Reese Kaplan -- Don't Ask For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ask When

Tick-tock…that’s the sound of time passing by.  You can’t get it back.  You can’t get a do-over.  Whatever has happened, has happened.

In the case of the Mets, it’s more a matter of what HASN’T happened.  When Sandy Alderson announced in June he was not returning, the team was quick to form the triumvirate nicknamed the Three Stooges to soldier on in his absence.  They functioned (or dysfunctioned) as you might expect someone in an interim role to do – finding scrap heap droppings from other teams, dumping salaries of established players and essentially not doing a whole lot to improve the club’s outlook short of promoting Jeff McNeil after Asdrubal Cabrera was sent to the city of brotherly love in their failed quest for the post-season.

So now here it is October and for the months of July, August and September the Mets did nothing with that quarter year of time in preparation for the interviews to fill the GM vacancy.  In fact, the first round of interviews didn’t even start until this past week which means there’s unlikely to be someone in place before the first important baseball date occurs – the filing of free agency by ballplayers once the World Series concludes.  The Mets have several people likely to go that route, including, Jerry Blevins, Austin Jackson, Jose Lobaton, Devin Mesoraco, AJ Ramos and Jose Reyes.  The only one of that group probably meriting serious consideration is Jerry Blevins who rebounded nicely from an awful start.  Devin Mesoraco showed some leadership, some power and missed a lot of time due to injuries.  I wouldn’t think it prudent to bring him back.  If they want an injury-prone catcher they could just keep Travis d’Arnaud for less money.

So the departing free agents are not all that much of a concern but it also spells the time that additions to the roster via free agency can begin and that’s a major source of consternation.  If the club felt that the addition of a premier catcher like Yasmani Grandal or Wilson Ramos, or a serious reliever like Craig Kimbrel or Kelvin Herrera or Jeurys Familia was worth pursuing, you’re already behind the eight ball if the Three Stooges are dividing their time between planning for the future and selecting their new boss. 

The Mets have gone on record stating that their goal is to have a new GM in place before the GM meetings that take place starting November 6th.  By my calendar it's now October 12th.  If you allow the standard 2 weeks' notice to a previous employer, then the drop-dead date for a new hire would be October 23rd.  Ideally you'd like some on-the-job time to strategize a bit before this critical meeting, so that would push it back a week earlier, October 16th.  In other words, they need to make an offer and have it accepted by Tuesday.  That would enable the new GM to provide two weeks' notice (through October 30th) in order to begin then and have a week to focus exclusively on the Mets prior to the GM meetings.  Raise you hand if you think the Mets will have a decision by Tuesday.  Anyone?

The next big deadline they’re facing is November 30^th.  Is it possible they’ll have a GM in place by then?  Sure, but it would have been a better bet had they actually began the process in June when they knew the vacancy had evolved.  That date is significant as it spells the non-tender deadline for your 40-man roster.  Many advocate Rafael Montero being cut.  Some suggest Travis d’Arnaud get the same fate.  Others even suggest the increasingly expensive Wilmer Flores can go assuming T.J. Rivera is back from the witness protection program.   Who’s going to be making these calls?  Larry, Moe and Curly have not shown much skill when it comes to roster construction. 

9 days later the Winter Meetings begin where the groundwork for deals (if not the actual deals themselves) take place when you have all of baseball’s GMs in one place at the same time.  While that shouldn’t preclude other GMs from talking to the Three Stooges about trades, the fact is that their authority is limited knowing that they are not the long-term management team.  On the other hand, other teams may see how poorly the Mets judge talent in return in trades based upon what has happened recently and may salivate over the opportunity to fleece them again. 

Worse yet, the free agents’ agents will also be around and they’ll likely not want to push their top tier clients into a dysfunctional situation with no clear end in sight (even if the Mets were uncharacteristically willing to shop for brand names instead of generics and the scratch & dent sections). 

A mere four days later is the Rule V draft where the club has to decide who to protect on the 40-man roster and, quite rarely, who they might try to snag from someone else.  Yes, there are always Brad Emaus types available, but when they acquired Sean Gilmartin in 2015 he gave them 50 games of 2.67 ERA relief pitching.  Do you see the acumen required to identify unprotected players from other clubs?  Remember, this is the same triumvirate that took two disabled players (and some international signing money) for Jeurys Familia while the Padres sent an inferior pitcher to Cleveland for the best (and healthy) catching prospect in baseball.  

Now, to be completely fair to the Mets, they likely could not approach current executives such as Gary Larocque of the Cardinals, De Jon Watson of the Nationals and Doug Melvin of the Brewers who were all under contract.  It is standard practice to wait until the end of the season to ask for permission to interview them.  

Conversely, Kim Ng of the MLB front office was under no such restrictions and could have been vetted anytime during those three months of stagnation by the front office to have a baseline against which to judge these others.  You could have been upfront with her and said you need the opportunity to see the folks employed by teams before a decision was made and that would have reduced the burden from 4 down to 3 (a small number due to good talent like Ben Cherington and Thad Levine telling the Mets thanks, but no thanks).   

At this point I’m not handicapping the race in terms of who they select but I’m much more concerned with when they make their decision.  We all know that just as Ted Turner was a famously meddling owner of the Braves, Jeff Wilpon will not allow whomever he selects to have full autonomy.  Consequently the when in this equation is much more important than the who.