Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

Ever since it took the New York Mets approximately 85 years to find someone willing and able to work in the front office by hiring Billy Eppler as general manager, the process of acquiring talent has been much smoother.

Once Eppler was officially on board, the Mets started spending a bunch of money to bring on guys like Eduardo Escobar, Mark Canha, Starling Marte, and Max Scherzer. And, they accomplished this without having a manager officially named at the time. Once the focus turned to that for New York, the process appeared to go reasonably quick and without too many snags prior to naming Buck Showalter as the next skipper. Things kept progressing from there as the coaching staff began getting filled out around Jeremy Hefner, with Joey Cora and Wayne Kirby joining to coach third and first base, respectively.

Heck, the narrative of nobody wanting to work for the Mets continued to get bucked when they convinced Eric Chavez to leave the New York Yankees — a team that just hired him a couple of weeks before — to become the Mets’ next hitting coach. Outside of hiring an assistant bench coach and bullpen coach, Showalter’s bench coach also needs to be solidified. That’s obviously an important position, and New York is feeling that familiar pushback from opposing teams, as they’re getting denied permission to speak with certain coaches.

The latest instance involved the San Francisco Giants, who denied the Mets permission to speak with pitching coach Andrew Bailey, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. Why would San Francisco not allow Bailey to pursue a possible promotion (which is typically the one situation it’s allowed)? As Rosenthal states, it’s late in the offseason, and since coaching staffs are mostly set for the upcoming season, it’d be difficult to find someone to fill that void if he did decide to join the Mets. This is a similar reason for the San Diego Padres denying New York permission to speak with Ryan Flaherty, as well.

Rosenthal also notes that for Bailey, going from pitching coach to bench coach didn’t necessarily scream being a clear promotion to the Giants, which likely played a part in not letting him explore the opportunity.

The Mets inspected another route by reaching out to Grand Canyon University head baseball coach Andy Stankiewicz to gauge his interest in becoming Showalter’s bench coach. According to MLB insider Jon Heyman, Stankiewicz is happy where he is:

So, the search continues for Buck’s right-hand man. If the pursuits of Flaherty and Bailey tell us anything, though, it’s that the Mets are serious about finding a younger, analytically-driven coach to pair with their 65-year-old manager.