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When all credibility is lost, everyone has to go. Meet the Mets, 2021.
Oh, for the sunny days with this franchise. Like Sunday, when Javier Báez, Francisco Lindor and other Mets insulted fans with their ridiculous thumbs-down gestures. Or in May, when Lindor made up a story to explain a heated exchange with Jeff McNeil saying they were debating whether they had spotted a rat or a raccoon in the tunnel behind the dugout.
Even the Mets’ baseball follies this season – their layoffs of their two hitting coaches, their failure to sign first-round pick Kumar Rocker and 7-19 in early August – are tame compared to their more sordid news off the field, the latest being that interim general manager Zack Scott faces a charge for impaired driving.
Scott is the executive the Mets raised to replace Jared Porter, who was fired in January and suspended from Major League Baseball until the end of the 2022 season following an ESPN report saying that while he was with the Cubs in 2016, he sent a harassing and explicit text. messages to a reporter.
Oh, and for those still keeping the score, Sandy Alderson is the chairman of the team that hired both Scott and Porter and before them manager Mickey Callaway, who was fired by the Angels in June and suspended by the league until the end of Season 22 that followed. an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment.
Callaway, Porter, Scott – it’s three takes for Alderson, who, so no one will forget, also went out of his way to sign free agent pitcher Trevor Bauer, who instead went to the Dodgers and made the ‘under investigation for allegations of sexual assault in California. What exactly is the Mets’ definition of due diligence when pursuing players and executives? See if they can spell their names correctly?
Alderson, 73, has had a long and distinguished career in baseball, serving as a senior executive with the A’s, Padres and Mets and also filling a leading role in the commissioner’s office. Cohen brought him back to the Mets in part to build credibility with other MLB owners who had to approve his $ 2.475 billion purchase from the club. Alderson had a reputation for integrity. Cohen – whose former hedge fund firm SAC Capital Advisors pleaded guilty to securities fraud and paid a $ 1.8 billion fine in 2013 – not so much.
Ready for a shower? Right now, even the former Wilpon owner might look good to some Mets fans. Again, maybe not. The team’s current issues demonstrate how Mets’ cultural issues, detailed in part in Athleticismthe history of this March, are anchored in the organization.
Alderson and Scott might be at risk of losing their jobs anyway, given the Mets’ playoff odds fell from 71.6 percent on July 31 to 6.3 percent before Wednesday’s game. Scott’s recklessness is hard to understand, even if it was a one-time mistake. After the Callaway and Porter’s fiascos, he needed to behave impeccably.
There is only one month left in the season. The pace of the offseason is expected to be slow, with the collective agreement expiring on December 1. The Mets’ next GM, if they choose to fire Scott, will be their fourth since November 2020.
If Cohen acts quickly, the next in-house would be two executives the Mets recently named deputy general managers, Ian Levin and Alderson.‘son of Bryn Alderson. The team promoted the two in July without removing Scott‘s provisional etiquette, a move some in the industry have found curious. The initial expectation within the organization was that Scott would stay with the club whether or not Cohen hired a new president of baseball operations. But now this.
Theo, the fans want Theo. Naturally, given that Theo Epstein ended much longer title droughts with the Red Sox and Cubs than he would inherit with the Mets, who last won the World Series in 1986. But it should at least be noted that Epstein brought Scott and Porter to MLB with the Red Sox, and later hired Porter for the Cubs.
Besides, who can say that Epstein would even want to work for Cohen when a number of executives seemed to be reluctant or were denied permission by their clubs to interview the Mets? And when Cohen said last November that he would be “slightly disappointed” if the team didn’t win the World Series in the next three to five years?
Epstein, who currently works as a consultant to the commissioner’s office, is indeed a free agent. Coming back as a senior club manager, he would almost certainly want full control over baseball operations and some of the ownership. Cohen might be ready to satisfy both of these desires. But even then, Epstein might prefer to pursue a different franchise with investors of his choosing.
After suffering occasional frustrations with ownership in Boston and Chicago, Epstein is going to be picky. And a purely financial piece by Cohen, à la Francisco Lindor, might not do it. Not when Epstein, in his last five-year contract with the Cubs, reportedly made $ 10 million a year.
As written here last month, “Cohen‘s Twitter presence is a source of both concern and amusement for some rival executives, some of whom will send each other written messages on his tweets in a “Can you believe it?” sort of way. But the biggest test will be whether Cohen turns into a late George Steinbrenner if his first season with the Mets ends in a disappointment. “
By now Cohen should have the idea: owning a team isn’t easy. Turning the Mets into an East Coast version of the Dodgers is a good idea, but not as easy as it might have seemed when he was a minority investor under the Wilpons.
The Mets’ injury issues throughout the season, especially with Jacob deGrom, are an example of the fickle nature of the game (and the cause of further scrutiny by the club). Not all of Cohen’s money helped the Mets land some of their top targets – George Springer, JT Realmuto, Bauer – in free agency. And while the trade for Lindor was a coup, Cohen gave the shortstop a 10-year extension before even playing a game in a Mets uniform.
Cohen lamented the team’s lack of a disciplined offensive approach on Twitter, less than three weeks after his team acquired Báez, one of the less disciplined hitters in the game. Scott recently criticized the players for their lack of adherence to Mets health policies, saying they need to be more responsible for taking care of their own bodies. Alderson also tore the players apart after their thumbs-down gesture, saying it was “unacceptable and will not be tolerated”.
Scott and Alderson may have been right in their comments, but executives typically don’t denounce players so publicly. Considering what happened with this team in 2021, starting with Porter, their words seem downright empty. A team cannot fix their culture simply by changing owners. A team can’t pretend it’s on the right track when leading employees fail one failure after another. Credibility is necessary to end a culture of toxicity. Right now, the Mets don’t.
(Photo by Zack Scott: Alejandra Villa Loraca / Newsday RM via Getty Images)
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