“Managers are very controlling. You look at the managers today and the ones that are ‘my way or the highway’ are very few. It’s a remnant of another generation. If an organization is worth its salt – why would you turn that company over to a middle manager? So the attitude (in Oakland) was, ‘We have a philosophy and we’re going to find a manager who is going to implement that philosophy. We’re not looking for someone to tell us how to run the team, or upon which theory it should be predicated. We already have that. We want someone who is going to implement it for us.’ That’s a very different approach.”
– Sandy Alderson to ESPN, via MetsBlog.com.
I’ve maintained all along that I won’t make any sweeping declarative statements on the Mets’ general-manager hunt and I’m not about to roll back on that now, but it’s hard not to get excited about Alderson based on this and just about everything else I’ve read about the guy.
This quote, in particular, makes me think about the way the Jenrry Mejia situation unfolded this spring, and reminds me that a strong general manager with a sense of priorities can and should overrule a field manager clamoring for short-sighted decisions in the name of middle-relief help.
Mets fans — in the MetsBlog comments section linked above and elsewhere — knock Alderson’s taste in managers because he hired Art Howe. But that neglects to consider that Howe, presumably hired by Alderson as a manager willing to implement his and then Billy Beane’s grand plan for the A’s, helped Oakland to three straight playoff berths and consecutive 100-win seasons before butting heads with Beane and fleeing for Flushing.
As Mets fans we hated watching Howe appear comatose at the helm of some truly awful clubs at Shea, but clearly he was, at least for a while, a capable company man in the middle-management role Alderson described.
Obviously philosophies related to reporters “years ago” are different than those employed actually running a team, and so it’s too soon to praise Alderson without evidence that, if hired, he practices what he preaches at the Mets’ helm. But just the suggestion of a top-down organization with a clear pecking order and a well-conceived, thoroughly implemented plan is enough to capture Mets’ fans imaginations after the last administration.
Tedquarters 
This is great to hear. And could bode well for someone like Chip Hale, who is no one’s idea of a sexy pick (except perhaps Mrs. Hale) but seems like a really sharp guy who doesn’t need to prove he’s the smartest or toughest guy in the room.
This perfectly explains why Art Howe was dreadful on the Mets. He clearly was just carrying out the orders while on the As and when he was on the Mets he had only idiots above him. That coupled with the fact that he didnt really know what he was doing perfectly sums up the Mets problems at the time.
Well lets not leave out the players here. When Art Howe won with the A’s he had a staff anchored by Barry Zito, Tim Hudson, and Mark Mulder in thier primes. 3 guys capable of winning 20 games, plus an offense that had Jason Giambi and Miguel Tejada in thier primes along with Eric Chavez back when he wasnt injured all the time.
Those teams were stacked.
Touche.
I definitely have mixed feelings about this quote from Alderson. I don’t want the next Mets manager to be someone like Art Howe or Bob Geren no matter how compliant they are and how smart the upper management is. I’d like the manager to be at least somewhat dynamic and to have some ability at getting the attention of players, and perhaps even motivating them.
The thing to do is to hire a manager who already *agrees* with the basic philosophy of the GM — not someone who has no views of his own and will just do the bidding of whatever the GM says.
Personally, I think that if Alderson becomes the GM and brings in a manager that is just going to kind of carry out his orders, then the GM must be held accountable. Meaning, the manager is not first to go if things go wrong. They both go.
Isn’t this really true of pretty much every team? That the gm should ultimately be held accountable for a teams on field performance? Because I can’t think of many instances where teams have actually drastically changed their performance because of a manager change with all else held equal. In seems like manager changes are usually just to appease media/fans and/or warning shots for the gm to make major changes on the team or he’s next.
It all sounds great Ted I just hope time has not passed him by.
I’m glad its not my decision but Hahn is a pretty impressive guy too.
the howe era does point out a couple of things. One of course is that while a manager can make some difference, they can’t work miracles. And the Howe teams needed a miracle.
the other point is, you can’t discount the complexity difference between real BB in the NL, and the imitation BB for dummies they play in the AL. I call it Torre syndrome.