Carlos Mendoza, the new Mets manager, sat next to Aaron Boone for four years in the other baseball borough of New York City, a place where the Yankees -- once famous for changing managers -- hardly ever do it now. Since 1996, in fact, they’ve had just three skippers: Joe Torre was with them for 12 seasons, then Joe Girardi for 10. Now, Boone is starting his seventh season in the Bronx.

It’s been a little different in Queens. Mickey Callaway wasn’t ready for the job of managing the Mets -- and managing in New York City -- even if he got two seasons with the team. Neither was Luis Rojas, now the Yankees’ third-base coach. Buck Showalter couldn’t have been more ready, after a career as one of the great managers of his time, starting when he’d managed the Yankees 30 years earlier. But Buck got the same two years the others did.

Now, the Mets believe that Mendoza, whose only managerial experience was with the Gulf Coast League Yankees and the Charleston RiverDogs, is ready to succeed -- even as a rookie. They want to be right about that -- and need to be right -- as the team looks to recover and rebound from what happened to them last season, despite the largest payroll in the sport.

Good man, Carlos Mendoza. Well-respected baseball man, especially while working with Boone. Big job for him in the big city, trying to put the Mets back together again.

“I know what I signed up for,” Mendoza said.

This was the other day in Jupiter, Fla., before the Mets played the Cardinals. He had spent most of his morning session with the media talking about Luis Severino, who would be that day’s Mets starter at Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium. The Mets are hoping to be as right with their signing of Severino, once the Yankees' brightest pitching prospect (a 19-8 record in 2018), but a suddenly veteran pitcher who was 4-8 with a 6.65 ERA in 19 games (18 starts) last season.

“We’re going to need him,” Mendoza said, before explaining how strong Severino’s arm still is, how good he thought his stuff still was last September and how the Mets believe they’ve corrected the problem Severino has had across his career tipping his pitches -- something Mendoza at least partially attributed to Severino’s front shoulder flying open.

A couple of hours later, Severino’s first Spring Training start was a good start for him in all ways. He pitched two scoreless and hitless innings against the Cardinals, finishing his day with a 98 mph four-seam fastball that Matt Carpenter could only wave at and foul tip into catcher Omar Narváez’s mitt.

“I had something left in the tank,” Severino said.

The Mets want very much for that to be true, in all ways. If they are going to have any chance to make noise in the National League East and make a move on the class of the division -- which means the Braves and the Phillies -- they are going to need starting pitching.

“We need our guys to keep showing up every fourth or fifth day,” Mendoza said.

He saw how much the Yankees were hurt last season by pitchers like Carlos Rodón and Nestor Cortes being injured as the Yankees were as big a disappointment in New York as the Mets were despite having a slightly better record (82-80 for the Yankees, 75-87 for the Mets). But then Mendoza saw a lot and continued to take in a lot sitting next to Boone.

Not only did he sit next to Boone, he frequently had to step in when Boone would get ejected, something which occurred a total of 24 times in the years when Mendoza was the Yankees' bench coach. Glenn Sherlock, one of Mendoza’s coaches now with the Mets, grinned the other day as he pointed that out.

“Hey, Carlos has had some experience managing in New York, right?” Sherlock said.

“I learned so much [from Boone],” Mendoza said.

He saw the full range of responsibilities of being a manager, especially in New York, and the skill set required for the job. He saw how the manager of the team becomes the face of the team and the voice of the team as much as any of the players. Sometimes he sounds like the only voice of the team, breaking things down on a daily basis, explaining where the team is and where it’s going -- and not just why it just won or lost. And also taking more heat than 98 mph fastballs.

I said to Carlos Mendoza in Jupiter, “You know what Aaron’s biggest job is a lot of the time? Standing there and taking it.”

Mendoza smiled.

“I’ll say it again,” he said. “This is what I signed up for. And I believe I am ready for this.”

Sherlock talked about how prepared Mendoza is, how good he is in their meetings, how much “heart” he sees from the new Mets manager.

“He understands that the beating heart of this game still matters,” Sherlock said.

Mendoza was a terrific co-pilot in the Bronx. Now, Carlos Mendoza is the one at the controls in Queens. The owner, Steve Cohen, and David Stearns, Cohen’s new head of baseball operations, are the ones who hired him. They clearly think he’s ready. Mendoza does, too. Ready or not.