Mendoza meets the media

by Lloyd Carroll Chronicle Contributor

It remains to be seen how successful a manager Carlos Mendoza will be, but he certainly displayed plenty of personality at his introductory press conference.

Yes, he said the boilerplate stuff about the Mets’ passionate fan base, and being impressed with the team’s culture. The word “accountability” was liberally thrown around, as it has been at every new manager/head coach hiring press confab since Adam and Eve.

On a more positive note, he thanked his family for giving him the chance to indulge his dreams of a Major League Baseball career, and the struggles which have come with it, speaking p assionately in English and Spanish. He acknowledged being the consolation prize as the Mets failed to land their top choice, Craig Counsell, with good humor. He also thanked former Yankees executive Mark Newman for encouraging him to be a big-league skipper.

Although he is technically a first-time manager, Mendoza was the Yankees bench coach the last four years, which meant he ran the team whenever Aaron Boone was thrown out of a game for arguing with an umpire. That was a frequent occurrence. Mets President of Baseball Operations David Stearns said he had many conversations with his Yankees counterpart, Brian Cashman, about Mendoza. You can be certain

Cashman reminded Stearns of the excellent job Mendoza did as Boone’s understudy.

Mendoza was asked if he spoke with Yankees third base coach Luis Rojas about the Mets job. Rojas was the Mets manager for two years before being let go after the 2021 season. He said he had but revealed nothing else. I must assume Rojas must have mentioned some red flags.

Most managers get to choose their coaching staff. Mendoza announced Jeremy Hefner, who served as Mets pitching coach under Rojas and Buck Showalter, would return in 2024. Mendoza admitted he had never met or spoken with him.

He laughed when I mentioned how Hefner is the Andrei Gromyko of baseball coaches. Gromyko held many high-level posts in the Soviet Union from the days of Josef Stalin right up to Mikhail Gorbachev. Hefner mysteriously survives every Mets regime change. The pitching was atrocious last year, and not just because of injuries. Two young starters the Mets were counting on, Tylor Megill and David Peterson, both badly regressed.

Reporters kept asking Mendoza if his good friend Willie Randolph would be his bench coach. I would be surprised if 38-year-old David Stearns, who fired 67-year-old Buck Showalter, would bring in the 69-year-old Randolph who has not been a manager or a coach since 2011. Q

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