While much of the focus on hiring Carlos Beltran has been on his returning to the team which will one day appear on his Hall of Fame plaque, there is an interesting dynamic not oft addressed. With Beltran having just retired after the 2017 season, he is going to have to manage players who were his peers.
In fact, Beltran was teammates with Edwin Diaz and Seth Lugo on the 2017 Puerto Rican World Baseball Classic team. Beltran also shared the New York stage with Robinson Cano for years, and they were Yankees a year apart. While Beltran is at least a decade older than some of the Mets best players like Pete Alonso and Michael Conforto, he is really only a few years older than Cano.
On that point, Cano is excited about the Beltran hire telling Nathalie Alonso of MLB.com, “For me, it was a great hire. We all know the kind of person Carlos is and what kind of player he was. I think he’s going to help us a lot, on and off the field.”
Like many, Cano noted Beltran could use a good bench coach to help him through the game. The Mets have appeared to get just that by hiring Bruce Bochy‘s former right-hand man Hensley Meulens.
As much as a help as Meulens will be for Beltran, a healthy and productive Cano would really be a boon to the first time manager. On that note, Cano is preparing for the 2020 season the same way he always has because preparing that way “gave me results for like 13 or 14 years.”
During 2020, we are going to see if Cano preparing the same way he always has will indeed lead to a return to form for him. If so, it is going to make Beltran’s life a lot easier when he has to fill out that lineup card, and with a healthy can, he will look like the great hire Cano believes him to be.
