Reacting to the Carlos Mendoza news

This story was excerpted from Anthony DiComo's Mets Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Since news broke Monday of the Mets’ intention to hire Carlos Mendoza as their next manager, social media, talk radio and other spaces have exploded with hot takes about a person who, to many fans, was anonymous at this time one week ago.

To some within that population, the solution to the Mets’ managerial vacancy was “Craig Counsell or bust.” If the Mets couldn’t woo Milwaukee’s popular manager to Flushing, no alternate candidate was going to appease those masses.

That, of course, is exactly what happened. Rather than sign with the Mets, Counsell stayed close to home with a new job on the North Side of Chicago. The Mets pivoted to Mendoza, Aaron Boone’s bench coach with the Yankees, eliciting reactions that ranged from “Who?” to “No thanks.”

Which is of course the exact wrong way to look at things. Counsell was, without question, a known commodity. His work guiding an overachieving bunch in Milwaukee should have won him even more accolades than it did. Doubtless, Counsell will do good things with the Cubs.

But there is room for more than one talented manager in the Majors, and just because the Mets have whiffed on inexperienced hires in the recent past -- Mickey Callaway, Carlos Beltrán, Luis Rojas et al -- doesn’t mean the future will bring more of the same. Counsell, after all, was once a first-time hire. So was every Hall of Fame manager in baseball history. Even Joe Torre, who had significant managing experience when the Yankees picked him up in 1996, infamously garnered the Daily News headline “Clueless Joe” a day after his introductory press conference.

The truth is that no one -- not me, not you, not David Stearns, not Steve Cohen -- knows for certain if Mendoza will succeed. Much will depend upon the rosters the Mets build in the coming years.

But the Mets hired Stearns in large part because they trusted the acumen he’s developed as a baseball operations guru. Hiring the right manager is one of Stearns’ most important responsibilities. It affects him more than anyone, given how closely he must work with Mendoza on a daily basis. No one had more incentive than Stearns to make the right decision.

Talking to people around baseball on Monday, I was struck by the universal praise of Mendoza the man. Yes, folks said similar things about Callaway and Rojas and others upon their hirings. Focusing on those outcomes means ignoring the possibility that someone like Mendoza, with a strong resume for a first-time manager, might be able to break through and succeed.

So give it time. Maybe Mendoza lasts a year or two. Maybe he becomes the longest-tenured and most successful manager in Mets history. Both are possible, with a wide band of outcomes all along the path between.

A lot of them can wind up being very, very good.