The New York Mets have now interviewed five candidates for their managerial position including former Washington Nationals and Cleveland Indians manager Manny Acta.
A person familiar with Acta’s work told this to the New York Post, “He’s a really nice guy who can’t handle controversy, and most people who can’t handle controversy, that job is not for you.”
Acta went 158-252 in parts of three seasons as the Nationals manager from 2007 to 2009 and 214-266 as the Indians manager from 2010 to 2012.
However, the same person said this about Acta as well, “He is going to walk in the interview and kick [butt], because he is smart. “He knows analytics, he understands scouting and he’s old school. He’s organized, prepared, works well with the coaching staff and front office.”
Acta was promoted to be the bench coach of the Seattle Mariners earlier this offseason after spending the last two seasons as their third base coach.
He was also the Mets third base coach for two years under Willie Randolph.
Indians pitching coach Mickey Callaway, Mets hitting coach Kevin Long, White Sox bench coach Joe McEwing and Astros bench coach Alex Cora have also interviewed up to this point for the Mets manager position.
Brad Ausmus declined to interview, Robin Ventura has no interest in managing currently while Chip Hale and Bob Geren are no longer under consideration for the Mets gig.
It’s been reported by multiple outlets that Cora is the favorite to land the Red Sox job and a scout tells MassLive why, “(He’s) smart, insightful and he understands the importance of building relationships in the clubhouse.”
The scout that covered Cora as a player and coach went on to bring up this interesting point as well, “I’ve found that catchers make interesting managerial candidates along with utility players. Backups are routinely playing situations over in their heads as games unfold.”
