Former Mets Manager Will Try To Fix Trea Turner In Philly

The New York Mets fired manager Carlos Mendoza in June after a very mixed tenure, and he’s caught on with the Philadelphia Phillies as an infield coach. This might sound like a strange fit, but Mendoza was also a roving infield instructor back around the time he was a minor league manager, according to Mitch Bannon of The Athletic. 

Mendoza’s tenure as Mets manager was a tale of opposites. He led the Mets to an appearance in the NLCS back in 2024, but disaster struck in the second half of 2025, and this year Mendoza became a symbol of the Mets’ failure early on to the point that it was obvious he had to go by May. 

Now he’ll be out of the spotlight in Philly, but Mendoza will still face a tall task. The Phillies failed badly down the stretch and wound up missing the playoffs completely, and their infield defense was a significant reason why. 

The big fix will be shortstop Trea Turner, who was excellent in 2025, then fell apart this year. Specifically, Turner posted a +17 in outs above average in 2025, according to Todd Zolecki of MLB.com, but that number cratered to -17 this season. That ranked him 39th out of 42 qualified shortstops, according to Zolecki, and it’s something the Phillies aren’t prepared to stomach in 2027.

Turner has already been put on notice by GM Dave Dombrowski. The two met after the season, and Dombrowski made it clear that he can stay at short if he regains his 2025 form, but he won’t if he posts numbers anywhere close to what he ended up with this year.

There’s considerable irony here given the circumstances. Mendoza tolerated some of the worst shortstop play in the league this year from Francisco Lindor, who consistently made bad errors and often lost focus in the field and on the bases. 

Mendoza’s response was multiple variations of “we’re better than this,” as he consistently refused to call out Lindor the way Dombrowski just did with Turner. Now he’ll face an uphill task with Turner under manager Don Mattingly, who just signed a two-year deal after being named interim manager in midseason. 

Fixing Turner will be the biggest task for Mendoza, but it won’t be the only one. Alec Bohm was a bat-first third baseman for Philadelphia, and while Bryson Stott has been a plus defender who could slide over to short in a worst-case scenario, his metrics were mixed this year.