Mets Fire Carlos Mendoza and Name Andy Green Interim Manager. The Reset Is Officially On.
The New York Mets have fired Carlos Mendoza. Andy Green is the interim manager. The reset is on. And anyone who watched this team play the first three months of the season saw it coming.
The Mets were 39-37 when David Stearns made the decision Sunday night to move on from Mendoza. The team had also just traded swingman David Peterson to the Cubs earlier in the day, signaling that the front office was prepared to reshape the roster on the fly.
This is the first time in modern Mets history that a manager has been fired with a winning record before July. That tells you how disappointed the front office was with the trajectory of the season. The Mets entered the year with World Series expectations, a fully paid Juan Soto, and a roster designed to dominate.
What they got instead was a team that looked listless in close games, blew leads in the late innings, and made the kind of unforced errors that drive analytics-minded front offices insane.
Mendoza, to be fair, was set up to fail. His bullpen was a disaster from Game 1. Edwin Diaz has been hurt. Pete Alonso has had the worst season of his career. The team’s expensive offseason additions on the pitching side have not delivered.
But the in-game decision-making has also been a problem. Mendoza is third in the National League in pinch-hitter usage and second in early bullpen pulls. The strategic moves have not paid off, and Stearns is the kind of executive who notices that.
Andy Green is an interesting choice for the interim role. He managed the Padres for parts of four seasons from 2016 to 2019, going 274-366. He was the bench coach for the Cubs and the Yankees before joining the Mets as a special assistant this past offseason. He is well-respected in the analytics community and known as a manager who lets his stars play.
Green’s biggest task is the clubhouse. The Mets have had reported tension between Soto and the team’s veteran leadership. The bullpen guys are reportedly frustrated. Pete Alonso is in a contract year and pressing.
The simplest fix is to play the kids more and let veterans like Soto and Francisco Lindor focus on what they do best. Brett Baty has been productive. Mark Vientos is healthy again. The minor league system, particularly the bullpen depth, has options that Mendoza did not utilize aggressively enough.
The Peterson trade was the other big shoe to drop. Peterson was a useful swing piece who had pitched well in spots. Moving him for prospects tells you Stearns is no longer treating 2026 as an all-in season. He is shifting toward 2027 readiness.
That is a hard pill for Mets fans to swallow given the $300 million-plus annual payroll. But it is also the right call if the front office genuinely believes this roster cannot compete with the Phillies and Braves in the second half.
Green will get the rest of the season to audition for the permanent role. The shortlist for next year reportedly includes Joe Espada, Mike Shildt, and former Mets bench coach Eric Chavez. The job comes with a $300 million payroll, a demanding owner in Steve Cohen, and a fanbase that has lost patience.
This is Stearns’s team now. He hired Mendoza. He fired Mendoza. The next manager will be his own pick from start to finish. The buck stops in his office.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
