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Alderson: Mets Don't Plan To Fill GM Position This Season

Mets President Sandy Alderson indicated that he "has no immediate plans" to fill the GM position that is now vacant after the club dismissed Jared Porter for sending lewd text messages to a female reporter in '16, according to Mike Puma of the N.Y. POST. That "will leave Alderson running the front office, with a GM-by-committee of sorts." The "key players" in that setup will be Senior VP & Assistant GM Zack Scott, Senior VP & Senior Strategy Officer John Ricco, VP/Amateur & Int'l Scouting Tommy Tanous, Head of Pro Scouting Bryn Alderson and Senior Dir of Baseball Operations Ian Levin. Alderson’s "involvement to this point has come in the larger transactions," highlighted by the Mets' trade for SS Francisco Lindor and P Carlos Carrasco (N.Y. POST, 1/120).

NEED FOR STABILITY: In N.Y., Joel Sherman notes Alderson now has to "take over the day-to-day running of the Mets’ baseball operations until next offseason." He "needs to bring stability, integrity and success to that department, making it so attractive that come October or November, the best candidates will line up to interview as opposed to what happened this most recent time." The "easy call here would be to either elevate Scott or at least give him the interim title." The Porter "debacle should teach that if you have more time to get to know someone before handing the keys to a huge job, take the time." The Mets "can see how Scott fosters culture within the organization, handles increased responsibility, etc.," and "if all goes well, the job will still be there next offseason" (N.Y. POST, 1/20). Sherman said, “They were trying to get a president of baseball operations (but) they never hired that job. They hired the GM job with Jared Porter and obviously that’s turned out to be yet another Mets disaster.” But Sherman said a lot of this is "about the clock” to fill these roles in the organization and, “I can’t imagine this close to spring training teams would be excited to let their personnel talk with the Mets” (“High Heat,” MLB Network, 1/19).

METS DIDN'T SHY AWAY: USA TODAY's Bob Nightengale writes the Mets not only "swiftly fired Porter, knowing the ramifications that his baseball career likely is over, but refused to hide from their decision." Alderson had a Zoom call "with about 400 Mets’ employees, discussed the firing, and answered any and all questions." He then "did the same with the media." Alderson: "We are trying to create an environment that could not only be successful, but be known for how it succeeded" (USA TODAY, 1/20).

COHEN IN CONTROL: In N.Y., Mike Vaccaro writes Mets Owner Steve Cohen "got this 100-percent right." The "first major move on his watch" -- acquiring Lindor -- was "greeted with almost universal approval." That "was the easy part." When Cohen took to Twitter yesterday morning to announce that the Mets were firing Porter, he "officially became the Mets’ owner, owning not only the team but the hard and sometimes impossible impediments that go along with the job." Being "glib on Twitter is easy," but "doing the right thing in real life isn’t always quite as simple, even when something this egregious emerges." Cohen was "swift, just and direct" (N.Y. POST, 1/20). On Long Island David Lennon notes the decision to terminate Porter came "less than nine hours" after reports surfaced of his text messages, which "has to be some kind of record for a franchise that always had issues with accountability." Cohen "didn’t even wait for his team to put out a press release." Lennon: "No monitoring the talk-radio airwaves. No waiting for the media reaction. Swift, appropriate, unequivocal hammer-dropping. Message delivered and received." If Cohen and Alderson "truly are committed to culture change ... that means no room for half-measures" (NEWSDAY, 1/20). 

HOLD THAT THOUGHT: ESPN’s Bomani Jones said Cohen doesn’t “get credit” for firing Porter, especially because his company, Point72 Asset Management, "had received a pretty significant gender discrimination lawsuit at some point which was a red flag that made people wonder if he was the guy who even should have been allowed to buy the Mets in the first place” (“Highly Questionable,” ESPN, 1/19).

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