David Lennon: Mets' Carlos Mendoza will get the blame if club doesn't win
Mets manager Carlos Mendoza during a spring training workout on Tuesday in Port St. Lucie, FL. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Two years ago, nearly to the day, Carlos Mendoza sat in the cramped news conference room at Clover Park and spoke about swapping his Bronx navy pinstripes for Flushing’s royal blue.
He presented the typical playbook for a rookie manager. Everything was new, and getting up to speed with an unfamiliar roster and coaching staff was the primary mission for the next six weeks.
Success took a bit longer. But Mendoza averted a midsummer disaster and piloted the Mets to an 89-win season, followed by a magical October romp that stretched all the way to a Game 6 loss to the eventual world champion Dodgers in the NLCS.
What Mendoza faces now, at the start of his third year on the job, is far more daunting.
He’s virtually back to jump street with the Mets. Mendoza’s coaching staff was erased this winter, the longtime clubhouse core shattered and at least six positions overturned — the corner infield spots to be manned by players with zero experience in those zip codes.
And Wednesday, when Mendoza again took the microphone for his opening spring address, there was no time for philosophical musings about the tasks ahead. His first words were to reveal that yes, Francisco Lindor would require surgery to fix a fractured hamate bone in his left wrist, effectively sidelining him for six weeks with the plan (hope?) of an Opening Day return.
Mendoza, like David Stearns a day earlier, chose to speak in best-case scenarios, barely entertaining the possibility that Lindor would require even a minute beyond the March 26 opener against the Pirates (and Paul Skenes) at Citi Field. Never mind that the Orioles already have ruled out Jackson Holliday for Opening Day after revealing that he is scheduled for hamate bone repair Thursday.
The Mets just aren’t ready to wrap their brain around the idea of Lindor missing any games that count — not their $341 million franchise shortstop, leadoff hitter and de facto captain. And the last thing Mendoza can afford, in what amounts to a make-or-break season for his Flushing tenure, is to pencil in a regular-season lineup that features Ronny Mauricio or Vidal Brujan replacing the five-time All-Star.
“Knowing Lindor, I’m not going to bet against him,” Mendoza said.
Still, the odds are growing longer for Mendoza, who doesn’t have the benefit of the low expectations he inherited when taking over for the fired Buck Showalter in 2024. With Stearns also in Year One, it was all about “sustainable competitiveness” — that winter’s slogan — and Mendoza was the right guy to help the Mets rocket ahead of that modest learning curve during his rookie season.
Now? Mendoza has got to be the steadying hand amid the Mets’ controlled chaos, with the weight of Steve Cohen’s $365 million payroll strapped to his shoulders. This roster has talent, but it’s nearly impossible to forecast how all of these misshapen pieces will fit together when the bell rings. For all of Stearns’ talk of “run prevention” this winter, his primary goal was to fumigate the clubhouse stench from last year’s unsightly second-half mess, and he mostly accomplished that with a handful of radical alterations.
“I was very clear from the moment we first talked in the offseason that we weren’t going to run back the same group,” Stearns said. “We were committed to changing our team, improving our team, becoming better in certain areas and I think we’ve made progress toward that.”
Mendoza has been one of the few to stick around. But it’s on him to turn this renovation project into a functional winner on the field, and that’s easier said than done.
Bo Bichette, a career shortstop, should be able to handle sliding over a few feet to third base. Stearns also has faith that Jorge Polanco, a versatile middle-infield defender, features the athleticism to be an upgrade over Pete Alonso at first. Juan Soto’s track record suggests that he’ll be less of a liability in leftfield than right, so his position switch for the upcoming season — apparently facilitated by WBC prep for the Dominican Republic team — comes at a good time for the recalibrating Mets.
There are plenty of dice rolls around the diamond, however. Will Luis Robert Jr. regain his All-Star form of 2023? Which Francisco Alvarez will show up behind the plate? Can Devin Williams restore his elite-closer status to replace Edwin Diaz? And what of the enigmatic Kodai Senga, whose sporadic availability has aggravated Mendoza but now is being counted on again to be a front-line starter for this rotation?
“These past years have been frustrating and tough mentally,” Senga said Wednesday through an interpreter. “At some points, maybe I started to lose confidence. But in this world, it’s either you do it or you don’t. And I’m here to do it.”
A fitting motto for these 2026 Mets, who were gutted after last year’s 83-win season. Mendoza won’t survive another one, or even a few months that look to be steering his Flushing crew off that same cliff. Stearns essentially axed everyone but Mendoza, so the firewalls around the manager are gone. And when you factor in Cohen again footing the bill for MLB’s second-highest payroll, outspending the Yankees by more than $30 million, patience will be in short supply when the Mets head north in six weeks. Mendoza needs to make this all work, and quickly.
“You just got to move on,” Mendoza said. "Learn from it, and now we’ve got a great opportunity in front of us.”
That’s a typical spring training mantra. But failure is not an option this time around.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
