When the Mets introduce Carlos Mendoza as their next manager Tuesday, he’ll be flanked by president of baseball operations David Stearns and owner Steve Cohen, and, really, the way those three work in tandem will dictate the success of their new regime.
Cohen has the money, and with a $364 million payroll in 2023 and a trade deadline selloff, he demonstrated that any and every move will be considered to make the Mets competitive.
Stearns has the front office experience, the type that had him pegged as the right fit to take over the Mets long before it actually came to fruition in September.
Mendoza, though, remains the wild card.
This will be his first time managing an MLB team. He was the Yankees’ bench coach under Aaron Boone for four years and worked in the organization since 2009. He almost seemed like a backup plan for the Mets when they couldn’t land Craig Counsell. But can Mendoza manage? And what does it mean to be an effective manager in an era where gut calls and analytics, as well as different inputs on strategy, keep conflicting and clouding the job description?
Of all the questions Mendoza will face Tuesday, that one looms larger than most. The Mets have plenty of problems that need fixing, but how much of that will ultimately fall on Mendoza? How much will he be responsible for? Does he need to make lineup and pitcher usage decisions, or will Stearns and others dictate that from behind the scenes? What about baserunning strategies? Kodai Senga’s pitching schedule? The reported tension between front offices and managers — with Dusty Baker and the Astros emerging as perhaps the most prominent example — adds different layers to the role’s value.
Mendoza’s answer from the Citi Field press conference won’t provide much clarity. But as his tenure with the Mets unfolds, the flow of his decisions and the blame that gets distributed if any backfire will reflect how Stearns believes that question should get answered.
During his introductory press conference Monday in Chicago, even Counsell didn’t have a clear-cut answer about the modern manager. The Cubs just made him the highest-paid manager in MLB history with a five-year, $40 million contract that prompted him to bolt the Brewers in a shocking move — especially considering how many rumors linked him with the Mets. Clearly, the Cubs valued his experience and managerial approach and will give him some degree of autonomy.
But how much influence will Counsell actually have? Would the Cubs really pay him that much money just to implement front office strategy? In an October interview with Sports Illustrated, Brewers chairman and principal owner Mark Attanasio called Counsell a “modern manager” that knows how to capitalize on matchups — especially in September, which Attanasio referred to as “Craig-tember.”
Attanasio also said Counsell still had the freedom to make his own decisions despite influence from the front office, which he described as a difference from other MLB teams.
“It’s very difficult to quantify, and I think that’s why there’s been a hard time with it — and understandably so,” Counsell said Monday, when asked about the modern managing role. “I think what I’ve found is that, when I talk about connection, that’s a big word with players and that’s a big word with uniformed staff, obviously. But it’s also a big word with what are now much bigger organizations and people supporting baseball, the team, and that connection and that partnership is really important. That’s another way that a manager can really affect what’s going on.
“We all see the game out there and the results of the game out there, and there’s a win and a loss and we move on. I think there’s things happening around that that add up over the course of a season, and the manager in today’s game plays a role connecting both of those parties, and if you can do it well, I think there’s a place to have a real impact.”
It wasn’t the most concrete answer, but the vagueness also captures the pressing question.
The eight new managers in MLB next season — Mendoza, Counsell, the Giants’ Bob Melvin, the Guardians’ Stephen Vogt, the Angels’ Ron Washington, the Astros’ Joe Espada, the Brewers’ Pat Murphy (hired Monday) and whoever the Padres hire for their vacancy — will be tasked with establishing their own cultures within the clubhouse.
The vibe under Mendoza will be different than Buck Showalter’s Mets, just as Counsell’s environment will most likely be different than David Ross’ Cubs. That’s OK. That should be expected.
Showalter was an old-school manager, from a similar mold as Baker, Bruce Bochy, Joe Maddon and others. He had experience. Plenty of it. It’s why the Angels reportedly considered Showalter for their opening, but opted for the 71-year-old Washington instead.
But with Mendoza — as with Vogt in Cleveland and Espada in Houston, to different extents — how much freedom will an experienced front office allow a first-time manager, alongside an owner willing to spend and a roster that has pieces to compete?
That’s why tension brewed in Houston before Baker retired. The Post’s Jon Heyman reported the future Hall of Famer was “frustrated by battles with the Houston front office over analytics” despite still having control with the daily lineups. Espada has interviewed for manager jobs before but doesn’t have any experience. Will Houston still let him have the final say on lineup decisions for a group that has made seven consecutive ALCS appearances?
The Mets are no longer the young, inexperienced team that Showalter inherited and flipped into a postseason contender.
They have Pete Alonso on the brink of free agency. They have Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo, a returning Edwin Diaz and an emerging Senga. There are young prospects, mostly the return from the trade deadline transactions, that should provide the finishing touches to the roster in a year or two, but the Mets have experience now. There’s a bridge between the old Mets and the new version that won 101 games in 2022.
So from the moment Mendoza dons the Mets’ jersey for the first time and officially gets introduced as their next manager, the case study begins.
He becomes a key figure in the evolution of the manager position. And how he, as well as Stearns, approach those questions about the role might provide a more concrete picture than Counsell did Monday.
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It’s still the Zach Wilson show
This has become Robert Saleh’s regular routine on Mondays.
After his Jets offense struggled again in a narrow loss to the mediocre Raiders, Saleh faced questions from reporters and didn’t stray from his support for Zach Wilson as their quarterback and Nathaniel Hackett as their play-caller. The only hint he provided at possible change centered around Gang Green’s scheme.
