The Mets hired Buck Showalter as their new manager on Saturday, choosing a leader with 20 years of experience in the job and signaling again the high expectations at Citi Field.
The Mets’ owner, Steve Cohen, announced the decision on Twitter. The team plans to formally introduce Showalter as its manager on Monday.
Showalter, 65, got a three-year deal and another chance to take a team to the World Series. He has guided the Yankees, the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Baltimore Orioles to the postseason without winning a pennant, but is widely respected for his preparedness and attention to detail. He has won his league’s manager of the year award three times — in 1994 with the Yankees, in 2004 with the Texas Rangers and in 2014 with the Orioles.
The other finalists for the job were much younger than Showalter: Matt Quatraro, 48, the bench coach for the Tampa Bay Rays, and Joe Espada, 46, the bench coach for the Houston Astros. Neither Quatraro nor Espada has ever managed in the majors, however, much like Showalter’s predecessor in New York, Luis Rojas, who had no major league managerial experience when the Mets hired him in 2020, before Cohen bought the team.
Rojas, now the Yankees’ third base coach, went 103-119 overall. He was fired in October after the Mets’ late-summer collapse completed a second straight losing season under his leadership.
Hiring a manager with Showalter’s pedigree is consistent with the Mets’ off-season moves before the lockout suspended transactions involving major league players on Dec. 2. Cohen has invested $254.5 million in multiyear contracts for four free agents this winter: pitcher Max Scherzer, infielder Eduardo Escobar and outfielders Mark Canha and Starling Marte. All will be at least 33 years old by opening day, and Scherzer, 37, got a three-year deal with a record average annual value of $43.3 million.