This follows the firings of A.J. Hinch and Alex Cora as managers of the Houston Astros and the Boston Red Sox, respectively, and of Jeff Luhnow as general manager of the Astros, as we continue to see the building of the cheating scandal centered on the Astros' 2017 World Series win, on which Cora was a coach and Beltrán was a leading player.
Somebody made the point that Beltrán was "axed before Gase, Brodie, Mills, Gettleman" -- that's Adam Gase, head coach of the New York Jets; Brodie Van Wagenen, the Mets' general manager; Steve Mills, President of the New York Knicks; and Dave Gettleman, GM of the New York Giants.
Tom Coughlin resigned as Giants head coach on January 4, 2016. In the 4 years since then, in the "Big 4" sports, the count of managers/head coaches in New York Tri-State Area sports is the Knicks 5, the Giants 4, the Nets 3, the Islanders 3, the Yankees 2, the Jets 2, the Rangers 2, the Devils 2, and the Mets, depending on how you measure it, whether you want to count Beltrán or his as-yet-unchosen replacement, either 2, 3 or 4. So, in 4 years, there have been 27, or an average of 3 per team.
Oh yes: Although it hasn't been yet been announced that it's been proven that he did anything wrong, and he certainly didn't do anything wrong in the job from which he was just fired, Beltrán no longer has his job... and the impeached Donald Trump still has his.
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I realize it should be, "Innocent until proven guilty." Then again, it can easily be argued that he wasn't the best choice for the job, for reasons that had nothing to do with the Astroscandal. He had no managing experience, or even coaching experience; just 1 year in the Yankee front office.
The Mets had 2 options here. The 1st was to fire Beltrán now, sacrifice him on the altar of propriety, or at least fire him due to the appearance of impropriety, and take the short-term public-relations hit, a renewal of the perception that they are a gang that can't shoot straight. This is what they did. The 2nd was to stand by their man, hope that he's innocent, and hope it will it will all blow over soon.
Judging on how the scandal continues to build, with accusations of players like José Altuve wearing wires inside their uniforms to let them know what pitch was coming, I don't see how they could have kept Beltrán. Even if he's innocent, the Astroscandal makes the Houston club now look like the biggest cheaters in the history of baseball, even more than the Boston Roid Sox of 2003 to 2013.
I don't know if Beltrán is guilty. I do know that the Mets have been, as Joel Sherman of the New York Post put it, a magnet for public relations problems. They've been one since 1977, when M. Donald Grant and Dick Young tag-teamed to push Tom Seaver out of town.
One Met fan said on Twitter, "Unbelievable. Only the Mets could figure out a way to be the third most penalized team by a scandal they had nothing to do with. Congratulations on being spineless yet again."
First of all, the Mets were not penalized. Major League Baseball has taken no action against them in this sign-stealing scandal, which has enveloped only 2 teams thus far, the Astros and the Red Sox. The Mets chose to do this themselves.
Second of all, the Met organization has been many things over the years, including, on some occasions, spineless. Not on this occasion. They had to do it. They want the focus to be on whatever they can achieve this season. On Jacob deGrom. On Pete Alonso. On Michael Conforto. On whatever may happen that turns out to be good.
If they kept Beltrán, he would have been the focus. As long as he was there, he was going to be a distraction. He had to go.
Which is also why I'm glad the Yankees haven't made Alex Rodriguez their manager. Talk about a distraction, even if he's innocent: They could be undefeated at the All-Star Break, and the media would say, "It's A-Rod, so they must be cheating."
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Van Wagenen didn't help himself, or the organization, with this announcement: "On November 1, we hired Carlos Beltrán to be our manager. At the time, we were unaware of the Astros situation."
Michael Baron, who covers the Mets for MLB.com, and used to work for their cable network, SNY, wrote, "Brodie Van Wagenen and Jeff Wilpon said they never asked Carlos Beltrán about the sign stealing scandal after it was reported in November. They should have. Willful ignorance isn't always bliss, even if he hadn't told the truth to them."
It's as if they said, "Well, we aren't the ones involved, so what do we care?"
By hiring him, they made themselves, however tangentially, involved. And that was totally unnecessary. I mean, Pete Rose was available. What he did had nothing to do with the Mets. And he, at least had managerial experience.
After the 2013 season, I wrote a post asking if Beltrán deserved to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. At the time, I thought he needed 2 more good seasons to get in. He ended up retiring with a .279 batting average, 2,725 hits including 435 home runs, an OPS+ of 119, 312 stolen bases, a Rookie of the Year award, 9 All-Star berths, and 3 Gold Gloves. Also, at the time, I said he had never been involved in a scandal. At the time, that was true.
Baseball-Reference.com seemed to think he was worthy. On their Hall of Fame Monitor, on which a "Likely HOFer" is at 100, he is at 126. On their Hall of Fame Standards, more weighted toward career statistics, on which the "Average HOFer" is at 50, he is at 52.
On their Similarity Scores, his 10 most similar batters are Andre Dawson, Billy Williams, Al Kaline, Luis Gonzalez, Tony Perez, Gary Sheffield, Dave Winfield, Dwight Evans, Chipper Jones and Dave Parker. Parker probably fell 2 good seasons short of making it. Evans has been unjustly denied. Gonzalez and Sheffield are tainted by steroids, but Sheffield would probably make it if the voters didn't care about that. The other 6 are in.
He has not been placed on MLB's "permanently ineligible" list, so he remains on track to be eligible for the Hall of Fame, as a player, in the election whose results would be announced in January 2023, regardless of how he did as a manager. Yogi Berra was elected to the Hall in 1972, while he was a Met coach; by the time of the induction ceremony, he was their manager. So if Beltrán were still the Met manager as 2023 dawned, it wouldn't have affected his eligibility.
Now? It's possible he won't be put on the ineligible list, and could still be elected one day. But...
Pete Rose can say, "I was a sure thing for the Hall of Fame, but I blew it."
Carlos Beltrán can now say, "Hold my beer."
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