MLB Rumors: Brad Ausmus is candidate to be next Mets manager
The New York Mets are casting a wide net in search of a new manager and Brad Ausmus is the latest candidate.
As a 64-98 season that yielded the No. 1 pick in the 2018 draft wound down, the Detroit Tigers announced they would not be bringing back manager Brad Ausmus. So a mostly disappointing four-year tenure in Detroit came to an expected end, with a 314-332 record (.486 winning percentage), one playoff appearance and two last-place finishes in the AL Central for the Tigers under Ausmus.
Elsewhere, the New York Mets are in a similar position to the Tigers. They’re coming off a 90-plus loss season of their own and the resignation of manager Terry Collins before the decision to not renew his contract would have surely come.
Multiple candidates for the Mets job have surfaced, and Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports has now added Ausmus to the list.
"Brad Ausmus, who was let go by the Detroit Tigers following their last-place finish, is on the radar of the New York Mets and is in fact said to be a candidate to replace Terry Collins. The Mets have reached out to Ausmus and they’ve had one conversation to date."
Ausmus has said he wants to manage next year if the right opportunity appears. Heyman mentioned him as a candidate for the Boston Red Sox, if they let John Farrell go, and for the Philadelphia Phillies as they look to replace Pete Mackanin. Red Sox president Dave Dombrowski hired Ausmus when he was the general manager in Detroit, but it’s hard to see Farrell being let go after a postseason appearance.
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Ausmus would be far from the first dismissed manager to be recycled back into another job immediately in lieu of finding a fresh voice instead of a notable name. But his first season with the Tigers, a 90-win campaign with a division title in 2014, notwithstanding, his winning percentage was just .462. That is not the resume of a top managerial candidate, regardless of how the situation may have deteriorated beyond his control in Detroit this year.