“When speaking about Zach, I get it, there’s a yearning for more or whatever it is,” Saleh said Monday, “but I feel like he played a good game yesterday. … It is hard to make changes just to make changes, just to pacify something, especially when someone’s not deserving.
“If he was deserving of it, I gotcha. Let’s change something. That’s really for every position.”
Saleh keeps pushing back a decision to turn to Tim Boyle — or even Trevor Siemian — at quarterback, but with the offense’s touchdown drought at 11-plus quarters (and an overtime against the Giants), it feels as if the Jets are spiraling toward inevitably having to make a change.
But there are layers to this conundrum. As The Post’s Brian Costello wrote, benching Wilson again — after they turned to Mike White and Chris Streveler on two occasions last year — might signal the end of Wilson’s tenure with the Jets.
If the spark backfired, or didn’t spark anything at all, could they turn back to Wilson again? Would Boyle or Siemian actually provide anything, besides a different face in the huddle, that Wilson couldn’t?
Sometimes, it’s beneficial to look for a spark just to see what happens, even if it doesn’t work. Maybe that’s what Saleh meant with the schematic tweaks for Week 11. Maybe he’s cautious about turning to a backup quarterback — or, in this case, a backup to the once-backup — because for every Joshua Dobbs and Will Levis and Gardner Minshew, there are the second- and third-string players that can’t kickstart the offense.
Saleh and the Jets saw that in Week 8 against Tommy DeVito and the Giants.
So for now, Wilson will get another chance against the Bills. He’s 2-1 against them in his career with three touchdowns and one interception. He helped the Jets move the ball and score on their first three possessions against the Raiders on Sunday (23-of-39 for 263 yards and one interception) before his interception with Gang Green driving late in the fourth quarter and needing a touchdown to win.
He’ll get another opportunity — at least one more opportunity — to make Saleh’s support seem reasonable. The Jets have resembled a playoff contender on defense. At this point, they just need Wilson and their offense to do something before their window of opportunity slams shut.
Parquet floored
The Knicks still don’t have the statement win they needed.
They whiffed on their first two chances — with a four-point loss to the Celtics and a five-point loss to the Bucks — and Monday night in Boston, the Knicks still couldn’t knock off their division rivals, falling, 114-98, and missing an opportunity to secure their earliest four-game winning streak since 2015-16.
Minus RJ Barrett due to migraines, they had no answer for Celtics star Jayson Tatum (35 points) down the stretch.
The Knicks (5-5) — whose winning streak comprised a comfortable win Nov. 6 against the Clippers, Wednesday’s blowout win against the Spurs and Sunday’s blowout win against the Hornets, all at home — have yet to emerge with a victory against one of the league’s contenders.
They were close in the season opener and even led the Celtics by six with four minutes remaining, but ex-Knick Kristaps Porzingis (30 points) took over.
Then, Nov. 3 at Fiserv Forum, they only allowed — and only being relative to his usual offensive bursts — Giannis Antetokounmpo to record 22 points and led by one with 1:10 remaining, but Damian Lillard scored eight of the Bucks’ final 10 points down the stretch.
Julius Randle was stuck in a brutal shooting stretch at that point — he had 25 points Monday night on 7-of-19 from the floor and 2-of-8 from 3. Barrett missed the Bucks game due to a knee injury.
The Knicks’ victory against the Cavaliers on Oct. 31 was an important victory, but it didn’t have the same effect as handing the Celtics their third loss of the season would have.
It was more of a statement for the Cavaliers when they won the second end of the back-to-back. The Cavaliers openly wanted revenge for a series loss that stuck with them “for a pretty long time,” Isaac Okoro said earlier this season. Max Strus, who wasn’t even in Cleveland last year, said “they did us dirty.” Even Donovan Mitchell, who struggled at times in the postseason series, said he had their first regular-season date with the Knicks circled.
The Knicks don’t play the Celtics again until Feb. 24. They don’t play the 76ers until Jan. 5. They’ll play the Bucks two more times in late December and once more in April.
Monday was a chance for the Knicks to show they can hang around the top of the Eastern Conference standings until the crucial matchups arrived.
But after 10 games, they’re still searching for that pivotal win.
What we’re reading 👀
🏈 Brian Daboll should be back for the Giants in 2024 and given the chance to develop a new franchise quarterback, The Post’s Mark Cannizzaro writes.
🏀 The first St. John’s game of the Rick Pitino era at MSG turned into a massive buzzkill as the Red Storm were overmatched in an 89-73 loss to Michigan.
🏒 As Rangers great Henrik Lundqvist took his place in the Hockey Hall of Fame, The Post’s Larry Brooks was in Toronto to chronicle the moment.
⚾ Kodai Senga finished second behind Corbin Carroll for NL Rookie of the Year. Anthony Volpe finished eighth in AL voting as Gunnar Henderson took the award.
⚾ The Yankees hired James Rowson as hitting coach and interviewed Andrew Bailey for the vacant bench coach job.
🏈 Man, what happened to the Patriots?
⛳ Confused about the Netflix Cup live golf event? A quick guide.
📱 Join the Inside St. John’s text-message conversation to keep up with all the behind-the-scenes buzz around Rick Pitino’s Red Storm and to get your Johnnies questions answered by reporter Zach Braziller.