No candidate’s stone should be unturned
EARLIER this month I recommended Chris Marinak to be hired to run the Mets’ baseball operations department. I believe MLB’s current executive vice president of strategy, technology and innovation possesses a skill set for a unique job, someone who I think not only could handle the baseball, but deliver the kind of bigpicture leadership and steeliness that would be needed for the job.
Part of what I was hoping to do also, though, was to exemplify that the Mets do not have to stay on a traditional avenue for this role. Marinak has never worked in a baseball organization’s front office. What I think the Mets need rises above simply picking players. In fact, they would pick players better if, for example, they could get beyond being concerned about the day-to-day coverage of the team and their organization-wide inferiority complex about the Yankees.
The Mets have assets in their fan base, stadium and network that should make them an annual beast if only the organization — beginning with ownership — could create a unity, modernity, logic and confidence that has proved a watermelon seed, constantly squirting from their grasp.
To that end, with the Mets nearing a point where they must begin interviews to replace general manager Sandy Alderson, I go off the beaten path for four more people. Like with Marinak, this is not just simply about these individuals, but illustrating that the Mets should have the organizational confidence that a great job is available and, therefore, they should act boldly and with an open mind about nontraditional or seemingly unattainable candidates. (The Mets are not making their lists public, so perhaps they already are reaching out in these ways.)
1. Billy Beane
Would the Mets ever consider essentially the 2.0 version of Alderson, who was Beane’s mentor? Would Beane ever consider the Mets since he would know every ounce of dysfunction, having remained close with Alderson? Plus, he has had to deal with penny-pinching, small-market ownership in Oakland — does he want to do it in New York?
But there is allure here. Beane has turned down previous big-market opportunities — you may remember Brad Pitt, playing Beane, turning down the Red Sox in “Moneyball.” But I wonder if there would be pull here. The Mets drafted Beane 23rd overall in 1980 (they took Darryl Strawberry first and John Gibbons 24th). He is 56 now, this may be his last best shot to run a big-market team and to do it coming home again to his first organization. If he could turn the Mets into a powerhouse, it would be a crowning achievement for his fascinating baseball life.
Generally, he would be viewed as unattainable. He is signed through next year as the A’s president of baseball operations, but ownership has yet to broach an extension. So perhaps the A’s would let him go a year early. He is bright and unflinching. But any team would have to be sure about his passion/focus. He owns a piece of an English soccer team, is on the board of a Dutch club and is a desired public speaker.
He has remained the big-picture decisionmaker in Oakland while GM David Forst has executed the day-to-day necessities of baseball operations. He remains creative, forceful and charismatic; in other words, in possession of qualities to run a baseball operations department that needs all of that.
2. Alex Cora
If I could buy stock in someone’s postplaying career, Cora might be my first pick.
He is only one year into being Boston’s manager after one year as Houston’s bench coach, so at minimum he will have been a champion last season and in possession of the majors’ best regularseason record this season. Would he want to leave after one year? It might not look great. But I know his bigpicture desire is to run a club — he was the GM for Puerto Rico for the World Baseball Classic. He is a smart baseball man, personable and has shown in Boston he can handle a big market with aplomb. The Mets should know him. They interviewed Cora to be their manager last offseason. There is an “It” quality about Cora.
3. Ron Darling
Would anyone walk in knowing the team better? He is smart, hard-working, personable and passionate about the Mets. I would never say his talents are wasted in the broadcast booth because I learn something every time I watch him, just like I do every time I am fortunate enough to work with him at the MLB Network. But he has the skill set to do more than talk the game.
4. Brodie Van Wagenen
He is the co-head of CAA’s baseball division, based in New York. He never played pro ball, but was once good enough to be on the under-18 Junior National Team with, among others, A.J. Hinch, Alex Rodriguez and Preston Wilson. So, he knows the game.
No one would know how to structure a Jacob deGrom extension better than his current representative. Heck, he also helps rep Yoenis Cespedes, Todd Frazier, Robert Gsellman, Brandon Nimmo, Noah Syndergaard and Jason Vargas, plus Tim Tebow and recent Mets first-rounders Anthony Kay and David Peterson.
He’s smart and personable and probably not the only agent who has the talents the Mets should be pursuing. Van Wagenen is from off the beaten path when it comes to running a baseball operations department, but the Mets are at a moment in their history so important that they must be diligent in exploring all paths.