Steve Cohen could soon have the keys to the most attractive available job of the offseason — running baseball operations for the Mets.
If Cohen receives the necessary 23 owner votes, possibly as early as next month, one of his first big decisions will be whether to keep Brodie Van Wagenen as general manager, remove him or install a senior executive above the GM and have Van Wagenen answer to that official, who would be the conduit to the owner. In the latter paradigm, Van Wagenen would have to decide if he is staying or not since one item that made the Mets GM job attractive for him is a long-standing relationship with and direct access to Jeff Wilpon.
Should the Mets job become open, it would be the most attractive of the likely positions to do so for several reasons:
1. No more Wilpons.
2. Did you know that Cohen is worth $14 billion and would walk in as the richest MLB owner by far?
3. This is expected to be a slow-moving free-agent class with the anticipation that a majority (probably a large majority) of organizations plan to respond to lost revenue during the pandemic by reducing payroll. So, he who has and is willing to spend money could have an advantage.
4. The Mets have the bones of a contender and the right move or three would elevate them, allowing whoever is in charge of baseball operations to play for now while plotting with Cohen how to make the Mets into a sustainable winner.
The other potential openings are not quite as attractive. There are multiple clubs such as the Marlins, Phillies, Rangers and Rockies who could make moves. The one job that appears certain to open up is the Angels. In five seasons at the GM helm, former Yankees assistant GM Billy Eppler has not been able to get the Angels even over .500, much less into the playoffs.
While I have heard names such as Diamondbacks assistant GM Jared Porter associated with the job, the one that comes up voluminously is former Red Sox GM Dave Dombrowski. The case:
1. One of his best friends, Tony La Russa, is an Angels senior adviser and is said to have owner Arte Moreno’s ear.
2. Moreno tried a more modern front office approach with Eppler, but the owner’s comfort level is with more veteran- and more scout-driven.
3. Mike Trout turned 29 last month. He has a decade as the majors’ best player yet just one playoff appearance, three games and no wins. This is not a rebuild job, then, especially with Anthony Rendon already 30 and concluding the first season of a seven-year, $245 million pact.
Dombrowski, 64, is a veteran, scout-driven and perhaps the most renowned win-now executive in the sport. He has shown an ability to aggressively pursue what was needed with the Marlins, Tigers and Red Sox, winning titles in Florida and Boston, and nearly doing so in Detroit. The long-term viability of the teams after his exits has been in question, but not his ability to win if given leeway to trade prospects and spend near the top of the market.
Dombrowski was fired by the Red Sox toward the end of last season, less than a year after winning the championship. In a phone call Monday, Dombrowski said, “I wasn’t ready to retire and I am not ready to retire. I love baseball.”
In July, Dombrowski joined the group trying to bring MLB to Nashville (La Russa also is part of the consortium). Nashville is seen as a prime destination for MLB if a team such as the Orioles were to relocate, or for expansion. MLB has big-picture intentions to grow from 30 to 32 teams and I have heard arguments that the pandemic could slow down expansion because so much has to be relegated to deal with the impact of COVID-19 or that it could speed up because expansion entry fees could infuse a few billion dollars into the sport.
Dombrowski’s Red Sox contract expires at the end of October and, at that point, the Nashville group could move to try to retain him to keep working to land a team. As for the Angels, Dombrowski said, “I have never talked about any job when someone is in it. It’s not the right thing to do. They [the Angels] have a general manager. The general managers in the game are friends of mine and I have never done that [talked about a filled job] any time in my career.”