Former Mets Managerial Candidate Will Sit Out Next Season

Former Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora was once considered a strong candidate to become the manager of the New York Mets, but now he’s decided to sit the season out. Cora announced this last week after being linked to the managerial opening of the Philadelphia Phillies, who have been pursuing Cora on and off for months now. 

For the Mets, this final move by Cora represents a big loss, not to mention yet another example of a mismanaged decision at upper levels. Cora is a successful manager who’s won rings, and he has the managerial chops to handle the long-running feud between Mets superstars Francisco Lindor and Juan Soto. 

Instead the Mets have elected to go with retread Andy Green, based on Green’s ability to “elevate” the team’s play over .500 even though there was nothing on the line when this happened. The Mets just made a classic mistake that cuts across multiple pro sports, which is don’t hire the interim guy just because you get a little better after you fire the old manager. 

For Cora, this represents a good move. The Phillies have a GM who’s willing to spend in Dave Dombrowski, but they also have an aging roster that failed badly down the stretch, not to mention a bullpen that imploded on a regular basis. Cora has the savvy to see the writing on the wall, which is part of the reason he’s sitting out 2027. 

The larger reason, though, is the lockout. It’s making any situation he steps into exponentially tougher, as Cora would be stepping into a new roster he doesn’t know with little or no spring training to get his messaging and expectations across.

We still don’t know what Green’s messaging is. He failed badly with the San Diego Padres late in the last decade, and Green has said he was too critical of his players in ways that weren’t positive. That suits the Mets just fine, as their players typically don’t take all that well to criticism. 

The reasonable expectation for the Mets next year is more of the same of what we saw in the second half. The eye test said that was a .500 team that would play well for brief stretches, then go back to the kind of sloppy bad baseball that’s become the Mets’ trademark dating back to the second-half collapse in 2025. 

The Mets clearly needed a strong new voice from outside the organization, but now Alex Cora’s availability is gone, and the Mets are stuck with another retread veteran manager.