Conflicting Tweets last night. Andy Martino:
Daniels request came through back channels, I’m told. They simply wanted to hire Alderson.
And the inimitable Jon Heyman:
daniels never asked the mets to wait, as 1 report claimed. he is in the world series. anyone really think hes calling the mets about a job?
Which Tweeter told the truth? Who knows? Who cares?
Here’s the thing: Jon Daniels’ Rangers are in the World Series for the first time in franchise history. The Rangers have new owners that took over in August, and part-owner and CEO Chuck Greenberg has said publicly that Daniels is going nowhere.
The sale of the team means Daniels gets an out clause in his contract, but it’s hard to imagine a situation wherein a brand-new ownership group is eager to let a GM walk away after building the franchise’s first AL champion.
Presumably Daniels is a smart dude — he got a GM job at 28, after all — and recognizes that Greenberg’s statement gives him a leg up in any negotiations for a contract extension. And if the big-market Mets of Daniels’ hometown still had a front-office opening when Daniels and Greenberg sat down, it would give Daniels a hell of a lot of leverage to demand big money.
So, though I have no source or inside information or anything, I’m guessing if Daniels really did reach out to the Mets through mysterious “back channels,” it was just that — a leverage play. And if it did happen, presumably the Mets either called his bluff or decided Alderson was the better candidate anyway — a reasonable enough decision — and perhaps recognized that waiting on Daniels only to ultimately hire someone else would undermine the new GM before he even started.
I’m a pretty big fan of Daniels’ work and if the Rangers had been eliminated sooner I would have loved to see him in the mix in Flushing. But I can take no issue with how this played out, regardless of if he actually somehow contacted the Mets.
Tedquarters 
So glad you brought this up.
Martino is the same guy who acted like he was Edward R. Murrow when Deadspin reported that thing about Minaya getting heckled on JetBlue. He lectured Deadspin on journalism ethics and responsible reporting for not checking on this story with Minaya before running with it.
So I certainly hope Martino checked with Martino before taking to Twitter.
Oy. Martino checked with Daniels.
I like the Martino checking with Martino version better.
Great points Ted, but your a Wilpon/SNY shill, so of course you won’t take issue with anything.
I’d like to think that Daniels was legitimately interested in running his boyhood team. In all likelihood the conversation went like this:
Mets: Hey man, you wanna interview for our GM gig?
Daniels – Love to, but I gotta wait until after the WS.
Mets – Oh really? Dang, we really wanted to do this quickly. How much do you want to come work here?
Daniels – Uh, well to tell you the truth, I really do have a good gig right here in Texas…
Mets – Ah, no prob. We’ve got some other good guys we’re looking into.
Daniels – Alright, no hard feelings?
Mets – Nah, its cool. Take it easy…
The criticism that is reasonable is that the Mets didn’t even interview Daniels. They can’t say that waiting was the problem because getting it right is more important than 2 more weeks. Now, they may say that their many was Alderson, they wanted him all along, and there was no reason to wait. OK, that may be true. But they have to live with the results. If Alderson turns out to be past his prime as a GM and Daniels continues to be successful, then it becomes a bad decision.
All that said, my biggest concern is that the Mets like this deal because it allows them to hire Alderson for a few years, try to fix things, and then hand the reins over to the latest inbred skill-set, Ricco. So, if in 5 years, we end up with Ricco and Daniels is running a perennial contender in Texas, again, it’s on the Wilpons.
You second paragraph here makes no sense. Its just more typical mets gllom and doom type garbage.
You basically make the assumption that the Mets dont care about winning or having thier franchise run properly. Why would the Mets hand the job over to Ricco if they didnt really think he’d do a good job? I just dont get this type of thinking.
M, you’re making that assumption, not me. I make the conclusion that they don’t know how to win and that they have a history of churning through bad GMs that come from the same inbred group of GMs that were never any good. Sure, the Wilpons think they’re good choices, but reality says otherwise.
So, they finally step out, they finally get someone to cure the mess, but they go for the older guy and — unfortunately — have another one of the inbred incompetents involved in the search and — you better believe — staying on with a major role once Alderson gets in place.
So they just can’t let go of the incompetence. They thought Harazin was talented, they thought McIlvane and Philips were, and Duquette, and Minaya. All guys in the front office of the mets before they became GM. All bad or at best successful for a short period (Philips). And even now they seem to have another one in mind, the architect of the Franceour trade — Ricco.
“inbred incompetents”, you know nothing about the guy, yet you call him that?
Lie I said, I just dont get the attitude some fans such as yourself have.
I understand that you don’t get the attidude. That’s why it had to be explained to you.
And you don’t get the notion of inbred, meaning yet another guy from the dysfunctional in-house group, and incompetent, meaning not good at his job?
Which are you saying by the way, to the extent you’re saying anything: that Ricco is not incompetent, or that Harazin, Philips, Minaya, Duquette and McIlvane are not?
Or are you saying that you just don’t know, but you like to announce how you don’t get people who’ve actually formed opinions based on past evidence?
I ask because, frankly, I don’t get you. I don’t see any thought or consideration of the past entering into anything you write. Just references to “some fans” and assumptions about not caring that no one esle could reasonably make from what you read.
What, pray tell was wrong with the Franceour trade itself? Is Ryan Church tearing up the league or something? Frenchy was wrongly used, theres nothing that Ricco in his role could have done about it. Bitching about Ricco’s possible guilt-by-association is non-productive as he is not making any real decisions and by the time he is in a position to make decisions, he will have a far different track record to judge him by.
