Mets never knew if Craig Counsell wanted managerial job: ‘Craig can play things pretty close to the vest’

Craig Counsell was a favorite to replace Buck Showalter as the Mets’ manager. But as it turns out, the feeling wasn’t reciprocated.

Counsell replaced David Ross as the Chicago Cubs skipper Monday afternoon. If you’re in the business of better, you probably didn’t bet on Chicago to win the Counsell sweepstakes. The former Milwaukee Brewers manager had long been rumored to be heading to Queens, with the expectation that he would follow president of baseball operations David Stearns. The Cubs didn’t even have a vacancy in the dugout, with Ross under contract through next season.

But then Counsell became available and the Cubs jumped. Jed Hoyer flew to Florida to break the news to Ross on Monday morning and Counsell informed the Mets that he would not be coming to New York.

“Craig can play things pretty close to the vest,” Stearns said Tuesday afternoon in Arizona at the MLB general manager meetings. “In this case, clearly, he played it very close to the vest because none of us had any idea of where this was headed.”

The Mets hired Yankees bench coach Carlos Mendoza instead. Counsell never gave Stearns any indication that he wanted to come to New York so the club had to open up the candidate pool. Mendoza rose to the top.

“The truth is I never really knew,” Stearns said. “Ultimately, he’s a really smart guy. He factored in all the information and he made the right decision for himself.”

Though Counsell was one of the eight candidates Stearns talked to, industry sources had previously described his interest level in New York as low. It’s a tough place to manage and the Mets, under the ownership of Steve Cohen, are a tough team to manage.

Counsell has not talked publicly, but the industry consensus is that he wanted two things: A record contract to reset the market for skippers, and a location close to his family in Whitefish Bay, Wis. The son of a former Brewers PR staffer, Counsell grew up in Wisconsin and is raising his kids in Wisconsin. The Cubs gave him both with a five-year, $40 million contract to manage a team that plays less than 100 miles from his family home. The $8 million AAV is the highest in baseball, topping Joe Torre’s $7.5 million contract with the Yankees in the early 2000s.

“We talked about a lot of things over the course of the week or so,” Stearns said. “But I don’t know, really, what ultimately drove the decision.”

This was Stearns’ first manager search at any level with any team. Counsell was the interim skipper when Stearns went to Milwaukee from Houston in 2015 and he remained in that position until last week.

The hiring of Mendoza has not yet been made official, so Stearns was not able to talk about the 43-year-old as of Tuesday. The team does not anticipate the process hitting any snags and expects to introduce Mendoza in the coming weeks.

Yankees GM Brian Cashman, however, was able to talk about his outgoing bench coach. He heaped praise on the coach that he called a “Swiss army knife,” saying what many in baseball have been saying over the last 24 hours: It’s about time for Mendoza.

“He’s a tough loss,” Cashman said. “I think the Mets got a great one. He’s been a bridesmaid in many of these interviews and I cannot tell you how much feedback I’ve gotten from everyone he’s interviewed with. It’s been, ‘I cannot believe this guy has not gotten a manager job yet. Is this real?’ He’s from Venezuela, speaks Spanish, speaks English, he’s got structure, he’s got process, he knows the game’s fundamentals.

“He’s been running our major league spring training for years. He was probably taught by [Philadelphia Phillies manager] Rob Thomson how to run a camp because Rob was running it before him. He knows analytics inside and out. He’s got discipline and he’s not afraid to go at a player when necessary and when it’s required.”

Stearns talked to eight candidates on his own before eliminating half the group. The remaining four candidates had in-person interviews. The process was “energizing” to Stearns.

“I think the candidates that we spoke to, especially as we got down towards that last four to six, had really thoughtful perspectives on not only our situation but what it means to manage in New York,” Stearns said. “I was very impressed with that.”

Hiring a first-time manager is always risky, especially in the New York market and especially with a chaotic team like the Mets. But the Mets had no choice but to take a risk because as it turned out, Counsell was never the guy.