EYES ON THE CITI
News’ Kristie Ackert looks at Sandy’ replacements
With the news that Sandy Alderson will be stepping away from the Mets’ GM position as he battles the recurrence of cancer and likely won’t be returning to his position, saying based on merit it’s not warranted, Kristie Ackert breaks down the candidates the Mets might consider to take over the big job, both in house and external.
INSIDE JOHN RICCO
The Mets promoted Ricco in January 2017, making it seem like he would indeed be Alderson’s successor. Just this spring Alderson made the push for Ricco to follow him at some point. “There are a lot of great people here, John Ricco and so forth, who deserve an opportunity as well,” Alderson told SNY. “I think absolutely John will. He’s very, I hate to use the word analytical, but very organized, he understands the field side as well as the office side,” Alderson said. “There is a tremendous respect among those working with the Mets and throughout baseball. I think John at some point will do a great job.” Ricco worked in the Commissioner’s office, before joining the Mets in 2004. He became assistant GM in 2006. He was also the interim GM following the dismissal of Omar Minaya from Oct. 4, 2010 until Oct. 29, when the Mets hired Alderson to replace Minaya. A native of Cresskill, N.J., Ricco graduated from Villanova University.
J.P. RICCIARDI OMAR MINAYA
close confidant of the Wilpons and has worked with Ricco well in the past.
OUTSIDE TIM NAEHRING
The Yankees vice president of baseball operations has been credited by Yankees GM Brian Cashman with being an excellent talent evaluator. “He’s a tremendous evaluator of talent,” Cashman told the Daily News’ John Harper. “To be able to evaluate, it’s a special talent. All teams have a population of people doing it, but he’s in that select few who are really good at it.” Unlike many of the analytical-based up-and-coming baseball ops candidates, Naehring brings parts of eight major league seasons experience to his evaluation. The former Blue Jay’s GM, Ricciardi was a special assistant to Alderson as well. He was 642-651 as a GM in Toronto and known for his signings of A.J. Burnett, B.J. Ryan and Frank Thomas. He was criticized for some of his draft choices, for instance, taking busts like Russ Adams and passing over studs like Troy Tulowitzki. He hired three managers in his tenure, and in 2008 he got into a public spat with Thomas, who had been the team’s best hitter the season before and then released him early in the season. He was fired in 2009 and joined the Mets in 2010.
DOUG HARRIS
Harris is currently the Nationals’ assistant general manager and vice president of player personnel and oversees the minor league system from top to bottom. Nationals GM Mike Rizzo personally reached out to the Braves to try and get him the GM job there last year.
KEVIN GOLDSTEIN
A special assistant to the Astros GM in player personnel, Goldstein is a former writer for Baseball Prospectus who the team brought on board in 2010 to basically help gather, aggregate and evaluate information on players. It’s hard to question the Astros’ analytical-heavy approach now that they are the defending World Champions. Minaya was brought back this year in part to help fix the poor performance of the player development department. The Mets’ senior assistant GM from September 1997 until February 2002, he was MLB’s first Hispanic GM with the Expos, before he returned to the Mets as GM after the 2004 season. His scouting work was all over the 2015 World Series, having drafted and developed Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Jeurys Familia, Daniel Murphy and Lucas Duda. He was fired after two historic late-season collapses. Minaya has since worked with the Padres and in the union’s office, is a
BEN CHERINGTON
Currently the vice president of baseball operations for the Blue Jays, the former Red Sox GM was also mentioned as a possibility for last fall’s Braves opening. He was at the Red Sox helm for their 2013 World Series championship, a team he helped built by dealing Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez and Josh Beckett to the Dodgers to clear about $250M in salary. But also had some big misses with the hiring of Bobby Valentine, which was apparently the final call of ownership.