Carlos Mendoza Admits the Mets Clubhouse Was “Corporate”

Evan & Tiki

Audacy

Sports

4.2 • 988 Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2026

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

With Opening Day creeping closer, the Mets’ clubhouse chemistry is back under the microscope after Carlos Mendoza’s comments on the Heyman and Sherman pod. Asked if there were issues last year, Mendoza starts with “yeah,” then explains what he really means: the room was professional, respectful, and at times way too “corporate,” without enough celebrating or looseness when things got tough. The guys connect that to the dynamic between Juan Soto and Francisco Lindor, two stars with totally different personalities. Soto is all business, Lindor is the constant energy guy, and that contrast can be fine when you are winning, but tricky when the season gets stressful. They also zoom out to a bigger point about locker rooms: even “great leaders” can have messy relationships, and plenty of winning teams keep everything quiet, which is why we rarely hear these stories until someone finally says the quiet part out loud.

Transcript

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0:00.0	As we creep closer to the start of the baseball season, there continues to be talk about the match locker room and all the changes that were made and then the changes that weren't made because Juan Soda was still there. Francisco Lindor is still there. Carlos Mendoza did an interview on the John Heyman, Joel Sherman podcast, and it was brought up the locker room. I want to play you his answer because there's some interesting things.
0:37.9	I'm not going to lead you down the road. I'm going to let you listen. We can all be open-minded. And then I'll tell you some of the things that jumped out at me and jumped out at you. We'll start off with Carlos just addressing again, hey, were there issues in your locker room last year? Yeah, look, I know there was a lot of noise. and like you mentioned,
0:40.7	I addressed it a little bit during the winning. locker room last year. Yeah, look, I know there was a lot of noise and like you mentioned, I
0:38.5	addressed it a little bit during the winning meetings. We had a professional clubhouse. When you're
0:46.4	winning, everything is fun. Everything is, you know, all you guys got the best team chemistry.
0:52.4	Everything is perfect, right? And then you go through stretches
0:58.0	where it's hard and you're not winning as many games. Then for me, and I take responsibility
1:04.7	for it because I think it became like a corporate clubhouse, you know, where guys respected each other, but I don't think we celebrated each other enough.
1:15.7	Interesting.
1:16.9	A corporate locker room.
1:18.8	Yeah.
1:19.1	So he answered the question with his very first word.
1:22.7	Did you have locker room chemistry issues?
1:25.8	He said, yeah.
1:26.7	No, I don't take it that way. Trust me, psychologically people do this.
1:30.7	They answer this. Otherwise, he would have said, no, we were fine. He said, yeah. So subconsciously, he
1:38.1	answered the question. But then he described it. I give him credit because he gave us details.
1:43.3	And it makes perfect sense.
1:46.4	And probably this is led by Juan Soto because this is how Juan Soto is.
1:50.7	Wow.
1:51.3	He is the highest paid dude in the league, basically.
1:54.7	He is your, I don't know, your shining star of last off season.
	...

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