The Mets fired manager Carlos Mendoza on Friday, and the immediate question wasn’t just who replaces him. It was whether the guy who hired him would follow him out the door.
David Stearns, the team’s president of baseball operations, was asked directly if he’d considered resigning. His answer was short.
“I have not,” Stearns told reporters, per SNY.
The reporter followed up with a simple “Why not?” Stearns then gave a longer answer, one that sounded like someone trying to sell a vision that the scoreboard hasn’t backed up.
“I believe that we are building the foundation of an organization that can deliver what we all want,” Stearns said. “I don’t believe that our record on the field this year is indicative of some of the advancements that we’ve made in the organization, but clearly, our record is nowhere good enough.”
Mets are running out of season to turn things around
New York sits at 34-47, dead last in the NL East. That’s not just disappointing. For a team that spent big in the offseason and talked about competing, it’s a disaster. The fanbase is restless. The local media has been sharp. And the pressure on Stearns to produce something real is only going to get louder.
Mendoza’s firing didn’t come out of nowhere. Other big-market teams already made similar moves this season. The Red Sox moved on from Alex Cora. The Phillies fired Rob Thomson. Both of those teams were supposed to be contenders too. So the Mets are following a pattern, not setting one.
Andy Green takes over as interim manager. He’s got a tough job. The roster is underperforming. The bullpen is a mess. And the front office is essentially asking everyone to trust a process that hasn’t shown results yet.
Stearns and Mendoza had a working relationship that people around the team described as functional. But functional doesn’t save jobs when the losses pile up. Now Stearns is the one left to explain it all, and he’s betting his own job security on a rebuild that’s still in its early stages.
The Mets have 81 games left. That’s a lot of baseball to either prove Stearns right or bury him in more questions.
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