This is from the NYT piece before Beltran interviewed to be NY manager last year this time:
"Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman said earlier this month that he and Beltran had spoken before Beltran announced his retirement on Nov. 13. But he declined to say at the time whether Beltran was a candidate for the managerial post.
“I do know he has an interest there,” Cashman said. “He’s played the game a long time, he knows the game inside and out, he’s got the respect of his peers. He brings a lot to the table.”
It was in the later part of his career that Beltran — whose instincts and baseball I.Q. have been long lauded — evolved into a leadership role on various teams. He counseled younger teammates, especially Spanish-speaking ones, in his stints with the St. Louis Cardinals, the Yankees, the Texas Rangers and, finally, the Astros, where he became a confidant of the team’s young star shortstop, Carlos Correa, who, like Beltran, is from Puerto Rico.
Beltran also prodded the players’ union and Major League Baseball to have interpreters in every clubhouse so that Spanish-speaking players could more fully communicate with the news media, a step that has been in place since 2016. He has also been a fierce advocate for Puerto Rico — building a baseball academy there and donating $1 million to relief efforts on the island after Hurricane Maria.
Before the start of spring training in 2016, Beltran asked that his locker at Steinbrenner Field be placed next to a young Yankees prospect who was still not ready for the major leagues. That player was Aaron Judge.
While Beltran has described himself as an intuitive hitter who did not rely on video or analytics, he acknowledged late this season that his time with the Astros — who are heavily immersed in the use of data — had caused him to reconsider.
And while he has no coaching or executive experience, there might be few people as well-equipped as Beltran to relate to the current Yankees.
He understands the scrutiny of New York, having arrived there for the 2005 season with a contract with the Mets for seven years and $119 million, the richest deal in franchise history at that point.
He played well as a Met but infamously took a called third-strike curveball from Adam Wainwright of the Cardinals to end Game 7 of the 2006 National League Championship Series.
But a lot happened after that, including a generally successful two and a half seasons in the Bronx, as Beltran gradually became an elder statesman on the field and in the locker room. And now he is entering still another phase — as a candidate to be a major league manager."