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Let’s forget about why Theo Epstein, Billy Beane and David Stearns expressed no interest in working for Steve Cohen and the Mets for a second here. Let’s address the pressing question here that Mets fans should chew on.
Why is Sandy Alderson employed by Cohen? Why is he still in the Mets organization? After striking out on Jared Porter (sexual misconduct) and Zach Scott (DWI) as Mets general managers due to off-the-field issues and fielding a losing team this season, it’s a reasonable question to ask.
No one suggests Alderson’s presence scared all these general managers away. Epstein expressed zero desire to run a baseball operation again. Beane has been more of a CEO than a general manager or president of baseball operations with the Oakland Athletics, so he has no interest in downgrading his role, even if it was a challenge to build the Mets from the ground up. Stearns has a good situation with the Milwaukee Brewers for him to leave.
It could be Alderson could scare other prospect general managers away.
For the Mets to get a general manager like the Rays’ Bobby Heck or someone from the Braves organization, he may want to take the job without Alderson’s interference or presence. Plus, there’s no way Alderson can go make this decision of hiring a general manager again after he bombed on his two choices.
There’s no purpose in having Alderson here anymore. The game passed him by a long time ago. It’s a young man’s game, so the person running a team should be a young man with fresh ideas about how a team should create its identity and how a team should play a game. That guy needs to have his own philosophy on creating a foundation for the Mets moving forward.
Alderson has nothing to offer. He seemed to be behind the times such as talking to agents, making trades with other teams and building a team. His idea of change in firing Chili Davis as the Mets hitting coach turned out to be a disaster, which had the team falling apart. He hired Hugh Quattlebaum as the hitting coach just to promote his ideas of hitting such as hitting for the fences and using exit velocity, and that turned out to have a negative effect on the players, which they thought too much at the plate rather than just wing it.
Alderson is basically the Mets’ version of Dave Gettleman, disgraced New York Giants general manager. Both made moves that have had a negative effect on their tenure. In Alderson’s case, his second tour of duty has been an epic fail.
It’s hard to believe Alderson’s presence will make this team any better, even if he is going to run the business side of whatever it is. It’s hard to believe he would be in the organization if he did not have any sort of input. The more and more candidates reject the job, the more Alderson’s presence hovers even more. It could be Cohen has no choice but to keep him, and that would be wrong.
Alderson has had his time here. He served his purpose. There’s no reason to have him in the organization anymore for this team to move forward. It’s not like he deserved to have an emeritus role after doing next to nothing in his second stint with the Mets. There’s no value for him to run the business side of the operations when he has no business expertise. He does not have the chops that Dodgers executive Stan Kasten has.
Cohen has to be the point man to make this hire of the president of baseball operations. This is where his legacy begins. His honeymoon has been over for a while now. It’s time to see what chops he has of being a baseball owner. He simply can’t rely on Alderson here when in fact, he should be having him out of his baseball organization.
Look, there’s going to be a risk on who the next guy is since we don’t know anything about him. That’s just the way it is after experienced executives decided not to take the job. But Cohen can’t keep going on the same well with Alderson.
As long as Alderson is around, he serves as a black cloud to whatever the executive wants to do. Even if it’s for an emeritus role.
