Mets managers from Stengel to Mendoza and everyone in between

In their the inaugural season, the Mets ownership selected Casey Stengel to be their first manager.  Stengel’s MLB playing time spanned from 1912-1925 where he was a .284 career hitter with what would have calculated in today’s terms to a .766 OPS and a more than acceptable OPS+ of 120.  He managed from 1949 to 1965 with a career 1905-1842 record and a .508 winning percentage. His managerial success was unmatched, but it was in no small measure the result of making out the lineup card for none other than the New York Yankees and their teams loaded with stars.

From 1949 to 1953, Stengel led the Yankees to five consecutive world series titles. He won additional titles in 1956 and 1958, and AL pennants in 1955, 1957 and 1960.  Of course when your roster includes Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Don Larsen and Whitey Ford, just to name a few, it is not so far fetched that one of our loyal Mets360 contributors couldn’t have led some of those teams to the promised land.

With the departure of the Brooklyn Dodgers and NY Giants in 1957, there was great excitement with the 1962 expansion (Mets and Colt 45’s – later to become the Astros) that brought a national league team back to NYC.  In trying to play on the heart strings of baseball fans, the Mets chose Stengel and a cacophony of over the hill players with recognizable names to entice fans to support the team.  So hungry for NL baseball, the logic worked, but the team was atrocious.  It seems that loyal Mets360 contributors could have replicated Stengel’s first three year records of 40-120, 51-111 and 53-109.  He was mercifully dumped in 1965 with a record of 31-64. If he had declined the Mets offer and simply retired, Stengel’s managerial record would not have included his 175-404 record with the team and his lifetime won-loss would have ended up at 1730-1438 and a significantly better winning percentage of .546.

Carlos Mendoza becomes the Mets 19^th manager, that includes four who served on a less than full year interim basis in the many years of transition for this team.  While “they” say that a manager impacts only a handful games during the course of a season, I respectfully disagree.  If you look at as recently as 2022 and the job that Buck Showalter did, it seems he often punched the right buttons when it came to in-game strategy and getting the most out of his players. His success was in no small part due to the team playing at or above the back of their baseball card average seasons.  Poor Stengel had none of that in his first three plus years at the helm.

The following chart depicts the first year record of the first 18 managers in team history, four of whom managed only partial seasons in their first year, serving first as an interim replacement before being named to the job full time the following season.   Only eight had winning records in their first season and only Showalter in 2022 earned a playoff spot in their first year.  This chart concludes with my prediction of an 88 win season in 2024 and a Wild Card playoff spot.

Interestingly, when you look at managers like Hodges, Berra, Johnson, Valentine, Randolph and Collins they all got to stick around long enough to lead the Mets into the playoffs with Hodges and Johnson brining home their only two world series titles to date.

So how will Mendoza do in this his first chance of being an MLB manager? For a point of clarification, Carlos Mendoza is not the player that is often referred to when saying a player did not cross the Mendoza line – a .200 batting average. That refers to Mario Mendoza.  Mendoza spent 13 years in the minor leagues with tiny little espresso cups of coffee with the Mets and Rockies where his stats were too awful to repeat here.

After his less than illustrious playing career, he started as a coach in 2009 with the Staten Island Yankees, managed their Gulf Coast league team in 2011, and managed in the KC Royals farm system in 2010 and 2012 before returning as a roving Yankee instructor in 2012. In 2017 he became the Yankees MLB infielder coach and in 2019 he started the first of five years as the Yankees bench coach.

His years working his way up in the Yankees’ system should give him great experience in various aspects of how the game should be played, and his years as their bench coach left him just a heartbeat away from managing.  The fact that he played for many years, albeit in the minors, and served as an MLB bench coach for five years in an organization where anything less than a title is considered a failure, Mendoza appears poised to be a strong and knowledgeable manager. He is well versed in fundamental baseball and has already withstood the pressure that comes with playing in NY.  As a bonus his ability to speak Spanish instantly makes him a better communicator to a bunch of the current roster.  Kudos to Francisco Alvarez for working hard on his English that would have been more critical if Showalter was still at the helm.

Mendoza does not inherit a team that appears destined for greatness, but hopefully one that can transition into that direction over the next few years, with the reshaping of the roster and Steve Cohen’s money. It is my opinion that even with the current roster shortcomings, Mendoza will help the Mets thrive which is why I am sticking with my 2024 prediction of 88 wins and a Wild Card spot.  Now if the players will just play to the back of their baseball cards this season, we might just see Mendoza as part of the Mets parade hopefully sooner than later.