Shamik, I can’t begin to list the number of things in you post that undermine Ricco, so let’s just go with the obvious. Last year, and to some extent this year, there was an increase in Ricco’s exposure to the press, both in his talking to the press and in the Mets folks talking about him. One of those things was last year when it was repeatedly reported that the Franceour trade was Ricco’s suggestion. I’m sure some here remember that. It was odd that this would somehow hit the news, but to me it seemed that it was the Mets insiders once again paving the way for one of the inside guys who somehow was impressing the Wilpons with his skill set. That seemed to be proved out when this year the Wilpons gave Ricco more and more exposure to the media, sometimes having him be the guy to take questions. In any event, the Franceour trade turned out to be just silly. Nothing brilliant, at best run of the mill, at worst bad. But that’s his resume. That’s what was important enough to raise to the media, and it’s a nothing. And your claim that Franceour was used wrong is just weird — what wrong way was that — putting him up to the plate? And if you’re point is that he should only be used in limited situations, that he can only succeed in certain limited situations, well then that only underscores what a mundane, unimportant trade it is that leads up Ricco’s resume.
As to your claim that he makes no decisions, has no power, hasn’t done anything to be judged on, well, are you sure that isn’t my point? In fact, that’s the best that can be said about him? I mean, the other thing that can be said is that he’s risen in the Wilpon’s eyes while the organization has made bad decision after bad decision about in minor league and major league personnel. What’s he been doing? Sitting around having no involvement in it?
If he’s had involvement, he ain’t very good. If he hasn’t, well he has no track record to be thought of in the way the Wilpons have clearly and often leaked to the press. Either way, it has the smell of the same sort of skill set rise to power that has happened time and again with the Wilpons.
Trust me, I wouldn’t be seeing this and writing this if it weren’t for the history, if it weren’t for Harazin and McIlvane and Philips and Duquette and Minaya and so on. It’s not an unimpressive list of bad GM decisions.
Look, if the Wilpons had done this completely, if they’d gone out and separated themselves completely from the incompetence in their baseball organization and hired a guy to completely clean house, a guy with a good track record, I’d be without this kind of concern. But they couldn’t do that completely. They’ve gone halfway. They got a guy with a track record, but they got an old one and they put their latest skill-set find right in the middle of it and are asking the new GM not to clean house but to keep him and seemingly groom him. That’s reason for concern.
P.s., Shamik, as if on cue, the Daily News is running an article this morning on Ricco, on how the Alderson hiring is good for him, just as I suspected. It’s loaded with quotes from “people who know him” on how he’d be a great GM. Really, what evidence is there of that, and who are these people who see that evidence?
Let me give you some perspective on that. What if the Mets in their GM search went out and interviewed and were high on a guy who was young and whose resume included 4 years or so of being inside a baseball organization that was completely tanking during that time. What would your reaction be? — why are they doing that, what good could he have been doing, and if he’s not responsible at least partly for the tanking organization, what could he have been doing at all. That’s what your thinking would be.
So, now, after we’ve had our discussion, the press is reporting that the Alderson move was good for Ricco’s future, quote people who won’t go on the record about how he reminds them of Daniels (the guy the Mets wouldn’t even interview). Lovely.
We have until the 31st to resign our current free agents, so waiting on a gm wasn’t really an option.
I’m pretty sure that if Daniels continues to be successful and Alderson retires in 4 years, the need to make a decision on whether to resign Takahashi would look absurd 4 years from now as the basis for not even talking to Daniels.
Another vote for don’t care (who is right).
Its unknowable if Daniels had any real interest in the job, only that all the obvious facts relating specifically to Daniels would make any normal person at least pause, if not pass entirely.
Alderson is by almost all on the record opinions a good thing for the Mets. Certainly reading about things he actually said backups the idea that he is a clear thinking and smart fella with strong convictions. That he’s got Harvard Law and Vietnam on the CV speak to some other traits about the man that certainly can’t hurt (if you want to argue they can’t help either, go for it).
This is by any measurable and knowable piece of information a good thing for the Mets. And I would quit worrying about his age and assumptions around its effect on his tenure with the Mets. Daniels or some other candidate being younger doesn’t in any way give greater assurance of a longer lasting and stable structure for the organization.
That a badass Harvard Law grad marine who believes in the power of analytics and has built up two successful programs in two different decades garnering the respect of seemingly everyone in baseball along the way is now (allegedly) helming the Mets is an awesome thing.
Daniels has a nice rep.l but it is not like he has already put together a perpetual winner.
Say they had stumbled just a little, and the Angels got red hot, and the Rangers missed the playoffs. Or they went out in 3 to the Rays in round 1.
would everyone still be pining so hard for Daniels?
It is hard to be upset about jumping on ALderson. Now, if they had rushed to hire Baird, or even Byrnes, instead of waiting, it would be a different discussion.
Agreed…. Daniels is like the flavor of the month. Its similar to how each year in the NFL, everyone who needs a new coach clamors over the “hot shot co-ordinator” from some team on a good offenive/defensive run that year. Like Rex, or Steve Spags from the Giants.
Sometimes this is good like in the case of Rex or Spags who seem to be doing well, but prob more often the experiment just goes down in flames, like how Jason Garrett who 2 years ago had al kinds of offers, probably couldnt sniff a head coaching offer now, or Josh McDaniels in Devner, or even Mangini as Jets coach.
Sure there is always the lure of the fresh blood, the hot shot young guy to come in, but theres also guys like Bill Cowher and John Gruden out there, who command respect and have proven they will get the job done.
IMO, to stay with the comparison, we just hired Bill Cowher, as opposed to Rex Ryan or Steve Spagnuolo.
Well, if Bill Cowher were 62 and you made sure that he took your your assistant head coach who came from the same system of bad head coaches that you’ve been chosing for the last 20 years, then, yeah, you’d be getting warmer. Not sure what flavor that is, but it doesn’t smell as good as you seem to think.