Beltrán to join Mets on some road trips at request of Stearns

Carlos Beltrán will spend a lot more time around the New York Mets in 2024.

After serving as a special assistant to Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns for the past year and working part-time with New York's minor-league clubs, Beltrán said Friday the organization has expanded his role. The former All-Star added that he'll be working with the MLB club throughout the coming campaign and will accompany the team on some road trips, an idea spurred by Stearns.

"David reached out to me and told me that he wanted me to travel with the team, make some road trips. I'm looking forward to that," Beltrán told Newsday's Tim Healey. "I just want to be there and hopefully share my experience with them, and hopefully, it can influence them in a positive way. If someone can make, let's say, an adjustment that allowed him, that player in particular, to improve, that's positive. And that's what motivates me. I'm motivated by that. ... I love to be around."

Despite his expanded role, Beltrán isn't joining manager Carlos Mendoza's coaching staff, Healey reports.

Beltrán spent the bulk of his 20-year playing career with the Mets, and his name can still be found throughout the franchise's record books.

The Mets hired Beltrán as their manager in 2019, but the 46-year-old's time in their dugout was short-lived. He hadn't even managed a game for the club when the sides parted ways after the scope of his role in the 2017 Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal became clearer. Beltrán was the only player explicitly named in MLB's investigation into the electronic sign-stealing scheme.

Beltrán was out of baseball for two years before joining the New York Yankees as a broadcaster in 2022.