Reese Kaplan -- The Wilpon History is Dirtier Than Player Deals

During the long Wilpon regime it was a given sentiment that fans were not happy with the manner in which they ran their business.  They were forever on the outside looking in when premium talent became available, waiting interminably for “value picks” in free agency were willing to meet their penurious budget, and afraid to make many trades except when the primary purpose involved was dumping what they deemed were inflated salaries. 

Yes, yes, there were exceptions here and there.  They did let Brodie Van Wagenen go somewhat trade-crazy in his brief tenure at the top as an inexperienced and newly honed General Manager.  They did bid on many second tier free agents for decent money who didn’t pan out.  Does the name Jason Bay ring a bell?  At the same time they were somewhat comfortable in the $14-$16 million per year range (remember Curtis Granderson, too?), the fact is that they were unwilling to make the push to get the best of the best. 

As such, the Mets have been postseason outsiders for the vast majority of their ownership era.  They did make it to the World Series in 2015 despite the manager in charge primarily on the back of Yoenis Cespedes who wasn’t even their first choice for a bat when issues with Carlos Gomez’ health made them back out of their initial deal.  In retrospect, that was a blessing in disguise as the Brewers were going to receive both Zack Wheeler and Wilmer Flores.  Instead they got Cespedes for Michael Fullmer who started out like a house afire, but faded with injury.  Also Luis Cessa was in that deal but he’s not done much in his trials in the majors with a career ERA of 4.40 over parts of five seasons. 

We could go on and on about the Mets front office decision making skills when it comes to roster decisions, but apparently they are demonstrating a very similar tone deaf approach to administrative and managerial personnel as well.  Everyone is well aware of the checkered history of Jared Porter from his days with the Chicago Cubs during which he was regularly harassing a female reporter with sexting and inappropriate photos showing private parts.  He was terminated after the Mets failed to uncover any of this background during his interview process.

Of course, the next brick on the load was former manager (and Cleveland Indians pitching coach) Mickey Callaway who moved onto a pitching coach role with the Angels.  His geographically diverse taunting and harassing of female media members included his days in Cleveland, with the Mets and now again with the Angels.  His current employer has suspended him while they investigate what exactly happened, but when there are at least five women coming forward with very similar and disturbing stories, it would seem quite difficult for Callaway to squirm his way out of the accusations.

Then Wednesday it was revealed that one of Porter’s employees, Minor League Hitting Coordinator Ryan Ellis who was necessarily promoted to the big team last season when Chili Davis opted out of appearing with the team during the pandemic, had issues too.  Apparently he had at least three women come forward to protest his blatant and inappropriate text messages as well as verbal comments to them while he was employed by the Mets.  

He was quoted as saying things which, if heard in a bar, might be laughed off as a tasteless come-on, but to a coworker it more than crossed the boundary of what was and was not at all permissible.  In the case of one of the three women, he was quoted as saying to her, “I stare at your ass all the time. If only I could have 15 minutes alone with you.”

What’s doubly disturbing about the Mets in this case is not that they employed men who behaved in this manner.  It is the blatant disregard they gave to these issues when they were reported directly to Aubrey Wechsler, the team’s Employee Relations Manager.  In fact, in the case of Ellis, they knew of these problems in 2018 but didn’t terminate the employee until 2021, three full years later. 

Unbelievably, one of the women who reported the issue to the Mets was indeed contacted again.  She wasn’t asked about the harassment, but instead about the words Ellis used to determine if he was truthful or lying to the club when they were investigating his behavior.  So they had a second chance to do the right thing and followed the pattern of doing nothing.  Even stranger is that at the time they were investigating inappropriate behavior by then manager Mickey Callaway which inevitably resulted in nothing happening regarding the victims of the harassment.

Inappropriate gender communication problems are nothing new to the Wilpons.  Think back to the issue with then Mets Senior Vice President of Ticket Sales, Leigh Castergine who was fired by the team in 2012 after she announced she was pregnant but not married.  Jeff Wilpon in particular was highly unprofessional in his humiliation of his employee at meetings and in front of others.  The Mets eventually reached a cash settlement with Castergine in 2015 which would not have happened unless the club felt it could not afford what a court would have awarded her.

Just as Rome wasn’t built in a day, you can’t fix every problem with the Mets using a deep pile of Steve Cohen’s money.  However, when the fans obsessed about the curious way the Mets went about building a team of players, they apparently were just as misguided in how they handled non-playing hires to the front office and for on-the-field management roles. 

Hopefully in the future there will be a more professional type of organization overall, from the cleaning personnel up to the senior executives and the players on the field, too.  This team was long overdue for a shakeup and the more reporting that is done, the uglier the Wilpon era gets.