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Sandy Alderson now has to take over running the Mets baseball business until the next off season. He must bring stability and confidence to that department and make it attractive, so that the best candidates will queue up for an interview in October / November 2021, unlike what happened last time.
The Mets couldn’t recruit enough quality candidates to run for president of baseball operations, according to Alderson. So they filed that and moved to just hire a general manager and ended up with Jared Porter. And Porter has now landed on the Mets. Turned them back into the Wilpon Mets. An organization surrounded by a black cloud.
Alderson had delivered a mission statement to Steve Cohen, which led to his appointment as team president. He imagined the Mets would become a beacon instead of a joke; implicit was the departure of the Wilpons into a new reality. At his introductory press conference in November, he put this thought into words: “We have the chance to become an iconic franchise … We have the opportunity to write an epic story.”
Then Alderson’s first major recruit turned out to have a closet full of horrible stuff. It was revealed by ESPN Monday night that in 2016 Porter – while a Cubs manager – had sent more than 60 intimidating and obscene texts and photos to a foreign female reporter. Alderson said Porter figured these were indeed his texts and images. The Mets had no choice and on Tuesday-morning, Porter was fired and, at 41, likely finished a career in Major League Baseball.
Porter’s number two, Zack Scott, was also hired as executive VP and assistant GM. The two had worked together in Boston. But those who know the inner dynamics of the Mets say Cohen and Alderson were so impressed with Scott during the interview process that they pushed the idea more on Porter than the other way around.
So the easy decision here would be to elevate Scott or at least give him the interim title.
The Mets shouldn’t do that. Most of Scott was brought in to build and extend the Mets’ analytic wing. He was admired in Boston for his work in this field. But he wasn’t seen as a dynamic figure, the kind you can imagine sitting on stage selling the visions of a large market team. At least not yet. So why the rush to even give Scott the intermediate tag?
Consider this a 12 month audition. The Mets can see how it works. How he fosters the culture within the organization, handles more responsibility, etc. If all goes well, the job will be out of season and Scott will be just the job he was hired for until then, but with a little more responsibility.
Recall that before Porter and Scott were hired, Alderson had run surgery that contracted Trevor May and James McCann. They had begun the most important work of the trade that would produce Francisco Lindor and Carlos Carrasco. Those dealing with the Mets say Porter controlled Alderson’s playbook alone.
At that introductory press conference, Alderson had offered, “I’m not going to make the baseball decisions. I expect a seat at the table, but not at the head of the table. “
But there is some Hyman Roth in “The Godfather: Part II” in there. Alderson is too great a personality and a thinker to have an influence and not handle it. So let’s not even pretend he’s not at the head of the table, especially now.
And it is where it should be.
Because he and Cohen audition too. When Cohen’s money was injected into a grand market franchise, the thought was that candidates would flock to run the Mets’ baseball business. Cohen and Alderson were appalled when that didn’t happen. One reason for this is that the best and the brightest – the ones Cohen and Alderson were initially convinced would be anything but begging for the job – didn’t consider themselves concerns with Cohen.
One such candidate said that “Black Edge” was being distributed like a top-class library book. That book described – among other items – a toxic culture at Cohen’s SAC Capital, which was disbanded after paying a record $ 1.8 billion fine for insider trading. Cohen’s successor, Point72 Asset Management, settled a claim last year with a female employee claiming to have a sexist work environment.
These matters gave the owners a pause before approving Cohen’s purchase of the Mets and putting out a stop sign to candidates to lead baseball operations.
So Alderson and Cohen have to show this year that this is a new company, a new day and the new Mets. Alderson must find the old Marine within himself and take on the task of directing baseball operations and displaying relentless signs of success, workplace sanctity, and enduring competence. It can’t be outsourced to Scott or anyone who would get this close to the start of spring training from another quest, when even more candidates will be off limits.
Cohen insisted that his Mets would have integrity at its core, which he cited when he fired Porter less than 12 hours after the lurid revelations.
That is just a step away from the first crisis. The next step should be for Alderson to lead baseball operations this year. Trying to turn another epic Mets disaster into an epic story is the best alternative.