Rubin’s Rant - Hiring Is A 2-Way Street

 

by David Rubin

As somebody who has worked as part of human resources either directly or indirectly for the better part of 35 years, I have a substantial background in hiring and firing employees at all levels. I’ve vetted everyone from dishwashers to CEO’s, and one of the biggest learnings that I received early on is that the hiring process works two ways; the candidate needs to figure out if the culture of the potential place of employment is one in which she or he wants to work within, and the employer needs to determine if the candidate would be a good fit with either what is currently in existence or what they want to be in existence in the near and long term future. 

These interviews are private, the outcomes do not get disclosed except to the highest people in a company and those who absolutely need to know, like a department head, for example. 

As we all know, our beloved New York Mets have been heavily engaged for a second season in trying to find either a president of baseball operations or at the very least a general manager who could potentially grow and develop into that role in the future. There have been many names speculated upon and I have heard many names that have not even been broadcast yet by any media outlets; sadly, everybody from the members of the media to people on social media to our Fanbase are either convinced or being convinced that somehow nobody wants to work for the New York Mets and that everybody is simply turning down the team, whether or not an offer has legitimately been made. And THAT, in particular, is what has been most alarming in all of this coverage- nobody except the people in that room truly know whether an offer has been made or not. 

Additionally, having seen this play out so many times, there are always going to be instances where conversations are had and no actual offer was made but the candidate, in order to save face, is going to say that they turned down an offer that was never made at all. It happens, we are all human and nobody wants to look bad in the court of public opinion. 

Furthermore, just because there is an amazing opportunity in New York right now does not mean that somebody who is making less money and at a lower level on a rung is going to just leap at it. These are life-changing decisions and coming off of a pandemic where change has become even more difficult to endure, people are not so readily able and willing to pack up their lives and move somewhere else just because of a new opportunity or additional monies to be made. 

For all the speculation about Billy Beane, the reality was he was never going to come not because he did not view it as a great opportunity and not because he did not want to work alongside his one time mentor, Sandy Alderson, again, but because he has teenage daughters in school in the bay area and he already lost one relationship, and he also has an ownership stake not only in the Oakland Athletics but also in a company that owns soccer teams and other assets. His candidacy was never truly in play and the fact that he even spoke to the New York Mets about the opportunity shows the amount of respect he has both for Sandy and for the opportunity itself; instead of reporting it accurately, many people speculated that he was not going to come because of issues with ownership or working for Sandy again, all of which was not true. His not taking the job was spun as if it was a failing of the New York Mets when in reality it was a near impossibility for him to even take the job in the first place. Billy’s candidacy is an example of the media spinning a situation to fit the agenda of making it look like the Mets are once more an organization in disarray instead of one trying very hard to make some good and longer lasting decisions in light of their poor choices over the past year. 

Let’s look at this in a different way. Imagine the METS as a company NOT a baseball team.

They have an open position or positions.

They need applicants.

They interview 30 applicants for a critical role- some have experience, some do not, some share their geographical location and some do not.

Now imagine the media giving opinions on every single candidate, barely knowing them & NOT being in the room while the interviews happen.

And THEN being told by their editors to spin it that nobody wants the job because with 20 of the 30 applicants already being interviewed, no one has been hired yet- and whether or not the position was actually offered is still and unknown quantity except for the two sides who were actually having the interview.

And it's NOT a smaller position like housekeeping or selling programs at the ballpark- NOT to say that either of those positions are not of importance, but obviously there is a lot more involved in putting somebody in charge of an organization especially when in recent times they have failed greatly at vetting and hiring the right people.

The media seems to forget or ignore that it's a 2-way interview & not everyone interviewed will be a fit

Maybe NONE of them have been the right fit- OR- maybe the fact that people are already making a very comfortable living and/or working within a front office where they truly like and respect and enjoy the people they are working with and the success that they are either already having or that they expect to have in the future has made a huge difference in this particular hiring process. 

Sig Mejdal, for example, is mostly a sabremetrics expert with the Orioles- NOT what specifically what the team needs because that's the ONE department they have filled well so far. They need an overall OPS guy/gal who can grab the reins of the baseball side of the front office and make changes and improvements to the culture, two player development, and most importantly towards assembling a competitive team on the field that will fulfill Steve Cohen’s edict of winning a World Series in 3 to 5 years. That kind of expectation is not for the feint of heart nor is it for somebody (or a few somebodies, should they decide to hire a handful of people) to engage in lightly as the potential for failure is huge. That is also why a candidate such as a Billy Eppler might be more appealing than some of the young and unproven operations talent because he has already overseen an organization in a top 2 market with an involved owner under difficult circumstances, in addition to having worked in the New York market previously with the Yankees on his way up.  

Personally, the choice for the lead Ops role that I've wanted to see since day one is Brian Sabean; he's got incredible experience running an organization with multiple titles, took over a team in turmoil and bringing them to the promised land, and has the ongoing respect of current execs to both hire and entice new talent to join him in the front office as well as working with the existing talent in place to create a cohesive front office, something this team has needed in forever. And, of course, if Sabean happened to bring manager Bruce Bochy along for the ride, well, I for one would NOT be disappointed.  

Regardless of whom the Mets end up hiring, it sadly seems like the narrative that the media will continue to spin is one of Mets incompetency and failure to land their intended target. Look- I'm not a Pollyanna and I don't just take the team's side of things. I just want a decision made that won't be made in haste, that will consider where the team is now and where they want to go, and a hire that will NOT allow things to devolve into the type of crap-show that 2021 ended up being That's a tall order, and one that will take a very certain type of person to fulfill; hires like that do NOT happen overnight, and if it takes more time in order to find that candidate, then so be it. It's certainly worth taking that time to not endure a year like this past one has ended up being. 

I realize that there are two sides to all of this, which is something that the media does not unfortunately seem to want to portray in their coverage. I get that controversy sells- in fact, the person who used to run World Championship Wrestling and later worked for the WWE, Eric Bischoff,  had a best-selling book entitled “Controversy Creates Cash” - a title that certainly needs to be considered when trying to understand today’s philosophy of selling newspapers & generating online traffic. And in no way am I insinuating that the Mets have done everything right during this process, as I am sure there are plenty of things that they could have done better during this process. If there is anything that I would hope that Mets fans would take from this would be to remember that there are always two sides of a situation, that nobody but those people inside of the “so-called interview room” truly know what transpired. 

Also, please remember that Mets owner Steve Cohen did NOT become a billionaire by not doing his homework and not trying to figure out all potential options for a situation, whether it was a financial move to make or a top person to hire. The past year has been a learning process for him and there is certainly a lot to be learned from the mistakes that were made. If I were a betting man, I would certainly bet on somebody who has been as successful for as long as Cohen has been. With as much talk as there has been lately about “ trusting in the process“ I think it behooves METS fans to wait a little bit longer and instead trust the end results- and let's pray we are not right back in this situation 2 years from now.