Bobby Valentine New Red Sox Manager

With Bobby Valentine being named manager of the Boston Red Sox, it got me thinking two things:

1) Valentine will likely never manage the Mets again.
2) It’s rare for former Mets managers to get other manager jobs.

It turns out being the manager of the Mets is pretty much career suicide.

The most recent former Mets to get another big league position was the awful Jeff Torborg, whom the Mets fired way back in 1993. He finally got another job in 2001. Davey Johnson was an emergency hire for the Nationals last year, his third job since leaving the Mets in 1990. Only two other ex-Mets managers landed other jobs — Yogi Berra and Joe Torre, and they managed the team in the 1970s.

Being a Mets General Manager is also a place where careers go to die. The last Mets GM to land the same job elsewhere was Joe McDonald, who was the Mets GM from 1975-1979. Aside from him, only Bing Devine got another GM job, and you have to go all the back to the late 1960s for that. I don’t see Steve Phillips or Omar Minaya being added to this list.

What is it about the Mets? In some cases it is because they hire older people who are at the end of their careers (George Bamberger, Frank Cashen). But in the many other cases, is it because they hire crappy people one else would want? Perhaps, but it is likely because the failure is so high-profile, what with it coming in New York City and all,  that no other teams would touch them.