STEVE SAYS IT’S SANDY
Cohen taps old GM to be new Met prez
Steve Cohen has gone public with his first move as the next owner of the New York Mets, and it involves bringing in a familiar face. Cohen will hire Sandy Alderson as president of the Mets, he announced in a statement on Thursday. Alderson, the former Mets GM from 2010-18, will oversee all baseball and business operations.
All of Cohen’s impending transactions as majority owner are pending approval by 23 of 29 MLB owners. The owners’ vote to approve Cohen is expected to come in November or earlier.
“If I am fortunate enough to be approved by
Major League Baseball as the next owner of this iconic franchise, Sandy Alderson will become president of the New York Mets and will oversee all Mets baseball and business operations,” Cohen said in the statement. “Sandy is an accomplished and respected baseball executive who shares my philosophy of building an organization and a team the right way. I am excited to have Sandy in a key leadership role with the Mets if my purchase of the team is approved.
“Lets Go Mets!” Alders on ,72, has been in baseball for more than three decades.
He worked as the Oakland Athletics’ GM from 1983-1997 before Billy Beane took over. He promoted Beane from advanced scout to assistant GM in ’93. Alderson was one of baseball’s first GMs to embrace analytics, identified as a progressive thinker and statistical pioneer. He arrived inFlushing before the 2011 season and succeeded Omar Minaya as Mets GM. His ballclubs were losing 90 games a year early in his Mets tenure before Alderson put together an Amazin’s team that went to the 2015 World Series.
In June 2018, he announced a leave of absence to be treated for cancer. He was originally diagnosed after the ’ 15 season and underwent surgery and chemotherapy before the cancer recurred in ’18. Alderson later announced he was healthy cancerfree in Jan. 2019. The trio of assistant general manager John Ricco, J.P. Ricciardi and Omar Minaya ran the club’s baseball operations in Alderson’s absence before Brodie Van Wagenen was hired as GM ahead of the 2019 season.
Cohen’s decision to hire Alderson brings into question Van Wagenen’s future role with the club. Van Wagenen signed a four-year deal worth $10 million as GM in 2018. With Alderson taking over baseball operations, Van Wagenen’s current decision making becomes superfluous unless their respective duties are divided.
The Met s missed the playoffs under Van Wagenen’s first year as GM and finished third in the National League East with an 86-76 record. The club is again likely to miss this year’s expanded playoffs, where eight of 15 NL teams will qualify. The 2020 Mets (25-31) have four more games left entering Thursday but will finish with a losing record for the third time in the past four years.
As of last Friday, Van Wagenen said he had not spoken to Cohen since the offseason. The Mets GM praised the hedgefund billionaire for “investing in the infrastructure of his organizations and his intellectual capital of the people that work for him.” Van Wagenen said they got to know each other “a little bit” and talked about their ideas and philosophies.
“With that mindset, if he carries that over to the team that I know he’s had a long term passion for, I think it’s an opportunity for the organization to go in a progressive way,” Van Wagenen said of Cohen last week.
If the transfer of power from theWilpons/KatzfamiliestoCohen is approved by MLB’s owners, Alderson would replace Saul Katz as Mets president.