Reese Kaplan -- The Mets Employment Questionnaire for GMs

If you are evaluating potential candidates for a job opening, there are any number of ways to do so.  Many firms employ personality tests which reveal emotional tendencies, work ethic and employment behavior.  Some of them are kind of ridiculous because they ask questions to which the answers being sought are obvious, like, “Suppose you saw a co-worker with a bottle of alcohol in his desk drawer.  What would you do?”  Anyone with a functioning brain knows that they want you to say, “I’d contact the HR department or that employee’s supervisor since drinking at the workplace is unacceptable behavior.”

I got to thinking about what types of questions might Jeff Wilpon pose to prospective GM candidates who come into New York for job interviews: 

When going to business meetings representing the ballclub what accommodations should you book?

1. A respectable hotel that will make a good impression on fellow baseball executives
2. A hotel for which the club has a frequent-buyer arrangement to aggregate promotional points
3. AirBNB and see who might rent out space on the sofa for you to sleep that night
4. That's a trick question.  Use Hotwire.com to bid on a redeye coach flight back to avoid hotel costs altogether

In evaluating prospective ballplayers to bolster the roster, what are your primary concerns?

1. Past performance is the best indicator of future expectations
2. How well the person will fit into the existing clubhouse dynamic
3. Advanced metrics to determine the player’s actual value including trend information
4. See who has pecadilloes in his past that will suppress his current and future earnings

How should you approach the free agent marketplace to address identified needs?

1. Understand that past performance is no guarantee of future results and don’t overpay for what happened 3-4 years ago
2. Talk to everyone to get a holistic view of the marketplace as free agency only requires sacrificing money whereas trading sacrifices both player resources AND money
3. Look for value priced free agents who don’t have flashy numbers but whose performance is trending upward
4. Understand that good players are wanted by their ballclubs and anyone on the open market has already been spurned by his previous employer and should be avoided

What is your philosophy about enhancing minor league scouting and player acquisition?

1. Prospects are just that with no proven track record and thus should be used as trade chips
2. Developing younger ballplayers is far less expensive than acquiring experienced ones, so in the long run it makes sense to expand scouting and player development
3. Identify undervalued assets on other ballclubs and be active in the Rule V draft
4. If the ballplayers we draft are not knowledgeable about how the game is played and what they need to do to succeed, then cut them loose and try again with fresh bodies

How do you feel about the international marketplaces as a means of acquiring baseball talent?

1. Lots of foreign ballplayers have failed, consequently it’s a risky proposition to invest offshore
2. Many people in third world countries grow up in immense poverty and would be happy with whatever little we offer them
3. The changing demographics of the baseball fan suggest you need to be open to acquiring and marketing ballplayers to fans of different cultures
4. How are our fielders supposed to call someone off on a popup if they don’t speak the same language?

Suppose you have a direction you’d like to take and I disagree with you, what would you do?

1. Acquiesce because you respect the chain of command
2. Firmly and respectfully lay out your arguments for why we should support your ideas
3. Kneel before me and kiss my finger where a World Series ring would be had we won one in the past 32 years
4. Ask me to lower my trousers and turn around so you could kiss me somewhere else

I wish Mssrs. LaRocque, Watson, Bloom, Melvin and Ms. Ng luck in working their way through this employment personality profile questionnaire. Others have gone through worse and survived.  Think of it as a boot camp preparation for the job that follows this one.