Mets Fire Manager Carlos Mendoza

Mendoza, 46, was in his third season as the skipper in Queens. He led the Mets to an 89-73 record and an NLCS berth against the Dodgers as a rookie skipper back in 2024, but the Mets missed the postseason after an epic second-half collapse in 2025.

The 2026 season, obviously, has been an abject nightmare. The Mets entered the season with the game’s second-largest CBT payroll and the largest actual cash payroll in the sport but have flopped with a 34-47 record that’s left them buried in the NL East cellar and 9.5 games back in the Wild Card chase. The Giants and Rockies are the only clubs in the National League with a worse record.

Stearns gave Mendoza several votes of confidence early in the season. Seven weeks ago, Stearns publicly stated that the Mets “don’t view this as a managerial problem” and emphasized that the organization had no intention of making a change. The team followed that with a more encouraging 16-12 showing in the month of May (after a 7-19 April), but they’ve gone 8-14 this month, including six straight losses to drop them to a season-worst 13 games under .500.

“I want to express my deepest gratitude to Carlos Mendoza for his leadership and unwavering commitment,” owner Steve Cohen said in his own statement. “He represented this organization with integrity and dedication throughout, and I wish him and his family all the best. Our commitment to bringing our fans a championship-caliber team has not changed. There is no sugar coating it: this season has been a disappointment and our fans deserve better than what we’ve delivered.”

Mendoza had a 13-year minor league career as an infielder before joining the Yankees organization as a minor league coach in 2009. He coached and managed throughout various levels of the Yankees’ system before joining the major league staff in 2018. The Yankees promoted him to bench coach in 2019 — a role he held until being hired as the Mets’ skipper in the 2023-24 offseason.

The nightmare 2026 campaign certainly can’t be attributed to Mendoza alone. He’s obviously an influential voice within the organization and tasked with day-to-day oversight of the clubhouse, coaching staff and lineup, but Mendoza didn’t put together this roster, nor can he alone keep his players healthy. That’s not to say he’s without partial blame for the season at hand, but he’s one of several culprits in what Stearns, Cohen and other key Mets officials would surely concede is an organization-wide failure. Every manager signs his contract knowing it’ll more than likely end with his firing, however. Such is the life of a big league skipper.

Stearns and the rest of the Mets’ front office dramatically overhauled the roster in the offseason, allowing stalwarts Pete Alonso and Edwin Diaz to depart as free agents and trading Brandon Nimmo to the Rangers in a deal that netted Marcus Semien. Jorge Polanco, Bo Bichette, Devin Williams and Luke Weaver were all brought in on short-term free agent deals — Bichette with a massive $42MM annual salary. Freddy Peralta was acquired from the Brewers in exchange for a pair of top prospects (Brandon Sproat, Jett Williams). Luis Robert Jr. was acquired to play center field.

Weaver has pitched well this season. Williams and Bichette, after awful starts, have begun to look more like their typical selves. Bichette is hitting .312/.349/.546 across his past 152 plate appearances. Williams has a 2.33 ERA and 35% strikeout rate across his past 19 1/3 innings. Those rebounds fall under the “too little, too late” umbrella, however, and the rest of the team’s moves simply haven’t worked out. Semien has been one of the game’s least-productive hitters and recently landed on the injured list. Robert, unsurprisingly, has played in only 24 games and is on the 60-day injured list. Polanco has been on the field even less (14 games). Peralta has pitched decently for much of the season but was shy of his previous standards even before being shelled for 10 runs by the Phillies last week, ballooning his ERA to the upper 4.00s in the process.

On top of those injuries and poor performances from newcomers, the team’s holdovers haven’t held up their end of the bargain. Francisco Lindor has played in only 25 games due to a calf strain that shelved him more than six weeks. He hasn’t hit when healthy, perhaps in part due to a hamate fracture suffered during spring training. Clay Holmes was great for nine starts before a comebacker struck him in the leg and fractured his fibula. He’s been out since mid-May. Juan Soto missed a few weeks with a calf strain and has been hobbled recently by back pain. Nolan McLean has been more good than great. Brett Baty has taken a step back after last year’s breakout. New York has gotten decent showings from rookie outfielders Carson Benge and A.J. Ewing, but the roster as a whole has simply fallen miles shy of expectations.

As is often the case, the manager will be the first to pay the price for the top-down failure the Mets have experienced this season (and, really, dating back to last July or so). Failures of this magnitude often serve as a portent for baseball operations changes, but it’s common for front offices to get a bit more leash. Cohen hasn’t signaled that a front office shuffle is a consideration. Stearns & Co. have already taken some action, trading lefty David Peterson — another typically steady veteran who’d struggled considerably this season — to the Cubs earlier this week.

Stearns and Green will both speak with the media later this afternoon — the former at 3pm ET and the latter at 4:15pm ET.

Jon Heyman of the New York Post first reported that Mendoza had been fired and would be replaced by Green.