QUEENS, NY — Carlos Mendoza already made his way into rarified air just by navigating his New York Mets to the postseason.
Only seven managers in the franchise’s 63-year history had made the playoffs before, but Mendoza joined Buck Showalter as the only other skipper in franchise history to reach the postseason in his first year with the club. He is also the only rookie manager to bring October baseball to Queens.
“I’m grateful for the opportunity,” Mendoza said on Wednesday prior to Game 4 of the NLDS against the Philadelphia Phillies at Citi Field. “Every year, every situation is unique and here we are. I knew I was ready. I’m not going to be perfect, I still have a long ways to go. I’m going to continue to learn. That’s what makes this such a beautiful opportunity.”
The 44-year-old fine-tuned his coaching acumen across town with the Yankees, spending 15 years in the organization at varying levels — most notably serving as Aaron Boone’s bench coach from 2020 to 2023. It was there he got a front-row seat of the sort of pressure cooker the New York market could be.
“The biggest thing that I learned was knowing how to navigate those tough times, especially in a market like this when it’s going to get loud, there’s going to be a lot of noise,” Mendoza said. “You have to protect your house. You can’t get caught off. That’s what gives his city such a special feeling. You have to embrace it; you have to enjoy it. That was one of the biggest things, going through the ups and downs and watching a lot of the guys there and how they handled it. It helped me prepare.”
The Mets will be hard-pressed to find as fine a helmsman as Mendoza considering the onslaught of calamitous events that could have sunk their season.
They started 2024 0-5 and were 11 games under .500 in early June. They spent all but five innings without their ace, they had a reliever throw his glove into the stands after a particularly poor outing, their ace was suspended for 10 days because he violated MLB’s discretionary sticky-stuff rules. Their slugging first baseman had a down year and their MVP shortstop was out for a week when it mattered most with one week left in the season.
Yet here the Mets are in the postseason for just the 11th time in their history and Mendoza has more often than not pressed the right buttons in crunch time — a stage where most previous Mets teams withered.
Lindor returned to hit a ninth-inning two-run home run on the final day of the regular season to clinch a postseason spot. Pete Alonso’s three-run home run in the ninth inning of Game 3 of the Wild Card Series earned them an NLDS berth.
He has stuck with his starters when analytics might have told him to bail out (see Luis Severino in the Wild Card Series or Sean Manaea in the sixth inning in Game 3 of the NLDS). He started struggling bats that ultimately came through with timely hits to bolster leads (see JD Martinez in Milwaukee or Jesse Winker on Tuesday night).
“I’m prepared,” Mendoza said. “Coaches are prepared, players are prepared. When you’re prepared, it’s a good feeling. Then you gotta go out there and trust your process, trust your instincts, and then enjoy it. Then you have to embrace it. I’m having a really good time.
“When you’re prepared, it’s easier to slow things down because the game will get fast and you can get caught on the crowd and everything else that goes on in-game. As long as you’re prepared, you feel good going into it.”
There is making good with your opportunity, then there is Mendoza taking full advantage of a decades-long wait to get his own clubhouse at the major league level.
And there is no place he would rather do it than Queens, a place he has fallen in love with in large part because of a fan base that has been tortured more often than not over the last four decades.
“I love it,” Mendoza said. “They’re intense, they live and die on every pitch, every play, every game. I think they feel it as much as we do. They want it as much as we want it. It’s a privilege. When you watch this building, the way it was not only [the NLDS] but the last month or so, it comes from their heart. It feels like it’s a family, not only inside the building but outside…
“They’re amazing. It’s a privilege not only to manage this team but to connect with the fan base. It’s hard for me to describe, but I couldn’t ask for a better fan base, to be honest with you.”
