TODAY: Porter and Scott seem to be the two favorites for the job, as per Mike Puma of the New York Post (Twitter link). Also from Puma, J.P. Ricciardi is the other unknown finalist for the GM job.
DECEMBER 11, 8:13pm: The Mets are actually still considering other candidates in addition to Scott, Porter, Owens and Hill, Tim Healey of Newsday reports.
7:52pm: Scott, Porter, Owens and Hill are indeed the Mets’ GM finalists, Joel Sherman of the New York Post tweets. They have all interviewed for the position, according to Anthony DiComo of MLB.com.
5:20pm: Led by the newly minted duo of owner Steve Cohen and team president Sandy Alderson, the Mets are off to an active start this offseason. They’ve already signed reliever Trevor May to a two-year, $15.5MM contract, and they seem to be the front-runners to add catcher James McCann. They’re also surely moving to acquire other players. The Mets have done all their work in recent weeks without a general manager, but that might not be the case for much longer. The club could hire someone as early as next week, Jon Heyman of MLB Network reports.
It’s “likely” the Mets will choose Red Sox assistant general manager Zack Scott, Diamondbacks assistant GM Jared Porter, Athletics AGM Billy Owens or former Marlins president of baseball operations Michael Hill to become their new GM, according to Heyman. Hill interviewed for the position in the first half of November, but it’s unclear if the Mets have spoken with him again since then. It’s also unknown if (or how many times) they have talked to the other candidates.
Hill’s vast experience as the leader of a front office could give him the leg up in New York, as Cohen said when he took over the franchise last month, “I’m not crazy about people learning on my dime” (via Lou DiPietro of WFAN). That said, Scott, Porter and Owens have plenty of experience in their own right. Scott has been with the Red Sox in various roles since 2004; Porter also started in Boston in 2004, and he has since been a key part of two other front offices (Cubs, D-backs); and Owens has held multiple roles with the A’s since the late 1990s. Owens even worked with lderson for a couple of years when the latter was in Oakland’s front office.
Luhnow.
No
Luh-no?
It should probably be Michael Hill. That’s who the Phillies should have gotten. You want a GM that wins you championships by spending your money wisely. Not a guy like Dombrowski or Theo Epstein who win you championships but do it by spending so much of the owners money that they have to leave town because they left your teams payroll in shambles over paying players well past their prime. Guys like Zaidi, Bloom. Hill, and Anthopolous can all do that. The only difference is they won’t leave your team in disarray once they have won it for you. They can give you staying power. It’s a lot easier to win a championship with a giant payroll. Those guys can do it, too. They just wouldn’t do it by handing out contracts that are too long. Overpay the players slightly in the short term and then walk away and jump back into the free agent market when they are past their prime. That is much better than the alternative of paying players a ton of cash when they are old and everyone knows they won’t be nearly as good.
You don’t want a GM who has won multiple titles with multiple teams, you want a GM who have never won a ring. Story checks out.
You want a GM that never hands out bad long term contracts and frequently hands out great short term lower cost contracts. The Mets tried that route over and over again and that’s what got them stuck with guys like Mo Vaughn and Cespedes for years on end at absurd salaries. Kind of like Dombrowski did with Nathan Evoldi, Price and Sale. Or like Epstein did with Heyward, Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford. Story checks out.
Bloom has barely done anything yet. Anthopolous ran Toronto for 12 years and didn’t win anything, and hasn’t won with Atlanta yet.
If your point is that GMs shouldn’t sign bad contracts, sure, I agree. But saying that you don’t want a sure-fire HOFer who broke the two most infamous curses in baseball history and another who has reached the WS with three different franchises (and won twice), and you’d prefer 4 guys who have won NOTHING between the four of them, I think you’re nuts.
Yes. It is a lot easier to win championships when you have one of the highest payrolls to work with in the entire league. Stop pretending either of those guys could have done it in any other situation. Stop pretending that the guys who never had a chance to work with those kind of payrolls couldn’t do the same thing. The only things that are certain is that the guys I mentioned wouldn’t have screwed over their teams payrolls with the incredibly stupid contracts I mentioned and they can still compete with your guys when they have much less ammo in their bank account. Epstein and Dombrowskski would never take a job that gave them a below top 5 payroll and succeed. They are inadequate. They need big dollar owners to be able to bail them out. What makes you think the guys that don’t need that wouldn’t perform better with money they never even had?
I thought we were talking about the Mets and billionaire owner Steve Cohen? If the Mets aren’t going to start spending, it doesn’t matter who the GM is. Mets gonna Mets.
