Two weeks. That’s all it took. Carlos Beltran enjoyed being the Mets manager for two weeks before he found himself at the center of the biggest cheating scandal in baseball history.
Beltran lost his job as New York Mets manager Thursday. After being hired for the role in November, his tenure as manager ended before spring training started.
“We met with Carlos last night and again this morning and agreed to mutually part ways,” COO Jeff Wilpon and GM Brodie Van Wagenen said in a joint statement. “This was not an easy decision.”
A nine-page report from Major League Baseball commissioner Robert Manfred, released Monday, cited him as one of the Astros players involved in the 2017 sign-stealing scandal.
“At a meeting this morning with Jeff and Brodie we mutually agreed to part ways. I’m grateful to them for giving me the opportunity, but we agreed this decision is in the best interest of the team,” Beltran said Thursday.
Beltran also apologized in a separate statement to ESPN. “As a veteran player I should’ve recognized the severity of the issue, and truly regret the actions that were taken.”
“I’m very sorry. It’s not who I am as a father, a husband, a teammate and as an educator.”
“This isn’t a fun day,” Van Wagenen said on a conference call Thursday. “It’s one we wish we didn’t have to be in. But the decision that both sides came to today has one purpose. It’s to do what we think is best for the club going forward and to be able to put distractions behind us and go forward to try to win baseball games in 2020.”
The departure came after Astros owner Jim Crane fired GM Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch on Monday and the Red Sox fired manager Alex Cora on Tuesday. All three were named in the commissioner’s report as accountable for the scheme. The league decided it would not punish Astros players for the “player-driven” illegal sign-stealing. It initially seemed like the ideal loophole for Beltran to sidestep punishment.
Instead, Beltran entered baseball purgatory the moment he remained the only name from the commissioner’s report that still held a position on a coaching staff.
On Wednesday, Wilpon and Van Wagenen met with members of the commissioner’s office to understand more about Beltran’s role in the sign-stealing scandal. Both Wilpon and Van Wagenen claimed they did not speak to Beltran about his involvement in the scandal between October — when the Mets began a month-long interview process — and Monday, when the front office was “surprised” his name appeared in league’s report. Since November, the Mets only told Beltran that he needed to cooperate fully with MLB’s investigation and he intended to do that.
Wilpon and Van Wagenen flew to Port St. Lucie after their meeting with the commissioner, where Beltran was holding team meetings with the Mets coaching staff.
Beltran and the Mets had two options:
A) Part ways.
B) Allow a constant source of distraction to follow Beltran’s every move.
Faced with an impossible choice, the Mets and Beltran chose option A. Van Wagenen said Beltran and the Mets agreed it would be incredibly challenging to execute the managerial job the way it was intended after the league’s report was released.
“I couldn’t let myself be a distraction for the team,” Beltran said. “I wish the entire organization success in the future.”
Ultimately, Beltran only made it 77 days as Mets manager.
Beltran spent 20 years in the big leagues and is highly regarded around the league as having a superb baseball mind. Van Wagenen said he truly believes that this will not be the final chapter in Carlos’ baseball career.
Beltran echoed Mets ownership, telling ESPN that “I hope that at some point in time, I’ll have the opportunity to return to this game that I love so much.”
Mets GM Brodie Van Wagenen hired Beltran as the replacement for Mickey Callaway in November. Two weeks later, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich exposed Houston’s trashcan banging system and brought Beltran — who was a player on the 2017 Astros championship team — into question. Beltran publicly denied his involvement in using technology and claimed he did not have any knowledge about the centerfield camera that the team used to steal signs. On Monday, the commissioner’s report confirmed he and other Astros players had knowledge of the entire scheme.
“Approximately two months into the 2017 season, a group of players, including Carlos Beltran, discussed that the team could improve on decoding opposing teams’ signs and communicating the signs to the batter,” the report said.
The Mets will now rush to find a replacement for Beltran in the 27 days before pitchers and catchers report to spring training. Immediate and possible candidates include ESPN analyst Eduardo Perez (who was a Mets finalist before the job went to Beltran), veteran skipper Buck Showalter and current Mets quality control coach Luis Rojas.
Beyond looking for a quick replacement, the next Mets manager will have a lot of catching up to do. Beltran had spent the offseason, from the moment he was hired in November, getting to know Mets players from the minors all the way to the big leagues. Amed Rosario told the Daily News that he and Beltran were in “constant communication” this winter, discussing ways in which the shortstop could improve. Certainly, some of the players Beltran already became familiar with will be upset by his departure.
