Over the past few weeks rumors have been flying around about the New York Mets’ current opening for their President of Baseball Operations.

Oakland Athletics Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations Billy Beane is one of the names that has been thrown around a ton. With his strong connection to Mets Team President Sandy Alderson, Beane was said to be one of the favorites for the opening.

Beane finally had the chance to address those rumors at the Athletics end of the year media session on Monday afternoon.

“I’ve been around long enough, I’ll take it as a compliment that this has been, with a lot of our staff, an annual thing. This is the time of year, I don’t even respond to newspaper articles. There’s no need to respond to those, I’d be here all day, I think,” Beane said.

When asked if the Mets have requested permission to interview him yet, Beane didn’t exactly say no, saying he “wouldn’t even know.”

He added, “this has happened throughout my career. It’s a credit to the organization and a reflection of its success. It’s all speculation. Normally, the process would involve them calling the owner, which has happened in the past. For me to be worried about this is really to lend credibility to it. It’s all just press reports.”

Beane has connections to both Alderson and Mets owner Steve Cohen. He was also drafted by the Mets as a very highly touted prospect in the first round of the 1980 MLB Draft, though he never ended up panning out.

It has been reported that in addition to Beane, the Mets’ shortlist of candidates includes Milwaukee Brewers President of Baseball Operations David Stearns and former Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs executive, Theo Epstein.

As Jon Heyman of MLB Network noted this weekend, the Mets are expected to reach out to Epstein about the opening soon, and they plan on requesting permission to interview both Beane and Stearns as well.

With the Athletics eliminated, the Mets can request permission to interview Beane whenever. On the other hand, they’ll have to wait for the Brewers to be eliminated from the playoffs to seek out permission to talk to Stearns.

This is certainly going to be one of the more interesting storylines to watch over the next few months. Adding a proven and well-known executive certainly seems to be one of Cohen and company’s top priorities this offseason.