The most important battle now is not to rise in the NL East or debate the pros and cons of trading Jacob deGrom.
Sandy Alderson announced he is taking a leave of absence to again concentrate on his health. He said he needs further surgery later this summer and that his prognosis is good, but he is on to the more important fight, so he is stepping aside as Mets general manager.
It was called a “leave of absence,” but a somber press conference Tuesday at Citi Field sure made it sound like a goodbye to the job. Alderson personalized responsibility for the Mets’ shoddy condition, and when his return was broached said, “If I were to look at it on the merits, I’m not sure coming back is warranted.”
Jeff Wilpon, sitting next to Alderson at the press conference, stuck to a script about being concerned about Alderson’s health and family, and spun away from answering whether Alderson would ever return to his position. But if the plan were that the seat was going to stay open for Alderson, wouldn’t this have been a moment to offer that endorsement and solace? The absence of those words spoke louder than anything actually said.
Around the Mets there had been an assumption of a succession plan anyway. Alderson signed a two-year extension last offseason, but the Mets also rehired Omar Minaya, which was not exactly on Alderson’s to-do list. The belief was that John Ricco, the good organizational soldier, would take over from Alderson, perhaps as early as after the 2018 campaign.
Minaya and Ricco are close, and the thought was Minaya would serve in a capacity to Ricco similar to what J.P. Ricciardi did for Alderson — as a former GM known mostly for scouting acumen who could provide counsel, especially when it came to talent evaluation.
Wilpon said that in Alderson’s absence, Ricco, Minaya and Ricciardi would share the job, which is the kind of mistake that dysfunctional organizations make. Ownership should not be hearing from multiple parts of baseball operations outside of group meetings. This is how messages get mixed and agendas get pushed forward. Organizations work best when one entrusted person receives all the baseball-related information and synthesizes his recommendations to ownership.
Ricco has served multiple administrations since joining the Mets in 2004 and becoming assistant GM in 2006, including briefly serving as GM in October 2010 between the firing of Minaya and the hiring of Alderson. This should be his audition, to see how he handles a crisis that has worsened with Alderson’s recurrent health problems.
But here is the problem for the Mets: Alderson, like a good Marine, took responsibility for what has befallen the team. That is proper. He was in charge of baseball operations, and after the playoffs in 2015-16, the Mets have the fifth-worst record in the majors since the beginning of last year, including the fifth worst this year.
However, all the same folks who counseled him into an old positional group and lack of organizational depth remain, some now in more elevated positions.
Therefore, how much trust should be placed in this infrastructure to make big decisions, particularly heading into the trade deadline? Minaya and Ricciardi both have made major trades as GM and have been involved as counsel at other times, and Ricco has been deeply enmeshed in every big decision for more than a decade with the Mets.
My suspicion is Ricco will end up getting the big seat because the Wilpons, if nothing else, are insular and trust whom they trust, and Ricco is on that list. They went outside for Alderson to try to be sanctified by his reputation and gravitas amid the Madoff debacle.
But if the Wilpons are even a little uncertain about who is going to run baseball operations after this season, how can they permit a seismic move, say, involving a deGrom trade or extension? This kind of forces the Mets to go minimalist, which means trading free-agent-to-be Jeurys Familia for as good a package as possible, and unless some no-brainer comes along for a Steven Matz or Zack Wheeler (unlikely because the rest of the industry is suspicious of their health and competitiveness level), then other decisions need to wait.
What should be emphasized is playing Michael Conforto, Brandon Nimmo, Amed Rosario and Dom Smith as often as possible and keeping the starters healthy for whatever comes next. What also would be valuable is ownership looking in the mirror and trying to pinpoint what in its methods keeps rotating the Mets back to dysfunction and disappointment.
This is a moment to wish positive medical results for Alderson while assessing young players, front-office personnel and — if it has the capacity to self-examine — ownership. The big moves will have to wait until the offseason.