If Carlos Beltran had to go for plate-stealing last season, Jared Porter should go now if the facts in ESPN’s story are true and Mets’ new GM 2016 barrage of unsolicited text messages with lewd overtones to a female reporter.
Beltran committed a baseball crime and never made it to his first opening day as a manager. This would be a violation of decency, power dynamics, and common sense by someone who wielded far more organizational power than Beltran would have.
The bomb that turned the Steve Cohen administration’s feel-good momentum into a Wilpon-esque freefall came late Monday night. The ESPN story, which protected the foreign correspondent’s anonymity, describes a period when Porter was the Cubs director of professional scouting in 2016, unleashing a barrage of lyrics about the reporter, who was new to both the United States. States as about MLB. The flow of texts that lasted for months included attempts to meet outside the stadium and photos of a man wearing pants with a lump in his groin area and also a naked, erect penis.
ESPN presented screenshots of some of the sixty texts and images that had a relentless tone. Porter did not respond to a request from The Post for comment. In the ESPN story, he initially said he never sent photos, but when told there were selfies too, he told ESPN, “The more explicit ones aren’t mine. Those are a bit like joke stock images. “
In part of his statement, Mets team chairman Sandy Alderson said, “I spoke directly with Jared Porter about events that took place in 2016 that we were first informed of tonight. Jared has admitted to me his grave error of judgment, taken responsibility for his behavior, expressed regret, and previously apologized for his actions. “
Alderson concluded, “We will follow up as we review the facts about this serious problem.”
But there really isn’t much to do here. If Porter told Alderson that these were indeed his texts and images, then he can no longer be the CEO of Mets.
Beltran was fired as manager almost exactly a year ago, a few days after he became the only player named in the commissioner’s report on the illegal theft of signs by the Astros. The Mets decided it was untenable to go on with a manager they believed would be overwhelmed with year-round questions about his integrity, among other things.
So how can the Mets get on with Porter if these allegations turn out to be true? Not today. Not for this organization. Not if you read the text messages.
You can say this is a new regime, not the regime that was in charge during the Beltran debacle last year.
But this new regime is led by Cohen, who has gotten his own “Me Too” allegations at his Point72 Asset Management company; Allegations that were part of some owners’ concerns in approving Cohen’s purchase of the Mets, which eventually went through.
Cohen hired Alderson in part because of Alderson’s excellent reputation for righteousness. He would be the man who helped clean Cohen’s image. Except Alderson’s first major hiring made it feel like the owner has changed, but the Mets haven’t. They couldn’t find anyone to take the job of the president of baseball operations, despite Cohen’s promise of all of Cohen’s dollars to change the tenor of the franchise. So the Mets turned to hiring just a GM, and after a search, Alderson landed on Porter, 41, on December 13.
We must assume that the Mets asked Porter if there was anything in his past that would cause trouble or embarrassment. Alderson said in his statement that the Mets heard of these alleged violations on Monday. So we can assume that Porter had told the Mets there was nothing wrong. But Porter knew his behavior with the woman (who has left journalism) was wrong, as the lyrics show attempts at apology.
Should the Mets have known about this by vetting Porter? That is difficult to pin down. Porter left the Cubs after their championship in 2016 to become the Diamondbacks’ assistant general manager and this didn’t show up there. Porter had been interviewed for a host of GM positions and finished second for the Angels job before finally landing with the Mets. He had a good reputation in the sport for socializing, a hard worker and a fanatic when it came to gathering information about players.
But the Mets know what they have in store for them now. If Porter told them, yes, those are my texts and yes, I sent those pictures, how can an organization that wants to shout that it’s a new day hold him?
Cohen has insisted that integrity will be central to Mets’s business in his ownership. That cannot just be words designed now to purify an image. He is facing the first crisis of a property that has been running on goodwill for nearly three months due to Cohen’s willingness to spend money on players and engage in light-hearted banter via Twitter.
But this issue cannot be given away or dismissed with a witty Tweet. No, if these allegations in the ESPN story are true, Cohen and Alderson have only one choice.