Think of a baseball manager and his coaching staff as an ecosystem. If done correctly, an organization has crafted a unit bonded by fraternity in which one person’s strengths cover another’s weaknesses.
Did the Mets do that with Carlos Beltran and his staff?
We will never know.
But they did do it with Beltran. They built a staff with both his input and with his skills in mind. Then they had to replace the most important person in this Jenga game — the manger — with the seconds ticking toward spring training. That leisurely pace they took to pick Beltran and then assemble his staff was gone.