Saturday marked one of the brightest days of a lost season for the New York Mets as they celebrated the career of Carlos Beltran , their Hall of Fame center fielder. Beltran's number was retired prior to the Mets' win over the Philadelphia Phillies , but many of the day's headlines came before the festivities.
The Mets made Beltran available to the media before the game, and his interest in the team's open managerial job was a hot topic. Despite being publicly linked to the job as one of the top three candidates , Beltran was noncommittal when asked about his level of interest in managing .
Beltran made it clear that he respects the level of commitment it takes to be a big-league manager, noting that he isn't sure he wants to take on that responsibility at this stage of his life. The big issue for Beltran appears to be that he likes the various roles he is taking on right now, such as spending more time with his family and being involved in his baseball academy in Puerto Rico, which he would have to sacrifice a lot of to be the Mets' manager.
It came as a bit of a surprise that Beltran, who was set to be the team's manager in 2019 before his role in Houston 's sign-stealing scandal emerged, isn't very interested in the job at this point. Seven years is a long time, however, and it has become clear that Beltran is quite content with the life he has since moving on to other pursuits after parting ways with the organization.
It is also probably for the best for Beltran, who has a good relationship with the Mets, to bypass this job now. Being a manager for a team puts a natural end date on that relationship and it would not be pleasant for Steve Cohen to have to consider firing Beltran if things do not work out.
This decision is also probably beneficial to the Mets, who have leaned far too often on managers without experience for the job. There is a reason the Mets have performed better under interim Andy Green than they did for Mendoza this season, with Green's experience giving him a better idea of how to handle day-to-day situations than Mendoza did when he was learning on the job.
David Stearns needs to be less risky this offseason, and naming Beltran as the manager would have been a tempting option to offer upset fans an olive branch. The only known candidate for the Mets' managerial job without experience at the moment is Albert Pujols , who managed the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic, but dealing with what is essentially an All-Star team for a month isn't the same as dealing with a typical club over the course of a long season.
Finding an experienced manager should be the Mets' priority, and perhaps Beltran's attempt to extricate himself from the process nudges Stearns in that direction. While Stearns will undoubtedly look for a collaborator he can work with for the long term, there is no reason that partner can't be someone who has already gotten his feet wet as a major league manager.
Get Mets On SI straight to your inbox: sign up for our free newsletter here .
This article was originally published on www.si.com/mlb/mets/onsi as Carlos Beltran Essentially Pulls Himself from Mets' Managerial Consideration .
