Carlos Beltrán is leaving the YES broadcast booth to join the New York Mets front office, a source with knowledge of Beltrán’s thinking confirmed to The Athletic on Sunday. Here’s what you need to know:
Backstory
Beltrán, 45, spent seven years with the Mets as a player. For his career, Beltrán slashed .279/.350/.486 with 435 home runs and 1587 RBIs. He was a nine-time All-Star, three-time Gold Glove winner and a World Series champion in 2017.
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After retiring as a World Series champion, Beltrán interviewed for the vacant Yankees managerial job. Aaron Boone got the gig, but that didn’t stop Yankees general manager Brian Cashman from offering Beltrán another position in the team’s front office.
“Carlos is an exceptional baseball mind,” Cashman told The Athletic.
Beltrán turned down the offer. He said only managing a big league club would have prompted him to change his original plan of taking a one-year hiatus from baseball. But he admitted to being enticed.
On Nov. 1, 2019, the Mets hired Beltrán to be the club’s next manager, succeeding Mickey Callaway. The Mets signed Beltrán to a three-year deal with a club option for a fourth year. However, the Mets and Beltrán agreed to part ways prior to the start of the 2020 season, due to Beltrán’s role in the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal.
The Mets enter the 2023 season after losing to the San Diego Padres in the National League Wild Card series last year. They had a busy offseason which included replacing Jacob deGrom with Justin Verlander, re-signing Edwin Díaz, Brandon Nimmo and Adam Ottavino, rebuilding their pitching staff and improving their catching situation.
Significance of this move
The Mets hired Beltrán to be the manager. He stepped down before he managed a game. Of course, that was in the aftermath of the sign-stealing scandal, and it was also under a different regime. The Mets he’s joining are very different than the one that signed him as a player and then as a manager. The franchise has a new owner, new GM and now a new member of the front office, the latest person ensnared in the scandal to get back in the game.
Yankees fans never fully warmed to Beltrán in the YES Network booth. And it seems that Beltrán himself never felt truly comfortable. — Carig
Required reading
(Photo: Rich Schultz / Getty Images)
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