My point is: Theo and Dombrowski aren’t the only GM’s that can win with big payrolls. They are some of the few that have been given a chance. They are also the only 2 considered candidates who have been given a chance that also screwed over every single one of their teams payrolls and got the heck out of Dodge because of it. Theo twice and Dombrowski 3 times. You don’t think these wiser spending GM’s could do a better job? They would still have the same payroll to work with. They would still spend the money. They just wouldn’t spend it on guys like Cespedes, Vaughn, Sale, Eovaldi, Crawford, Price, Gonzalez and Heyward. What’s wrong with that?
No Gm, NOBODY is clairvoyant.
If you think Theo and DD gave out the contracts they did KNOWING those guys would have the issues they did you’re nuts.
The more big deals, the bigger total number of busts you get. Law of averages. Any GM who gives lots of big deals gets burned once in a while. EVERY. ONE.
Sorry Bovine, picking Michael Hill over Dombrowski is about as idiotic as it gets. In fact, Luhnow should be the front-runner if he wanted the Mets job. Results matter. Sports is not for feelings. It’s about winning and success.
Lunhow shouldn’t get the job not just because of cheating scandals. Lunhow shouldn’t get the job because he is statistically the most likely candidate to sue Steve Cohen if Lunhow gets caught doing something wrong. MLB owners hate GM’s that they employ but still turn around and sue them, you know?
Epstein won in two different places with the same approach – build through the minor league system and draft. Those teams were able to sustain winning records and spent money on players that either contributed to their championships or plugging positions of need.
I’m not an Epstein fan at all – but let’s not be blind to the way he built those winning teams.
Yes… but how much $ did he have at his disposal relative to the other guys mentioned? And would he dare take a position with a payroll as low as theirs or is he too much of a coward because he needs that cash influx to get the job done? And why did the broke Marlins sweep his expensive Cubs if he is so much better?
By your logic, Friedman was seen as a subpar GM/POBO before last year because he didn’t have a title yet
Mhm
Because it was a 60 game season and a 2 game sweep.
Friedman won some pennants at least.
What has Hill, Zaidi, Anthopoulos or Bloom won?
Theo orchestrated the best six year run in Cubs history. Their payroll is currently 40 million under the cap and they have a pretty good shot at winning another division title. I honestly don’t get all the criticism about Theo. Because he traded Eloy and Gleyber and signed one bad contract? The Gleyber Torres trade clinched the World Series and they had a really good shot in 2017 with the Quintana addition.
You talking about this past year? Really?
Whether we like it or not Luhnow is eligible to return. But more disturbing is the fact that you aren’t down with GMs who actually win.
Calm down, brothers. I’ll handle this:
It’ll be Owens. Long-time friend of Alderson’s. Now find something else to argue about, and please quit the name-calling! Geez.. everyone’s entitled to have their own opinions, even if you don’t agree with them. Besides, no matter who fills the GM spot, we’ll be calling them names in about 9 months, anyway. Get with the program, guys. /s
Dombrowski is a perennial winner. He has won by spending big when owners told him too (Boston) and he has won by rebuilding (Detroit). He’s perfectly capable of adjusting to a team’s needs.
I give you……..drum roll……..Bobby Bonilla!
i agree at first i was pissed the cards let lunhow go in 2011 iirc and kept mo but after the whole cheating thing glad we didn’t. i also wouldn’t be surprised if the owner of the astros had a bigger part in the cheating scandal. sorry i just can’t buy the story of ignorance billionaires didn’t get to being that rich because there stupid and don’t know what’s going on in the business they run
We just need someone who can close a four year deal for a catcher who should be happy with two years. Anything better than that is gravy.
I think the Mets might be rethinking that a little. 4 years is too much for McCann. I think the Mets might have realized that if they are willing to give McCann 4 years why not just go a little bit more and sign possibly the best catcher in baseball in JT Realmuto. If the money is close, JT is a much bigger upgrade.
This makes sense
Yeah. Why give McCann 4 years? Realmuto MIGHT get 5 max. If this hadn’t occurred to the Mets they probably would have signed McCann by now. Free agents that sign 4 year deals aren’t cheap in terms of AAV. If you are gonna go 4 years on a high AAV why not actually get the best?
Agreed. And when the NL eventually implements the DH, he can also be slotted there a few years down. McCann not so much.
Realmuto is useless as a DH. His value comes from being a decent hitter and great catcher. Paying him 25 million a year to be a DH is idiotic.
Signing realmuto at all is idiotic…i honestly do not get the hardons you ppl have for this guy
Signing Realmuto is no more idiotic than giving James McCann a 4 year deal. McCann can’t touch JT.
lmao
The $$ and years are not close !!
JT is a health risk already!
