Who Will Be the Next New York Mets General Manager Now?
The New York Mets are in the market for a new general manager after Jared Porter was fired hours after ESPN reported he had sent explicit texts to a female reporter when he was with the Chicago Cubs. So owner Steve Cohen and the organization are right back where they were two months ago. (And three years before that when they hired Brody Van Wagenen.)
The good news is that the Mets just did this! They probably still have manila folders full of information on a number of candidates. It's only been a few weeks and the ink isn't even dry on some of the lists of candidates from the last GM search. Like this one on MLB.com which correctly identified Jared Porter as a possible choice.
"Another of Hazen’s assistant GMs in Arizona and an Epstein disciple, Porter is widely respected around the game and is considered to be a surefire future GM. He’s already been attached to the Angels job this offseason and seems headed for a top job in the near future."
They weren't wrong! Unfortunately for the Mets, this is quite a setback. First of all, free agency has been going on this entire time. The San Diego Padres acquired most of the good players. And many of the potential GM candidates from the fall have started working jobs that aren't this one. Still, Steve Cohen has more money than anyone else in baseball. If anyone is in a position to drag someone out of a better situation to work in Queens, it's Cohen. So here are five people he might want to talk to about becoming the next general manager of the New York Mets.
Theo Epstein
Cohen has one shot. One opportunity. To throw all the money in the world at Theo Epstein. So much money that he abandons his new job trying to fix the game of baseball and instead just fixes the Mets. Epstein brought World Series trophies to the Cubs and Red Sox. He's baseball's patron saint of lost causes. I'm not joking when I say that if Cohen wanted to bury the memory of Jared Porter he should offer Theo Epstein a billion dollars.
John Ricco
Ricco was the assistant general manager until just about a year ago. He's the executive with the longest tenure in the Mets organization which means if he has skeletons in the closet, the Mets already know about them. Basically, by going with Ricco as the new general manager the Mets could skip that awkward getting-to-know-you phase.
Bobby Heck
Heck is currently the special assistant to the general manager for the Tampa Bay Rays. Cohen reportedly recommended Heck for the job back in 2018. Obviously, in November the Mets went a different way and Heck may have not been interested at the time, but again, if Cohen likes him, he has the money to go get him. And if Heck still isn't interested, well, maybe he just prefers the Florida weather. Or winning.
Amiel Sawdaye
Sawdaye is the current senior vice president and assistant general manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks. He also worked for Theo Epstein with the Boston Red Sox during the World Series years. He drafted Mookie Betts. That's the kind of forward thinking the Mets need.
Zack Scott
This one makes the most sense. The Mets just hired Scott as their new vice president and assistant general manager. So he's been working with Porter and probably has a good idea what direction the team wanted to move in. Basically, if Porter had a plan and Cohen was on board, Scott must have been involved over the last few weeks. Scott was considered for the big job before it went to Porter and he's already in-house.