Mini Feature Article / Are the Mets still a professional mess?
The New York Mets are known as baseball’s laughingstock. A team which always seems to be in the news for the wrong reasons. A team who make mind-numbingly poor decisions. A team who disappoint the most loyal fanbase in baseball year after year and just don’t care.
In their 58-year history, they have only made the playoffs nine times, with four appearances coming in the 21st century. Being a big-market team, playing in New York with plenty of money to spend, the question that needs to be asked is: What was going wrong? The answer is the dynamic, father and son duo of Fred and Jeff Wilpon.
Fred and Jeff Wilpon owned the Mets for 34 years. Turbulent years that saw many scandals, failed free agent signings, lack of investment in player development and analytics and being sued by former employees for inappropriate workplace behaviour. They gained a reputation amongst baseball as impossible executives to work with and work for. It became clear that change was needed, and It happened.
In November 2020, Hedge-fund billionaire Steve Cohen purchased the team from the Wilpons for a fee of $2 billion dollars. In his first press conference with members of the media, Cohen promised a World Series win within the next 3-5 years. A bold statement that was backed up by promises of a beefed-up analytics department, a change in culture, no more getting involved:
“I played a little bit of tee-ball while growing up… but no, we’ll leave the baseball operations to the baseball operations guys” Cohen said in his introduction presser.
This was a move that many Mets fans celebrated as a ‘fresh start’, but little did they know, the failures that occurred in his first season truly proved that the Mets are still a professional mess.
Firstly, the Mets hired well respected executive Jared Porter to be their GM in December 2020. Porter had previously worked with the Arizona Diamondbacks and Chicago Cubs. In January 2021, an article was released by Ken Rosenthal that showed Porter sending explicit images to female reporters during his time with the Diamondbacks. Porter was fired the next day – his replacement was named as Zack Scott.
In August 2021, it was announced that Zack Scott was arrested on DYI charges and after a long team investigation, he was fired in November 2021. So, In the space of six months, the Mets had hired two baseball executives who they had fired due to these circumstances.
It also became public in November 2021, that star players Francisco Lindor and Jeff McNeil had fought in the clubhouse during the match, following a disagreement over fielding positions. Proving the point that the culture within the Mets hasn’t changed. The Mets missed the playoffs for the fifth consecutive year.
But it really is not all doom and gloom for the Mets. They have the richest owner in baseball who wants to invest in the team and win championships, who wants to change the culture surrounding the team and who wants to build up the analytics department to become one of the best in baseball. Steve Cohen is a constant reminder that the dark days are behind Mets fans, and they have plenty of successful seasons to look forward too.