NNJ
Bovine, i highly doubt that the money is even close!! term is probably close but 10-15 million per season is much easier to eat than 25 million per season is, if the player breaks down and fails!!
So they basically have no idea Still….. shocker
Folks, it is perfectly normal to hire your GM last before you begin making personnel decisions that involve millions of dollars. If you think otherwise, then you clearly don’t know baseball.
Well the have Alderson overseeing baseball ops regardless.
But they already are making moves that involve millions of dollars. With no GM….
Where is the conforto extension?
Nowhere.
Why bother at this point… if you want him into his thirties, just re-sign him when he hits free agency
Any of the four would be fine by me though Hill is the least appealing.
Why? He seems to be the only one that spends money wisely to me. Not to mention he dealt with Loria all those years and built the Marlins into a better team than the Mets with almost no payroll.
The Marlins were never better than the Mets with Hill running the team.
Hill ran the team in 2020. The Marlins swept their way to the 2nd round of the playoffs. Where did the Mets finish in the same division? And who built that Marlins team with almost no $ that was better than the $160 million Mets? Oh yeah… That’s right. Michael Hill.
Bovine, you are correct!! Marlins have done better in standings with much less than the Mets!! and this is coming from a Mets fan
I mean, are you really going to take a victory lap for going 2 games over .500 in a COVID-shortened season? And then give him credit for finishing ahead of the Mets who lost their #2 starter to injury, #3 to opting out, and had other injuries and opt-outs (Cespedes among others)?
The commenters here place way, way too much emphasis on a 60 game season that saw numerous players miss time, often simultaneously, due to COVID, as well as myriad schedule changes.
No GM worth his salt is going to want to go to the Mets and have Sandy look over his sholder.
Maybe a certain suspended GM who’s looking for way to get back into the game without an owner having to hand over the full reins of the team to him yet….
That won’t happen. Lunhow is suing the Astros now. That killed his chances of working for any other team. No owner will hire someone that has shown he is willing to sue his employers.
Eh. Lawsuits are part of business. You have a contract that’s unilaterally terminated, you can expect a lawsuit. Cohen’s a billionaire hedge fund manager. If he thinks Luhnow is the best guy to build his team, he’s not going to go in another direction to avoid being sued for a few million bucks.
But Cohen clearly does NOT think Lunhow is best for the job. Otherwise he would have interviewed him by now… and no, GM’s suing their team owners is NOT “part of the business.” It is exceedingly rare and hated by owners.
The circumstances of Luhnow’s departure were exceedingly rare.
I doubt Luhnow is likely to go to the Mets, but if Cohen had interviewed someone he wanted to hire, he would have done it. And actually, the Mets are a great spot for Luhnow BECAUSE Alderson is there for a few years. And Luhnow may be shady but no one’s going to argue that he can’t run a draft.
I also don’t think Luhnow should be allowed to run a team again, but I also don’t think Cora or Hinch should be managing, and here we are.
The issue with Luhnow is on some type of mission to vindicate himself. It’s pretty laughable either way if he was complicit about the cheating or not. Take your lumps and move on. Nobody wants a guy who can’t take heat.
Is it just me or is Lunhow pulling a Roger Clemens when Roger had to “prove” to everyone he never took steroids?
Wait… So you are saying that Cohen hasn’t “interviewed someone he wanted to hire?” Are you not reading this article? Cohen has narrowed it down to 4 candidates and he has interviewed ALL OF THEM. I think he interviewed them because he knew they were the only available people he wanted to hire. Lunhow is available and wasn’t even interviewed because Cohen doesn’t want to hire him. According to you, Cohen wants Lunhow so much that he won’t interview and will end up hiring someone he specifically doesn’t want to hire. Do you hear yourself?
I’m saying if he wanted the guys he’s interviewed he would’ve hired one by now. Maybe he’ll have to anyway but he clearly wasn’t blown away by the candidates, which is why he’s still looking.
Well… Fair enough. He clearly is blown away far less by Lunhow though.
You realize the Cubs GM all these years was NOT Theo, yes? A front office needs a lot of guys.
Jared Kushner available shortly….
Well if he can work the same magic with the Mets that he did with the Middle East, the Braves will be in good shape.
Good point.
lmao
Mike Hill
My Mets plan -Keep liquid for 2021
1 -trade for Snell and Kiermaier +23 mill AAV
2- Sign Yadi 2/18….+ 9AAV
3- Sign Schoop 1 yr and Kiki 3 yr- +7 AAV
4- Richards for Sp and Jwilson for the pen – 11 mill AAv-
50 mill this year minus the 20 mill discount on Cano for a total of 30 extra mill only!! – Mets stay liquid for deadline and next year- Add great team players in Yadi +Kiki, get a true Sp 2 in Snell, bolster the rotation with Richards, and leave that lefty spot for Wilson in the pen……
I know Mets fans want it all overnight but you gotta proceed with caution, I think thats a nice hedge plan above as I really dont think Im going to like the values of Bauer JT Springer soon – Monies going to have great leverage going forward, dont use it all up too quick. Time is 100% on their side right now
wipe out the farm?
