Mets Hire Buck Showalter as Manager in Latest Win-Now Move

“But the truth is that a lot of these modern concepts in baseball are things I heard him talk about back in 2012. There isn’t more of an open-minded guy, in my opinion, in the way he sees not just the game, but everything going on throughout the day.”

The other finalists for the job were much younger than Showalter: Matt Quatraro, 48, the bench coach for the Tampa Bay Rays, and Joe Espada, 46, the bench coach for the Houston Astros. But neither has managed in the majors, like the previous three managers the Mets had hired since replacing Terry Collins after the 2017 season.

The Mets have managed only one winning season since then, combining for a 266-280 record for Mickey Callaway and Luis Rojas. The manager between them, Carlos Beltran, was fired before his first spring training for his role as a player in the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal. Given that history, the Mets had to make a different kind of choice.

“Matt Quatraro, I heard, interviewed really well, and Joe Espada is going to be a really good manager, too,” said Jim Duquette, the SNY analyst and former Mets general manager.

“But going into it, you already have this notion — rightly or wrongly, and certainly within your fan base — that a first-time manager doesn’t fit in New York. It’s not like you couldn’t do it, but there’d be a lot of hurdles to overcome and it almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. So you instantly go to the experienced-manager ledger, and Buck’s right at the top of that list.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/18/sports/baseball/mets-buck-showalter.html