As if New York Mets fans needed another reason to despise former owner Fred Wilpon, they can partially blame him for not having Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy in the dugout. 

Remember back in the winter of 2019, when the Mets fired Mickey Callaway and hired former All-Star outfielder Carlos Beltrán as their next manager? Ownership and then-general manager Brodie Van Wagenen reportedly interviewed Murphy — who was the Brewers’ bench coach under Craig Counsell — three times before choosing Beltrán. 

We’re not sure what stings more: Beltrán resigning over the Astros’ cheating scandal before spring training even started, or the New York Post’s Joel Sherman reporting that the Mets made Murphy fly coach to every interview. 

Never change, Mets. 

Imagine if the New York Mets had hired future Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy

Had the Mets hired Murphy, he’d have taken over a fairly young team ahead of the pandemic-shortened 60-game season. He’d previously gone 42-54 as the Padres’ interim skipper in 2015 and had managerial experience in college, the Minors and even the Netherlands’ Olympic team.

Keep in mind this came before Steve Cohen bought the Mets and acquired Francisco Lindor. That’s not to say they lacked talent — Jacob deGrom was the two-time defending NL Cy Young winner, and they had a budding offensive core built around Pete Alonso, Brandon Nimmo and Jeff McNeil — but Wilpon’s presence certainly contributed to the organization’s dysfunction. 

Compare that to Milwaukee, which remains one of baseball’s most competent and widely respected franchises. Murphy inherited a loaded Brewers team that had reached the playoffs five times in six years.  

There’s no true revisionist history on Beltrán despite his resignation. They didn’t know what the league’s investigation into the Astros’ scandal would reveal, including that he was the ringleader. The real mistakes were 1) hiring Callaway after the 2017 season and 2) turning to Luis Rojas as Beltrán’s replacement; neither had the mental strength to handle the New York media market, whether it was dealing with the media or controlling players. 

We honestly don’t know how Murphy would have fared as the Mets’ manager, and that’s assuming Cohen and Jared Porter — whom the Mets initially hired as their GM in November 2020 before firing him two months later for sending explicit photographs to a female reporter — wouldn’t have wanted to hire their own man. 

It’s nonetheless another chapter in the Mets’ “what could have been” book, though not as bad as trading Pete Crow-Armstrong for two months of Javier Báez. Great job, Mets!