“I’ve seen the highs and I’ve seen the lows. But most of the time, I’ve seen the lows,” said Robert Bonilla, a Mets fan, after the team fired manager Carlos Mendoza.
The timing was quick. The Mets had just lost 4-3 in extra innings to the Cubs on Thursday night, dropping to 34-47, and Mendoza was out shortly after. Andy Green is the interim replacement.
Fans interviewed by CBS New York mostly skipped past the manager. “It was obvious someone was gonna have to pay the price. Stearns, I thought, would have gone first, but Mendoza was the easiest to fire,” said Kevin Joyce. Dougie Siravo called Mendoza the scapegoat: “That’s like blaming your employees rather than your managers or your supervisors.” Sylvia Rios wanted bigger changes. “Get rid of Stearns and let’s start over,” she said, “and bring Pete Alonso back.” Fans had chanted Alonso’s name during the six-game losing streak.
Joyce also remembered what Steve Cohen once said. “Didn’t he say World Series in five years or something like that?”
Voices in the media
The criticism reaches the owner too. Mike Francesa, on his podcast, said he was going “right past Mendoza” and “right past Stearns” to Cohen, who he said now sits in the “witness protection program.” Cohen said when he took over in the fall of 2020 that it would be “slightly disappointing” if the Mets did not win a World Series in the next three to five years. The Mets reached the NLCS in 2024 under Stearns and Mendoza, but have mostly disappointed since June 13, 2025.
Former Mets general manager Steve Phillips said on SiriusXM he thinks the Mets built “a clumsy roster from the start,” and added: “I don’t think Carlos Mendoza is a bad manager at all.” Longtime broadcaster Gary Cohen called Mendoza “probably the least culpable” of the people behind the season, and said poor decisions by the front office share the blame.
SNY’s Chelsea Janes reported that a week of early deficits, and then bigger ones, led the Mets to decide they needed a new voice in the dugout.
Stearns and the job
Stearns dismantled and restructured the core of the roster last offseason, and so far it has not worked. ESPN’s Jorge Castillo and David Schoenfield reported Friday afternoon that Stearns, who is under contract through 2028, is safe “for now.” Schoenfield wrote that the 2025-26 offseason “might go down as the worst ever for a general manager.”
The Mets have had five managers in the last seven years. If Stearns leaves at the end of the season, they would be looking for their fourth head of baseball operations since 2019.
Sources
- Mets' Steve Cohen, David Stearns blasted after firing of Carlos Mendoza
- After Carlos Mendoza fired, Mets fan blames David Stearns for "putting this crummy roster together"
