Report: Doug Melvin Has Emerged as Front Runner For New York Mets’ GM Job

• The second round of interviews for the New York Mets’ vacant General Manager’s position are underway, but it looks like a front runner is emerging. Milwaukee Brewers’ senior advisor Doug Melvin met with the team yesterday and was part of a conference call where he expressed how the job appealed to him, his openness to working with analytics, and his belief that the Mets could win right away. That sounds like music to the Mets’ ears as multiple sources are telling Kiley McDaniel of FanGraphs that Melvin has become the clear favorite to replace Sandy Alderson as the head of the Mets’ baseball operations.

The fact that Melvin has become the favorite isn’t surprising considering Fred Wilpon’s desire to hire an executive with an extensive background in scouting and player development. That is Melvin’s strong suit, and he has plenty of practical experience in the role, serving as GM for the Milwaukee Brewers and Texas Rangers for essentially 22 consecutive years. The fact that Melvin is open to analytics is a positive, but whether or not he is able to convince ownership to devote more resources to that area remains to be seen.

The Mets already brought back Brodie Van Wagenen for his second round interview on Monday and have Chaim Bloom interviewing again today. Bloom is slated to have a conference call with the media tomorrow, and after that the Mets are expected to begin deliberating and try to reach a final decision. The Mets have made it clear that they want to have a new GM in place prior to the November GM meetings, so they are on track to do so if they have their new hire in place next week.