Former NY Mets manager Carlos Mendoza has a tough task with the Phillies to fix Trea Turner

It didn’t take long for Carlos Mendoza to find a job. The former New York Mets skipper is joining the Philadelphia Phillies to become their third base and infield coach.

A completely different job description with the Mets, his first task is to save the Phillies from having a $27+ million problem at shortstop. Trea Turner, owed over $27 million for 7 more seasons, is on a fast decline defensively. He was fifth in the 2025 MVP vote but saw his offensive numbers drop in 2026. No amount of fans cheering could have ever helped him work out of it.

Turner was publicly called out by Dave Dombrowski. If things are looking good for Turner in spring training, a position change sounds likely.

Carlos Mendoza is an interesting choice to save Trea Turner’s career

Sure, Mendoza wasn’t the infield coach for the Mets, but if he was any kind of a wizard, one would think the defense would have been better under his watch. Mark Vientos and Marcus Semien had two of the worst defensive seasons they could have possibly had. Francisco Lindor has been on the decline, too. As promising of a year as Bo Bichette had at third base, it was more average than positive.

It’s a lot of pressure to give Mendoza such little time to wave a wand and make Turner useful at shortstop again. He has had several extremes in his career. The OAA itself includes a 17 OAA in 2025 followed by the -10 posted this past season.

Mendoza landing a job on a rival to coach third base is too appropriate considering it’s exactly what happened to Luis Rojas. Rojas joined the New York Yankees as a third base coach shortly after the Mets moved on from him following the 2021 season. It doesn’t mean a whole lot and might be more a coincidence than any sort of statement about both being 1) ill-equipped to manage in the big leagues and/or 2) good enough baseball minds to be sought after without any extended period of unemployment.

The news of Mendoza’s hiring came less than 24 hours after the Phillies fired ex-Mets hitting coach Kevin Long. Now an actual candidate to rejoin the Mets, as uncharacteristic as it would seem for David Stearns to do, it’s the exact kind of move that should be weighed because of how different it would be from a lot of the other additions.

Mendoza saving the Phillies from financial ruin by aiding Turner at shortstop will be one of the bigger stories for Mets fans to follow. Not much different from whether or not Jeremy Hefner can improve the Atlanta Braves pitching (he did) or if Antoan Richardson can turn them into a team of Rickey Hendersons (he didn’t), Mendoza has one clear mission aside from not allowing too many Phillies gets thrown out at home by Carson Benge.

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