Brodie Van Wagenen and the New York Mets will interview longtime baseball man Eduardo Perez for their vacant manager position.
According to Mike Puma of the New York Post, the New York Mets are set to interview Eduardo Perez for their open manager potion.
The Mets plan to interview Eduardo Perez for their managerial opening. Perez becomes the sixth known candidate for the job.
— Mike Puma (@NYPost_Mets) October 14, 2019
As Puma states, this makes Perez the sixth-known candidate for the job. He joins Carlos Beltran, Mike Bell, Joe Girardi, Luis Rojas and Derek Shelton. Perez becomes the fifth interviewee without previous major league managerial experience.
Perez does, however, have prior coaching experience, and has remained connected to the game since retiring in 2006. He was a broadcaster for ESPN and ESPN Deportes from the postseason of 20006 until 2011. He spent most of that time as a member of the Baseball Tonight crew.
In 2007, Perez announced the founding of his won Puerto Rican baseball academy, the Winter Training Program. It was meant to give young prospects and Puerto Rican players another winter ball option. The league was sponsored by MLB and the Puerto Rican government.
In 2008 and 2009, Perez managed Leones de Ponce in the Puerto Rican baseball league. He won manager of the year in 2008, with his team winning the league title.
Perez returned to major league baseball in 2011 when he joined the Indians front office as a special assistant. Midway through the 2011 season, Perez was hired as the Florida Marlins’ hitting coach. He was fired at the end of the season along with manager Ozzie Guillen.
Perez managed Columbia in the 2013 World Baseball Classic, which helped him return to MLB. Perez was named the bench coach for the Astros prior to the start of the 2013 season. He was moved to first base coach for the 2014 season but resigned before the season started.
Perez rejoined ESPN in 2014 where he has been a broadcaster since. He also has his own SiriusXM show.
His last time on a baseball field was as a manager of the Santurce Crabbers in the Puerto Rican Winter League in 2014 and 2015. Under Perez, the Crabbers won the league title and competed in the Caribbean championship series.
Perez is an interesting case because he does lack MLB coaching experience. However, he does possess years of experience managing outside of MLB. As far as inexperienced candidates come they don’t come much more experienced than Perez. It’ll be inter sting to see how he interviews and if anything comes out of his candidacy.
