HE'S IN AN 0-2 HOLE
Cohen can still home, but he's way behind in creating superteam of execs
THIS will become secondary once the Mets sign Trevor Bauer or J.T. Realmuto or George Springer or some combination of all three.
Because fans care about players — notably star players — way more than about who is picking them. But the early days of the Steve Cohen/Sandy Alderson administration have been marked by their failure to lure the pickers.
Cohen’s blueprint was to form a baseball operations department akin to that of the Dodgers’, overflowing with experience and myriad talents. Yet, at present, the Mets have the most desirable jobs that no one is taking. Executive after executive exalts how desirable it would be to run baseball operations with the Wilpons out and all of Cohen’s money in. And executive after executive has been outside of the Mets’ grasp, namely for contractual or personal reasons. It is the beautiful house for sale that so far has gone unsold.
It underscores that with Cohen replacing the Wilpons expectations have soared. There has been no “Come get us” bravado like Brodie Van Wagenen’s early days. But there also has been little tamping down of the runaway enthusiasm. And already we know the Mets will not meet the biggest dreams with their front office. At least not this offseason. Does this shift a greater burden to landing one (or more) of the huge free agents?
As opposed to front-office personnel, no permission needs to be asked to speak to a free agent. It generally comes down to dollars and cents, and Cohen has the most of that and is operating in a field in which just the Blue Jays,
White Sox and perhaps one or two other clubs are revved up to spend in this market.
For now, the weight of the baseball decisions falls to Alderson, who was hired as team president to oversee baseball and business. But as one outside executive said, “Do you think Steve Cohen really needs Sandy Alderson to run a business?”
So Alderson veers toward trying to upgrade the roster and still trying to find brainpower to help with that upgrade.
MLB executive Chris Young became the latest to offer a “thanks, but no thanks” to the Mets. A rising star in the Commissioners Office who had pitched for Alderson in two locales, Young told the Mets he was fascinated by the position, but did not want to uproot his young family from Dallas.
Thus, the search continues. The Mets will not run out of candidates. This really is viewed as an attractive opportunity. This is not the shot-gun wedding to Luis Ro
jas that was necessitated when the Mets parted late last offseason with Carlos Beltran amid revelations of Beltran’s involvement in the Astros illegal sign-stealing scandal.
Still, it is not an ideal first step. Alderson had planned to hire a president of baseball operations, then a GM. He promised oversight, but with the intention to empower the president of baseball operations to make the player decisions. Cohen, at his introductory press conference, vowed “to bring the professionals in and let them run baseball.”
So far, though, the Mets have struck out. Alderson announced last week that the Mets could not gain access to many candidates they wanted to interview for president of baseball operations. Thus, Alderson pivoted to just hiring a GM (that was the job for which Young was considered) and that Alderson would shift to greater responsibility on the baseball side for at least this year. In a SNY interview last week, Cohen conceded, “The first thing, I’m a little surprised that we haven’t been able to find people for the front office. I thought it would be a little easier than it’s been. Baseball’s kind of funny where you have to ask for permission and all of that stuff, and we’re not getting a lot of permissions, whatever the reasons are.”
In his day job, Cohen has to deal with contracts and non-compete clauses when recruiting. But he generally can get access to whomever he wants for at least a conversation. He is learning baseball is different — he is not on Wall Street anymore.
Many executives the Mets were interested in are just comfortable where they are. There were those not given permission to make lateral moves. Some other owners don’t want to help the new owner with the most money, with one executive saying, “You want one of my guys under contract, it is like a player, what is [Cohen] trading to us to get him.” A potential candidate said he was not interested because his research left concern that in his hedge fund, Cohen pushes the ethical boundaries too much, and would that permeate the Mets?
Hiring Alderson — viewed within the walls of the game as upright — was designed to lessen such worries about Cohen. But it also was designed to help the Mets navigate the habits and strictures of the game and accumulate a superstar front office. Dodgers East. Instead, Alderson asked John Ricco to return from the business side and might rehire J.P. Ricciardi. That trio made up a good deal of the decision making in Alderson’s first Mets tenure.
The promise, though, was not to put the band back together — it was to assemble a super group. There is still time to add quality and quantity. Clearly, though, this was not the way Cohen and Alderson saw this going.