Wipe out? I wouldn’t go that far, Kiermaier will make the price lower on the package –
One of JD Dom Alonso is def heading out (not the worst thing as long as your getting value back)…and then yes some minor league talent will be heading over to Tampa as well.
Putting Snell behind Degroom for the next 3 yrs is worth it imo for 13 AAV- They have the ability to kinda hold TB over the coals a little here…nobodies touching KK outside the Mets, this is leverage and this is key in these economic times
This is a greater use of capital than bidding against yourself for the top players imo – Mets have a huge window, they dont have to go for a hail marry here on 1st and 10. Throwing bushels of money at the top free agents yr 1 on the job is a route to go I guess, its just not the one id make- Yadi and Kiki give that clubhouse something money cant buy and at positions of need as well but wipe out is a gross exaggeration considering all the variables
Then in 22 when you have gotten your feet wet the payroll REALLY opens up and you got major capital to spend-
And this squad still makes the playoffs 21 with a rotation of Degroom Snell Stro Noah and Yadi behind the plate
JK is 100% right. Acquiring Snell & KK will wipe out the Mets farm system, something that Sandy has already said they don’t want to do. They should just spend $80M in free agency and get McCann or JTR, Bauer and another stud bullpen pitcher. They can get by without a true CF by signing someone like Delino DeShields, Jr. for a couple of million and use him as a spot starter and late inning defensive replacement ala Jake Marisnik in Houston. If McCann is looking for a 4 year deal at an AAV over $15M then the Mets should just pay more and get the absolute best in JTR. McCann only makes sense if he’ll sign for $12M or less, preferably on a 3 year deal.
Yadi at 2/18 is a far more superior option than Mcann/JTR via price point
You dont get the opportunity to add a guy like Yadi for so cheap to your clubhouse regardless of what sport you are in –
Imagine the staff going from Ramos to Yadi? This could affect Degrooms thoughts long term as well putting such emphasis on leadership and helping the staff
Garrett Richards hasn’t been healthy in 5 years bro.
13M a year for a defensive cf that hits as well a utility if? I would rather take a chance on JBJ for about the same if not a little less and where are you weakening the team for Snell? We dont have that many prized prospects and the ones we do have in Gimenez and Peterson we plan to have significant time next year.
I like where you are heading with it but the trade i cant see happening and the rest of the stuff is marginally increase to current team if not same team by causing further logjams as schoop and kiki would play positions that they already had covered and they would be backups probably. but nice depth if they come on minor league deals which i dont see happening.
The Mets, as they have explicitly stated, are not looking to improve the team via trade. They also have a depleted farm system and a brand new billionaire owner. So your #1 move is off the table.
Lol mets
now all together now…LOLMETS
What comment section are you about to go to Darkside? I’m getting bored of this one.
Mets fans on this site pile on the Phillies for anything but Cohen hasnt done anything Earthshattering yet they suggest we all bow down to him. win some games. prove it. we were told the Mets would finish better then us and they didnt do that despite how pitiful our pen was.
Hey dont put all of us Mets fans in the same box!! i have opinions and respect most everyone elses as well….its just a sport not life and death
The phillies are still a worse franchise than the Mets tho. You’d should say LOLMets unless you include LOLphillies in the same sentence
English is the language of choice on this board.
well remember, said “worse franchise” did better then yours last year despite all the bluster claiming that it would be otherwise.
The face of Mets fandom is the giraffeneckmark guy on YouTube and he makes all Mets fans kook like donkeys.
Again lolmets
So basically nobody knows anything is what I gather from this mess of a published story
The Mets are down to four candidates… except they’re not…
After being one-upped by the Phillies in their own division, Cohen has to be insisting Sandy stop messing with these no-name candidates that nobody cares about and go after Theo. If Dombrowski could be talked out of his little expansion draft fantasy, Theo can be talked out of taking a year off if the salary is large enough.
“The Mets have done all their recent work without a general manager…”
Once again, if an organization has a President of Baseball Operations, as the Mets do, then a GM is irrelevant.
Alderson is running things.
The Blue Jays are reported to be interested in most of the GM candidates listed here
Snarkasm noted
You win the prize sir.
Jed Hoyer better get moving if he wants his old buddy Porter to be his GM as many of the reports have been saying.
What do they need a GM for when they’ve already signed like half the free agents