Buck Showalter named Mets manager
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Buck Showalter named Mets manager
Showalter becomes the 24th manager in club history
In what seemed to be inevitable from the start, the have Mets hired Buck Showalter to be their next manager.
Mets Owner Steve Cohen made the announcement on Twitter. Showalter got a three-year contract, per Jon Heyman of MLB Network.
Showalter, 65, has managed the Yankees, Diamondbacks, Rangers and Orioles in his career. His lifetime record is 1551-1517 in 20 seasons as a skipper. He has managed five playoff teams in his career having not reached the World Series to-date.
Showalter was originally drafted by the Yankees in the fifth round of the 1976 amateur draft but never made it to the major leagues. He began is managerial career in 1985 in the Yankees minor league system, enjoyed success and quickly moved up the ranks to Double-A Albany-Colonie by 1989. By 1992, he was managing the Yankees and by the time he was let go after the 1995 season, he had amassed 313 wins over four seasons and his 1995 team was the first Yankee club to make the playoffs since they were in the World Series in 1981.
Showalter’s success was extended during his tenure with the Diamondbacks when he led Arizona to a 100-win season in 1999, although his club was defeated by the Mets in the NLDS that year. He went on to manage the Rangers in 2003, although he posted just one winning season during a four-year span in Arlington.
He last managed the Orioles from 2010-2018, during which his clubs combined to go 669-684 with six winning seasons, two wild cards and one division title during that nine year span.
Showalter is a three-time manager of the year winner (1994, 2004, 2014).
The Mets cast a wide net throughout the hiring process, interviewing Showalter, Bob Geren, Joe Espada, Matt Quatraro and Clayton McCullough, according to multiple reports. But in Showalter, the Mets get a strong tactical manager with experience in New York, and a reputation of quickly turning teams around as an established leader with a strong dugout and clubhouse presence.
Ultimately, Showalter was the right fit at the right time for a win-now roster in need of cultural change.