Carlos Mendoza doesnt believe Mets had locker room problems

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— Carlos Mendoza pushed back Monday against the notion a fractured Mets clubhouse was part of the team’s undoing last season. “We had a professional clubhouse,” the Mets manager said at the Winter Meetings.“Guys respected each other.

Guys enjoyed being around each other.We just didn’t play well in the field, and that translated into whatever people call vibe, team chemistry.” The Post recently reported that Francisco Lindor and Jeff McNeil had a heated confrontation in June over a play that wasn’t made.A source also described the relationship between Lindor and Juan Soto as chilly. “I’m not going to get into what happens in the clubhouse; obviously, it stays there,” Mendoza said.

“The past few weeks, it feels like we were fighting pretty much every day.Nobody talked about our clubhouse when we got to the second week of June with the best record in baseball.

We have the best clubhouse.And then we start losing and everybody is talking about, oh, some of the issues.” Mendoza’s bullpen management recently was criticized by former Mets reliever Adam Ottavino, who suggested the team didn’t do enough to keep arms healthy. But Mendoza on Monday said precautions were taken. “We were probably one of the teams that protected the bullpen guys better than anybody,” Mendoza said.

“You are talking about we were able to do that with so little length that we were getting from the starters. “I don’t think this is a Mets issue.I think this is an industry that this year, we were dealing with a lot of injuries.

But I’m comfortable with the process too.When you are talking about guys, who’s available, there’s so many people, so many conversations that happen throughout the day.” Kai Correa’s addition as bench coach has Mendoza optimistic the team will show improvement defens...