Mets' Carlos Mendoza has guided team with consistency and communication

Carlos Mendoza answers his texts.

No matter what the Mets are getting into (and they get into a lot), he finds a way. But there have been more of them than usual of late.

“I've gotten texts from so many people,” he said last week. “People that I have a lot of respect for in the game, whether former managers, current players, former players...like 400, 500 text messages. It's unbelievable.”

Asked how he handles all the correspondence, the Mets rookie manager looked momentarily confused. “I always try to find time,” he said, as if he couldn't contemplate another option. “It means a lot for people that have taken the time to reach out to you, that you reach back to them. It doesn't matter if it's late at night, early in the morning. That's the way I am. I treat people the way I want to be treated. And if I send you a text, I expect someone to at least say thanks or something.”

And that, really, is Mendoza to the core. He is the communicator. His players have mentioned it, president of baseball operations David Stearns has mentioned it, and Thursday, even ex-Mets Robin Ventura and Edgardo Alfonzo brought it up.

The duo, who were on hand to throw and catch the first pitch at Citi Field ahead of Game 4 of the NLCS, played under Bobby Valentine – a guy who couldn’t be more different than Mendoza temperament-wise, Alfonzo said. But there was a through line.

Mendoza’s “communication is perfect,” Alfonzo said. “It's great. He's the right guy to do it.”

Added Ventura, who also managed the White Sox: “He has to know his players very well…

“What he's done this year, with his team, he knows them well,” he added. “He's been able to get them here, and I think that's the biggest thing is looking from the outside, you can kind of see the guys play. And you think you know the personalities of everybody, but you really don't. And he does. I feel like I can see that in the way he's handled them.”

The final audit of Mendoza’s season will come when all of this is over. It will come down to whether this team wilts against a bruising Dodgers squad that boasts some of the biggest superstars in the game.

It will depend, too, on how Mendoza’s latest gambit plays out. After their Game 3 loss – a lifeless one that put the Mets in a 2-1 hole entering Thursday – Mendoza didn’t entertain thoughts of tinkering with the lineup. Francisco Alvarez, Jose Iglesias and J.D. Martinez were in the lineup in lieu of Luis Torrens, Jeff McNeil and Jesse Winker – partially because Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto is tough against lefties like McNeil and Winker, and partially because the guys in the lineup “got us here,” he said. “They will continue to step up.”

Mendoza noted Thursday that it’s not a case of being stuck in his ways – “You've got to be able to make some adjustments. I've done that the whole year, whether it's with lineup construction, the way I use the bullpen,” he said – but certain situations call for simply trusting your players, and, yes, communicating with them.

“I think what Mendy has brought to the table in the pressure of a playoff environment is the thing Mendy has brought to the table the entire season,” Stearns said last month. “It’s incredible consistency for who he is, authenticity as a leader and as a person. It’s been a lot of fun to work with him.”

Alvarez Thursday talked about how much Mendoza’s confidence in him has helped. Edwin Diaz last week lauded the fact that “he sticks with us and he gives us the opportunity to keep playing.”

But Mendoza’s influence is even noted by the guys across the way – the team he left to get his shot at calling the shots.

“He helped me so much my rookie year...[and tried] to help me be consistent, learn what it means to be a Yankee,” Anthony Volpe said of his former bench coach earlier this week. “He impacted me and so many other young guys, guys that have come up through the system, and I just can't thank him enough.”

Aaron Boone said that he was hardly surprised Mendoza had gotten this far.

"He was steady at the helm and it's been fun to watch him do his thing," Boone said earlier this month.

“We communicate a lot,” Boone added. "I texted him after the game last night” – the raucous night the Mets clinched the  Wild Card Series over the Brewers.

Mendoza, of course, texted back.

By Laura Albanese

laura.albanese@newsday.com@AlbaneseLaura

Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.