Craig has lost us and he’s lost our community also.”
From the Cubs’ clubhouse: “This move obviously has come as a shock to the baseball world, but Cubs players themselves were taken aback by the hiring as well. The clubhouse had Ross’ back, even after a September collapse that led to them falling short of the playoffs and allowed the blame to be spread. But none of the players were willing to point that finger at Ross.” ~ via The Athletic
Read more: Cubs take a Sammy Sosa-like swing by hiring Craig Counsell to replace David Ross
👴🏼 Overvaluing experience?
As I mentioned at the top, nobody in the public yelling and screaming about this hire has enough information to offer a truly educated opinion.
Reality: In fact, the strongest argument against Mendoza is how little people know about him. It’s one thing when evaluating a player signing — we’ve all watched that player and have endless stats to tell us about their play. We don’t have the same view of a manager or prospective manager. Therefore, we are stuck with generic arguments, such as experience vs in-experience. And recent history tells us that isn’t enough to say whether Mendoza is a good hire or not.
Counsell: Ironically, Counsell, himself, is an example of a manager finding success after being hired with no managerial experience.
Rob Thomson provides another comparable — he spent 17 years with the Yankees before joining the Phillies as a bench coach and turning into the right guy to lead them to back-to-back magical playoff runs.
AL Manager of the Year finalists Kevin Cash and Brandon Hyde have found success in their first jobs.
Alex Cora won a World Series in his first season as a manager.
Learn more:
MLB playoffs: Managers don't need experience like they used to
Expertise vs. experience? MLB’s latest revolution is changing the face of coaching
⚾️ How much is a manager worth?
A baseball manager has a more nuanced impact than a coach in football or hockey where scheme can heavily influence player production. Try scoring 50 goals playing a conservative trapping system versus in a run-and-gun style that promotes scoring chances.
Mechanics: The things that prove most impactful to baseball players aren’t usually decided by the manager. A hitting coach can help a player find their proper mechanics (see Robert Van Scoyoc with J.D. Martinez). The same for a pitching coach, or from the benefits of an analytics team or pitching lab.
Decisions: A manager’s fingerprints are traditionally found on in-game decisions. When do you pinch-hit? When do you go to the bullpen? Whom do you call from the bullpen? Is this a good time for a hit-and-run?
The role of the modern manager has evolved. Once the sole discretion of the skipper, many in-game decisions have increasingly become group decisions with the front office.
“I view the manager position as a true partnership,” David Stearns told reporters in early October. “Someone that is working side-by-side with me and the rest of our baseball operations group.”
Perhaps the most critical role of the modern manager is to communicate group decisions to the media and fans. In New York, this is particularly important, something Buck Showalter struggled with last season.
What Stearns seeks in a manager: “First and foremost is the ability to manage people, manage personalities, and create and facilitate an organizational culture where people enjoy coming to work and work hard. That’s at the top of my list.”
How much is a manager worth? We have formulas to tell us how much wins above replacement (WAR) a player is worth. It’s not as easy to quantify the impact of a manager.
A 2014 analysis by FiveThirtyEight found “95 percent of all managers are worth somewhere between -2 and +2 wins per 162 games.”
A more straight-forward approach is to look at a team’s record relative to their expectations. The Manager of the Year Award usually goes to the manager who improves their club’s record the most from the previous season, or whose team greatly outperforms preseason projections.
Learn more:
The Athletic: As baseball evolves, where do managers fit in MLB’s future?
FanGraphs: How Should We Evaluate a Manager?
👋 Ottavino decides to leave: Adam Ottavino changed course and decided to decline his $6.75 million player option with the Mets.
The veteran reliever met with David Stearns to get an idea of his place with the club, but left the conversation without a restructured contract or confident feeling in his future.
Too much uncertainty: “I feel like I gained very little insight from that meeting, which is obviously his prerogative to tell me or not tell me anything. I get it,” Ottavino told The Athletic. “There’s just so much on his plate, and this first year we just don’t have a lot of information on it yet, and I’m only signed up for the one year. The thought process is, I don’t know who else is coming on the team, I don’t know what’s happening with (Pete) Alonso, I don’t know what’s happening with the coaching staff.”
🔹 The Mets claimed utility man Zack Short off waivers from Detroit. He appeared in 112 games (over half as mid-game defensive replacement, pinch hitter or pinch runner) for the Tigers last season while slashing .204/.292/.339 and offering defensive versatility around the diamond.
🔹 Bryce Montes de Oca and Peyton Battenfield cleared waivers and remain in the Mets’ organization. John Curtiss, Tim Locastro, Denyi Reyes and Elieser Hernández also cleared, but elected free agency.
🔹 Kodai Senga was named a finalist for National League Rookie of the Year. Diamondbacks’ right fielder Corbin Carroll and Dodgers’ center fielder James Outman are the other two finalists.
◾️ Seven players received qualifying offers: Shohei Ohtani, Cody Bellinger, Blake Snell, Aaron Nola, Josh Hader, Matt Chapman and Sonny Gray. The qualifying offer is $20.325 million for 2024. Players have until November 14 to accept it before becoming free agents with draft-pick compensation attached to their name.
◾️ The Guardians hired Stephen Vogt as their new manager.
◾️ The Diamondbacks extended manager Tony Lovullo through 2026.
◾️ Former Met Michael Conforto opted in to the final year of his contract with the Giants worth $18 million.
🔗 Mets must give Carlos Mendoza chance to become their Craig Counsell, by Joel Sherman, NY Post: “Without Counsell coming, the weight also is on Cohen and Stearns to create an environment for Mendoza to succeed. A manager’s job is to put the players in the best position; and it is the owner’s and president of baseball operation’s job to do the same with the manager. Counsell would have been a no-brainer. But he was just 44 when he started in Milwaukee with no clue how he would do.”
🔗 Risky Carlos Mendoza hire raises plenty of Mets questions, by Jon Heyman, NY Post: “Mendoza may turn out to be a fine hire, but he brings no certainty when the Mets are team that can pony up for that without a pang of pain. Let’s face it, he was the bench coach for a team that had a “disaster” of a season in the words of general manager Brian Cashman, a team that didn’t exactly make the most out of its $275 million payroll.”
🔗 Mets hiring of Carlos Mendoza feels like a letdown after tantalizing Craig Counsell pursuit, by Jon Harper, SNY: “Maybe Stearns was caught by surprise as well with Counsell going to the Cubs, but now you also have to ask if he’s just another Ivy League baseball executive who wants a manager to whom he can map out a plan before each game to be followed regardless of nuance. Let’s hope not. Let’s hope Mendoza turns out to be more than a willing collaborator.”
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Appreciate the dose of sanity, per usual. People freaking out about the hire yesterday need to calm down. Sure, we all preferred Counsell but there is no reason Mendoza can’t work just as well.
Can someone tell me why UFA's have QO's and draft pick consequences? They work hard to get into this position and then they have another anchor holding them back? For example, after next season when Pete becomes a UFA, will he have those strings attached?