What a sad, dark, dramatic and unprecedented week it’s been for the game of baseball.
The Houston Astros were smacked down with a handful of penalties that included the forfeiture of their first and second round picks in the next two drafts, a fine of $5 million and the suspension and subsequent firings of general manager Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch. This has set off a chain of events that has now led to the dismissal of two more managers, the Boston Red Sox’s Alex Cora and now Carlos Beltran of the Mets.
The scary part is, this could be only the tip of the iceberg and just a portion of what might unfold in the coming days, weeks, or months.
Regardless, with Beltran and the Mets agreeing to part ways, the team is without a manager just a couple weeks before pitchers and catchers report to Port St. Lucie.
Did the team make the right decision? It’s a sticky situation.
Beltran to date is the only player that has been named by MLB as a key part of the Astros electronic sign-stealing scandal. This knowledge was known by the Mets during their interview process, but the team may not have done its due diligence during those meetings with Beltran to find out the whole truth.
Fast forward to this past week, and after the Astros and Red Sox news, all eyes shifted to Beltran, with the media taking the story and blasting it like a boombox on the streets of New York.
The Mets failed to comment on the scenario until it had gotten out of hand and seeped over into their press conference to announce the renaming of the street in St. Lucie that will commemorate Mets’ legend Mike Piazza.
An uncomfortable and snappy Jeff Wilpon, the COO of the Mets, evaded any questions on Beltran at the time, but a mere hour or so later, news came out that Beltran was out of a job.
So did the Mets make the right decision on Beltran? The MetsMerized staff weighs in.
Josh Finkelstein
For as sad as Thursday might have been for many Mets fans, I believe parting ways with Beltran was probably the right call. It was going to be a constant topic of discussion throughout the season and would’ve been a major distraction. His name in the original report was a questionable call by MLB given the fact that they didn’t elaborate on it in any way, while no other players were mentioned specifically. This was truly a tough decision for the Mets to make, but for a team trying to compete in 2020 it ultimately was the right one probably.
Michelle Ioannou
The right decision on Beltran was not made. Some people are claiming that it was mutual, whereas others are making it sound like the Mets forced Beltran into this decision. If the latter is true, I am not okay with that. It was entirely wrong on the part of MLB to namedrop only one player involved in the cheating. Either they all should have been named or none of them should have been named.
Regardless of whether or not Beltran stepped down, this scandal is going to follow the Mets the entire season. Beltran should have stayed, contended, and worked hard to prove himself. If he was forced to step down, especially without the Mets looking more into his actual involvement, that was the wrong move. I wanted Beltran as manager and I still do.
Matt Mancuso
Rob Manfred set a precedent not disciplining players for their actions in the Astros sign-stealing scandal. Thus, I believe that the Mets should have followed the actions that Major League Baseball took. Manfred took a stance in punishing only the front-office personnel and I believe that the right thing to for the Mets to do was to follow the precedent Major League Baseball has established.
The smoking gun that seemingly got Beltran fired was his inclusion in Manfred’s report. However, he was only included because Beltran was the only player that is not protected by the MLBPA. There’s really no way to know if other players were the ringleaders for the scheme. While I understand the Mets reasoning in removing Beltran from the skipper’s position, I don’t think it was the right call.
Marissa Credle
Firing Carlos Beltran was not the right move despite everything that has come out with the Astros sign-stealing scandal. There have been no repercussions for players on the 2017 roster, so it only complicated the justification for the Mets. With only about a month left until the start of Spring Training, the team needs to rush the process of hiring a new manager after just spending the previous offseason months trying to find the one they deemed best fit.
Mojo Hill
Unfortunately, if the recent reports of Beltran being a ringleader are true, I think the Mets made the right call in letting him go. Although this whole situation isn’t fair to the team, I think they handled it well and that they were right to make the tough decision of letting him go. The way things turned out is disappointing, but at this point it’s best to just move on and accept that the team did what was best for everyone.
Laney Ortiz
It truly comes as no surprise to me that the Mets would be caught up in a scandal that has nothing to do with their organization. I’ll be honest, in the beginning, I didn’t feel too strongly about Carlos Beltran joining the team again as manager, but with time it started to make a lot of sense. Now, in perfect Mets fashion, that seems to be burning to the ground.
On the basis of how the MLB is not punishing the players of the 2017 Astros team, the Mets should not have felt the need to let go of Carlos Beltran. Unfortunately, there are more factors than that, and for a New York team, one of the biggest ones was the media. There is no denying the fact that this would be played out by every single reporter in every single presser and of course, the players deserve better than that.
For me, the Mets made a lot of mistakes, some of them coming before Beltran was even hired. The front office did little on their part to reach out to Beltran about his involvement in the scandal and his plans with the Mets. Having something like this happen just a little over a month away from Spring Training is less than ideal, not to mention the manager interviews have to be reopened.
Granted, there would be a close eye on the Mets and any success would probably be analyzed, but at least we would have the chance. Just the fact that George Springer signed his extension on the same day as Beltran stepping down tells you all you need to know about the situation.
