Mets Settle on Mendoza as Skipper After Counsell Bolts for Chi-Town

 The New York Mets have a new manager, and it is not the guy many expected.

After weeks of speculation that it was inevitable that former Milwaukee Brewers manager Craig Counsell would follow President of Baseball Operations David Stearns to the Mets, it turns out the Counsell is going elsewhere.

According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, Counsell spurned both the Mets and Brewers to manage the Chicago Cubs instead. The Cubs were never on anyone’s radar as needing a manager as incumbent David Ross was still in place. Instead Ross is suddenly out in Chi-Town and Counsell is in.

 That left the Mets, who claimed the day that Stearns was hired as President of baseball Operations would cast a “wide net” for a manager were left with Yankees bench coach Carlos Mendoza. The Mets named Mendoza their new skipper.

 Mendoza has been a Yankees assistant coach since 2018, and a member of the Yankees organization at the minor league level as a coach since 2009. He managed the Gulf Coast Yankees to a GCL Championship in 2011. In 2012 he managed the Charleston River Dogs and finished 76-63.

He deserves a chance to prove what he can do, but it won’t change the fact the Mets are essentially moving on from a manager in Buck Showalter who won 101 games in 2022 for a skipper who has never managed beyond Single-A.