Don’t permit analysts to double dip

ESPN’s Mendoza among those facing conflict of interest.

The Mets are to be applauded for signing ESPN “Sunday Night Baseball” analyst Jessica Mendoza as a baseball operations adviser last week.

ESPN allowing Mendoza to stay on as a “Sunday Night Baseball” analyst is another matter.

This isn’t a knock on the insight Mendoza offered on ESPN’s weekly primetime marquee game. Her analytical skills undoubtedly are what piqued the Mets’ interest, with Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen specifically citing her “extremely high baseball IQ.”

The problem is conflict of interest — and it must be addressed, not just with Mendoza, but also her fellow “Sunday Night Baseball” analyst, Alex Rodriguez, who doubles as a special adviser to Yankees general manager Brian Cashman.

Same goes for others who are double-dipping as analysts and team advisers. Among them is David Ross, who recently agreed to a multiyear ESPN extension as a studio and game analyst while continuing as a special adviser to the Cubs.

There’s also Hall of Famer Jim Thome, hired last season as an MLB Network studio analyst while working as a special assistant to White Sox general manager Rick Hahn.

This cannot be allowed to be the norm among TV analysts.

A two-time Olympian with a gold and a silver medal in softball to show for it, Mendoza, in a statement, thanked ESPN and parent company Walt Disney Co. “for their understanding and confidence as I balance both tasks moving forward.”

Tasks can be balanced. Loyalties can’t. No one should expect less than 100 percent, and it’s ESPN viewers who stand to get shorted here.

And it doesn’t matter whether a double-dipper’s team is playing in the game these analysts are calling.

Remember last season when Rodriguez said during a Cubs-Cardinals game on “Sunday Night Baseball” that some of Yu Darvish’s Cubs teammates were upset with the pricey free agent’s rehab methods and a clubhouse rift was beginning to develop?

Was that A-Rod the ESPN analyst or A-Rod the special adviser for the Yankees, whose long-term contract offer Darvish rejected last year en route to the Cubs? Or a little of both? Viewers may never know.

Even when analysts clearly don’t let their work with a team soften their criticisms, problems can cause problems. Even with an unofficial position.

Then-White Sox manager Tony La Russa relieved analyst Jimmy Piersall of his unofficial outfield coaching duties in 1980, when players became fed up working with Piersall only to have him rip their vulnerabilities during games.

Piersall was just as critical after the move, maybe more so. But now everyone was left to wonder if the coaching move had embittered him.

“Sunday Night Baseball” is a national telecast. The audience deserves commentary from analysts whose sole agenda is to tell viewers all that can be discerned during and around a game.

They’re expected to give viewers a greater understanding of what is happening by leveraging both their own knowledge of the game and what they learn from players, coaches, managers, scouts and front-office personnel.

Fans shouldn’t have to wonder whether commentators are holding back or if what they do say is colored by their other job.

ESPN and other outlets need fully independent analysts for the same reasons news operations need fully independent political analysts. If you buy spin, you get spin.

Ironically, team play-byplay announcers’ allegiances are questioned all the time when they handle national or regional telecasts.

Yet unlike these double-dipping analysts, team play-by-play announcers aren’t getting paid to contribute insights to the front-office brain trust. They aren’t focused in the areas of player evaluation, roster construction, technological advancement and health and performance as the Mets say Mendoza will be.

“Jessica has a tremendous knowledge of the game,” said Jeff Wilpon, Mets chief operating officer. “She will be able to provide a different perspective to the club and help assist in a variety of roles within the baseball operations department.”

But in paying her for perspective, Mendoza’s views — just like those of A-Rod and the other double-dippers — may become less valuable on TV.

JON DURR / GETTY IMAGES Hall of Famer Jim Thome (left) is a broadcaster and adviser to the Chicago White Sox.

MAXX WOLFSON / GETTY IMAGES ESPN’s Jessica Mendoza signed a deal last week to be an adviser to the New York Mets.