{"id":118592,"date":"2026-04-12T22:30:01","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T02:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=118592"},"modified":"2026-04-12T22:30:01","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T02:30:01","slug":"mets-skipper-carlos-mendoza-on-hot-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/04\/12\/mets-skipper-carlos-mendoza-on-hot-seat\/","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s Time for Carlos Mendoza to Start Worrying"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The New York Mets were just swept by the Athletics at home. They currently sit at 7-9 on the season and are on a five-game losing streak. They will now get ready to go to the West Coast to face the back-to-back defending champs, the Los Angeles Dodgers. The team as a whole looks dead right now and has not been playing good baseball. With <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/managers\/mendoca99.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Carlos Mendoza<\/a> now in his third season as Mets skipper, and after their historic collapse last season, it makes sense to question how much longer he will remain the manager if things continue like this.<\/p>\n<p class=\"alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\"><smartframe-embed class=\"smartframe_wp_element\" customer-id=\"a61405551f80e72f675225f083759bb9\" image-id=\"fwuQunYsvsi0\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; max-width: 5568px; aspect-ratio: 5568\/3712;\" ><\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n<h2>Will Carlos Mendoza Last the Season as Mets Skipper?<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/11\/06\/mets-hire-carlos-mendoza\/\" target=\"_self\">Mendoza was hired in 2023<\/a> on a three-year contract with a fourth possible year as a club option. He led the team to an NLCS appearance in his first season, ultimately losing to the would-be champion Dodgers in six games. Then the team got off to a fiery start at 45-24 in the first half of last season. However, the success was short-lived, as the Mets would collapse and end the season at 83-79, shockingly missing the postseason.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The Mets are swept at home by the A&#8217;s and have lost five straight games<\/p>\n<p>They were shut out in two of their three losses to the Athletics <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/aaLEi94wDE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/aaLEi94wDE<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 SNY Mets (@SNY_Mets) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SNY_Mets\/status\/2043419925327298652?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 12, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Mendoza and His Misuse of the Bullpen<\/h2>\n<p><a  href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/mlb\/mets\/onsi\/news\/ex-mets-pitcher-rips-carlos-mendoza-for-pathetic-injury-handling-grant9\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mendoza was criticized<\/a> that season for his misuse of the bullpen. One of the critiques came from former <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/04\/01\/yankees-sign-reliever-adam-ottavino-major-league-contract\/\" target=\"_self\">Mets reliever<\/a> <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/o\/ottavad01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-12_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Adam Ottavino<\/a>, who pitched under Mendoza in 2024. In a rant on his YouTube channel, Ottavino stated, &#8220;<span>[The Mets] have to figure out something, whether it\u2019s their protocols, whether it\u2019s the way Carlos uses these dudes so haphazardly. Whether they even care about keeping the guys healthy or not, but they need to be better than this. This is embarrassing, this is actually pathetic, like pathetic. <\/span><span>I would never let this happen if I was on the team last year.<\/span>&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ottavino continued on his rant, saying, <span>&#8220;I would have protected these dudes myself; I would have had to jump in front of them myself. Unfortunately, there was nobody willing to stand up and talk to Carlos this year. It was just me, I guess. So, a little bit of an issue there.&#8221; He further expanded that he believes Mendoza does not know what he is doing when it comes to the bullpen. &#8220;The [Mets&#8217;] manager, I think he is a really good under-the-stress manager. I think he has no idea what he\u2019s doing when it comes to bullpen guys and how to keep them healthy, or even how to care about them at all. There\u2019s no communication there, there\u2019s no feel there, there\u2019s no bedside manner when guys get hurt.&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Short Leash<\/h2>\n<p>It seems as if the Mets are already on edge about Mendoza this season.\u00a0 According to <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/mlb\/new-york-mets\/news\/mets-carlos-mendoza-gets-label-put-him-entering-new-year\/d3a9d4f25798bfad9f902dd1\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dayn Perry<\/a> of CBS Sports, Mendoza is the skipper most at risk of being let go in 2026. He reports, <span>\u201cMendoza is probably the manager most at risk going into the 2026 season. His contract includes an option for 2027, which means it&#8217;s not guaranteed beyond the upcoming season. Most essentially, Mendoza and Mets are coming off a deeply disappointing 2025 campaign in which they finished just four games above .500 and went 21-32 from Aug. 1 onward to tumble out of playoff position.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Perry continues, <span>\u201cSpeculation about Mendoza&#8217;s status &#8212; and even the status of lead exec David Stearns &#8212; ensued. Mendoza survived that collapse, but he&#8217;s very much on notice at the outset in 2026. The hiring of <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/managers\/correka99.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kai Correa<\/a>, who briefly served as Giants interim manager in 2023, as the new bench coach means a ready-made replacement is already on staff. All signs point to &#8220;danger&#8221; for Mendoza; Correa only managed three games with the Giants that season. However, the Mets must believe that they have their backup ready in case they give Mendoza the boot.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>A lot of Mets fans are mixed on Mendoza. Some believe he should go, and some don&#8217;t. It is safe to say he does seem to be on the hot seat right now. If the Mets don&#8217;t figure something out, or look to turn the ship around, Carlos Mendoza may not have a job much longer.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credit: Rafael Suanes-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New York Mets were just swept by the Athletics at home. They currently sit at 7-9 on the season and are on a five-game losing streak. They will now get ready to go to the West Coast to face the back-to-back defending champs, the Los Angeles Dodgers. The team as a whole looks dead [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5729,"featured_media":79845,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,1071,35],"tags":[2302,4683],"class_list":["post-118592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mets","category-mlb","category-news","tag-adam-ottavino","tag-carlos-mendoza"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5729"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118592"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118643,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118592\/revisions\/118643"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}