The list of known candidates for the New York Mets’ GM job has expanded by one. The Mets interviewed Detroit Tigers’ Vice President of Player Development Dave Littlefield for the position, Marc Carig of The Athletic reports. Littlefield has experience as a big league General Manager, having filled the role for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 2001 through 2007. After leaving Pittsburgh, Littlefield worked for the Chicago Cubs before joining the Tigers’ front office in 2014.
Of all the candidates on the Mets’ list, Littlefield is without a doubt the worst. CBS Sports’ R.J. Anderson offers a reminder of how bad the Pirates were under Littlefield’s watch, failing to win more than 72 games in six of his seven years at the helm. The seventh year wasn’t much better as Pittsburgh won 75. Littlefield blew premium draft picks on busts like Bryan Bullington and Brad Lincoln, dumped assets like Jason Kendall and Aramis Ramirez while getting virtually nothing of value in return, and failed to effectively utilize his 40 man roster to protect prospects like Jose Bautista. One of the worst decisions Littlefield made was turning down a deal from the Philadelphia Phillies that would have netted Ryan Howard in exchange for Kris Benson. Benson eventually got shipped to the Mets in a package that included Ty Wigginton.
The fact that the Mets feel like interviewing a guy who presided over one of the worst seven year stretches in the history of the Pirates for their GM job is alarming. This position should be one of the most attractive jobs in baseball due to the New York market, the ability to field a $150 million payroll, and the attractive talent already in house. Instead, multiple candidates have declined interviews due to the perception that ownership won’t let them have full authority to do the job they were hired for. This has left the Mets scraping the bottom of the barrel to find candidates, and there isn’t much lower to go than Littlefield. If the Mets end up putting Littlefield through to their final round of interviews, something has gone horribly wrong.
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