Marshall Field
As far as the question if the choice to fire Carlos Beltran was appropriate I believe it was the correct one, given the make-up of the organization as it is today with the word ‘integrity’ oozing out of every pore. Beltran was certainly complicit in the sordid affairs in Houston and although not punished by MLB, carries a stain on him that will be tough to remove and one that the Mets did not want to bare. It would have certainly shown a brave front for the Mets to keep him, but they must have felt the damage to the game’s ‘integrity’ could spill into Queens.
There are other candidates like Hensley Muelens, Tim Bogar and Eduardo Perez that could fit the bill nicely and as far as we know, carry no baggage. It’s a case where there is smoke, there’s fire, and the fumes coming out of the Lone Star State were too much for the Mets to handle and I for one would like to see as few distractions on the 2020 Mets as possible. The decision was the correct one.
Ryan Finkelstein
I believe the Mets would have been better off with Carlos Beltran as their manager for 2020, but the situation was handled so poorly to the point where that became untenable. Had Brodie and the Wilpons stood up right after it was announced that Beltran would not be suspended and supported him as the manager, they could have controlled the narrative.
John Sheridan
I don’t know if the Mets made the right decision to fire Beltran because I don’t know what Rob Manfred said to Jeff Wilpon and Brodie Van Wagenen when they met at MLB’s offices.
What I feel comfortable saying is accepting what Van Wagenen said as true, the Mets process up until the Beltran’s firing was embarrassingly inept.
They didn’t vet the long standing allegations against the Astros. They didn’t investigate after the investigation began and other reports surfaced.
At the end of the day, we’re just left to believe the Mets knew absolutely nothing about this despite Van Wagenen’s friendship with AJ Hinch, the trading for two Astros players, and hiring Red Sox front office people (with the Red Sox being implicated in their own 2017 and 2018 scandals).
Either the Mets knew exactly what they were doing, or they were purposefully obtuse. Regardless, Beltran became the fall guy for a a very questionable Mets process.
Rob Piersall
At the end of the day, the Mets had no choice but to part ways with Beltran. However, I don’t think they should fully be let off the hook.
This scandal had nothing to do with the Mets, that much is true. However, the Mets again didn’t cover all their bases and failed to write their own conclusion, instead letting the media control it like a hook to the mouth of a fish.
The Mets, while interviewing Beltran in November, were aware of his involvement in the sign-stealing scandal. Even after tabbing him as manager, general manager Brodie Van Wagenen downplayed that it would be a Mets issue. But here we are in January with only two weeks until pitchers and catchers and have no manager.
Even after all that, the Mets could have seriously diffused the situation this week by attempting to back Beltran. Instead, they remained silent and let a media frenzy ensue that put pressure on the team and forced their hand into a decision.
The whole situation is an utter mess, and perhaps Beltran was doomed from the onset once the reports came out. There’s a big debate on how the team should have handled it, and I certainly have my gripes.
But let’s take a look at it just from the decision to part ways from today’s standpoint. I think that the Mets ultimately had to part ways with Beltran now.
If Beltran had remained as manager, this whole debacle would have followed him through Spring Training, the regular season, and perhaps even through his tenure as Mets manager.
Idolizing Beltran as a kid, this is a sad end of what could have been a beautiful reunion between him and the Mets. Now, it’s marred with soot and “what could have beens.”
Well, onward and upward. We have a season to play.
Mike Mayer
At first, when the initial report came out on Monday from Major League Baseball and simply mentioned Carlos Beltran, I didn’t think much of it. As time transpired (and the Mets seemingly sat on their hands because they didn’t meet with MLB until Wednesday) and I started looking at the situation more, it certainly felt like Beltran’s time with the Mets was over.
Beltran was named in The Athletic’s second report along side former Red Sox manager and good friend Alex Cora. Beltran was also looked at from his Astros teammates as more than a veteran, almost like a coach. If you kept connecting the dots, you would likely come to the conclusion that Beltran was involved in the sign-stealing scheme than MLB was allowed to say (they decided not to punish players).
Then during the conference call – which was a disaster from Jeff Wilpon and Brodie Van Wagenen including this gem from the GM – made it sound like their tune towards Beltran changed after their meeting with Major League Baseball officials about their investigation into the Astros. Then late that night, Ken Davidoff of New York Post reported that Beltran would be getting no portion of his salary from the Mets.
Everything makes it look like Beltran had a bigger role in the scandal than has been publicly reported at this point. That puts the Mets in a really tough spot. Van Wagenen said multiple times that he never talked to Beltran about the scandal before the MLB report came out, which is asinine given he was prominently named in The Athletic article on November 13, “I don’t see any reason why this is a Mets situation.”
The entire situation is a damn shame for Mets fans, a good portion of the fan base was excited for Beltran as the manager and looking forward to seeing what he could do in 2020. Mets fans didn’t deserve this mess, and all the front office did was make it worse. Without more knowledge of all the events, I believe it’s tough to decide whether or not the Mets made the right decision to move on from Beltran, but I definitely feel like they couldn’t handled it better.
(PS – Sneaking move by Rob Manfred putting Beltran’s name in the report knowing Carlos would likely get the punishment that the commissioner couldn’t give him).
