By Kyle Newman

It’s been thrown around by many fans that the best-case scenario for the Mets is to hire Joe Girardi as manager and Carlos Beltran as his bench coach. That’s an absolutely awful idea that the Mets likely won’t and shouldn’t consider.

First of all, it’s not likely that Carlos Beltran would take the job even if it was offered to him as he is a candidate for both the Cubs and Mets managerial openings. He even declined to interview with the Padres. He’s a hot managerial candidate who is likely to get a managerial job any time now. If it doesn’t come this offseason, it’ll happen next offseason

Even if he was willing to take the job because he felt it would bolster his chance to get a managerial job quicker it would be an awful hire for the Mets. Why on earth would they hire someone they know is going to leave to manager somewhere else in a year or two? They would be grooming someone thought to be one the best managerial candidates in all of baseball to manage somewhere else, does that make any sense?

This same philosophy doesn’t ring true for every inexperienced managerial candidate. If the Mets wanted to name Luis Rojas bench coach, it would make sense. He isn’t a name that is garnering interviews for manager jobs across baseball and it would be the next logical step in his career, similar to managerial candidates Derek Shelton and Mike Bell.

Both of them were minor league coaches who worked their way up to the majors and were coaches for years before becoming bench coaches and now managerial candidates. They did things the old fashioned way that so many Mets fans want Beltran to do.

The issue with that is that not everyone follows the same path. Unlike Shelton, Bell, and Rojas, Beltran was in a dugout in 2017 helping a team win a World Series. Beltran developed into a clubhouse leader throughout his career and acted in a manner similar to a player-coach during his time with the Yankees and Astros. He paid his dues in a different way than career coaches do. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, nor does it mean he’s less than those other candidates.

Managers don’t need training to understand their role and their in-game management style. Whether they rely on analytics, their old-school, some mixture of the two, and in-game tactician, or a player’s managers those are all things that managers know about themselves coming into the job.

Yes, those are skills that can be improved on and bettered by putting it into practice, but there is no magic formula for making a great manager. They either have the skills to do the job or they don’t. Mickey Callaway didn’t have those skills, and never improve on the ones he did have. That doesn’t mean Beltran is the same way.

Also, if you believe that Beltran is going to be a good manager in the future, why would you give another team the chance to steal him? A bench coach job is not a way to stash him and make him Girardi’s successor in five or 10 years. Things don’t work out that way in professional sports. When you give teams the opportunity to steal a competent young coach from you they do.

Think of it this way, what if Beltran was a top 20 prospect in baseball sitting in Triple-A and you either had to call him up to the majors and give him an everyday role or expose him to the Rule 5 draft. Obviously, you would call him up because you don’t want to risk the chance of losing him. The manager job is the same thing if you think he really is a hot managerial prospect and will be a good manager why give someone else the chance to take him?

It’s understandable that many fans want an experienced manager like Joe Girardi to take the job after Callaway’s disastrous tenure. However, you can’t have your cake and eat it too with Beltran. Either you bring him in as your next manager or realize that someone else will. That’s why this decision is a much harder one of the Mets than many here make it out to be.

If Girardi turns out to have not improved on his ability to collaborate with the front office, nor in his ability to connect to younger players, the Mets will be in trouble. One of the things that made that clubhouse special was the way in which Pete Alonso led a fun-loving and energetic workplace as the players loved being in that clubhouse and working together. If Girardi comes in and sucks that fun out as he did with the Yankees, it risks ruining one of the things that makes these Mets special.

On top of that, how long would Girardi be here realistically? Would he leave as soon as the Mets window closes in 2021? If so what was the point of hiring him? The Mets have more to worry about than just the immediate future. Making short-sighted moves is what caused the predicament they’re in now, adding onto that wouldn’t make things better it would make them worse.

This is a complex decision that the Mets need to get right. Beltran despite his lack of experience offers the highest upside of any candidate on the board, with the potential to manage this team for a decade or more. That means something, as does his reputation as a strong communicator and as one of the most respected players in baseball in the 21st century.

The point is that we need to stop treating candidates like Beltran as bench coach fodder. He is a very real candidate for the Mets managerial job, and that’s the only job he is and should be considered for.