ARLINGTON, Texas — Shortly after Andy Green’s three-year contract with the Mets became official, the news was announced to the clubhouse by the manager himself, along with president of baseball operations David Stearns. It was still early enough on Tuesday that word hadn’t leaked to the public. The two couldn’t believe it.
It allowed Green to give a speech without any sort of preconceived notions.
“In a world where everything leaks, we actually made it to tell the players,” Green said Tuesday in a press conference at Globe Life Field. “I just said to them that the bright lights next year will reveal the work they did or didn’t do in the shadows of the offseason. We have a lot of work to do on an individual basis, and each one of those guys is responsible for coming back as a better version of themselves, and transferring that ownership over to them was imperative to do.”
It was much different than his first clubhouse speech, which came on June 26 shortly after the Mets fired manager Carlos Mendoza. At that point, it was one thing that was extremely obvious to just about anyone who had spent any time around the team. The club made too many sweeping changes in too short of an amount of time. By removing the interim tag from Green, the Mets ensure there will be continuity next season, which was a welcome message.
“You don’t really want to go into the offseason thinking, what’s going to happen and who is going to come in?” said shortstop Francisco Lindor. “More changes now — it’s a familiar phrase that’s been around for a couple years now. But this is a guy that’s been in the organization, in the clubhouse with us for the past three months, I believe, so I think it’s a wise decision.”
Green took over at a time when the Mets were feeling more pressure than ever. Key position players were injured and veterans were underperforming. They kept losing, and losing badly.
Green understood the pressure the team was facing, having been a major league player himself. He didn’t want them thinking about what could have been and how many wins they’d have to reel off to get back into contention. He wanted them focused on what they had to do individually that day to be successful, and nothing more, so they could go out and play free.
“I think they’ve played with a greater measure of freedom than they were around the time that I first came down, and I think you see that on a pretty daily basis,” Green said. “I’m encouraged by those things.”
The 49-year-old former farm director and former San Diego Padres manager has been praised for being a direct communicator. He isn’t afraid to tell players when they failed, but when he delivers that info, they know it’s coming from a place of belief and encouragement.
It’s not that Mendoza couldn’t do that, and it’s not that the other coaches don’t operate like that; it’s just a different delivery method that is working for the Mets right now, so they don’t want to interrupt it by changing voices yet again.
“He communicates it in a way that you know you react to well,” said second baseman Marcus Semien. “You want to work as hard as you can for that guy.”
The job of a manager in today’s game is less about being a strong tactician and making the right switches at the right time. Managers today have little control over the lineups and in-game decision-making, and with the Mets having one of the most robust analytics groups in the league, they’re no different than any other team in this respect. The job of a manager is to set the culture, the tone and the expectations of how the team will play. He has to keep them motivated to meet those expectations.
Green once led with too much of an edge and too much honesty. As the manager of the San Diego Padres from 2016-2019, Green wanted to show that he was the sole authority figure. It wasn’t always effective.
“I did everything in San Diego. I ran spring training, I talked through every fundamental, I ensured, out of some level of insecurity, that everybody in the world saw me as the guy in charge of absolutely everything,” Green said. “I think it’s a really unhealthy way to lead.”
Green has learned how to delegate coaching duties, and learned that different players require different communication. He knows himself better now, and he knows the most important thing is to elevate the players playing the game to greatness.
Maybe most importantly, he’s been consistent in his messaging every day he’s been in the dugout. The Mets respect that the message doesn’t change; it only adapts based on what the team needs that day.
“What he said at the beginning was that he was going to bring light, bring joy, and he was going to bring accountability,” Lindor said. “He’s kept up to that, so he made a good impact in the clubhouse.”