The New York Mets are actively looking for a new General Manager to replace Sandy Alderson, but there has been surprisingly little news to report on that front. There had been speculation that the Mets would begin interviewing candidates as soon as this month, but we are a third of the way through September without any solid leads on Alderson’s successor. It now turns out that there may be a significant reason for the delay. Principal owner Fred Wilpon and his son Jeff, the Mets’ Chief Operating Officer, have been disagreeing about the best type of candidate for the job, Mike Puma of the New York Post reports.
The elder Wilpon has been said to favor a more traditional baseball person for the post, preferably someone who has a ton of experience in scouting and player development. Jeff Wilpon has been pushing for the Mets to hire a more analytically inclined GM, which would make sense given the way that the sport is trending these days. The divide has gotten to the point that the Mets are compiling two separate lists of candidates to fill the job, which is not an efficient way to handle a search. An organizational source told Puma that it feels like Fred Wilpon will make the final call, and if that’s the case it would push the team towards a smaller group of candidates.
This approach is driving some in the organization crazy, with one Mets’ source telling Puma:
“Fred is obsessed with the Yankees, and yet he doesn’t understand a thing they are doing.”
Another interesting point to come out of Puma’s article is that the Mets are considering giving former manager Terry Collins a more active role in the front office. Collins, who managed the Mets from 2011 until 2017, has been serving as a special assistant to the GM with a focus on the minor league side. The Mets aren’t planning to make Collins the GM, but the organization is considering either placing Collins in charge of the team’s entire minor league operation or serving as a top advisor for Fred Wilpon.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
