New York Mets COO Jeff Wilpon held a conference call today to update reporters on the progress of their GM search.
They still plan to have a new general manager in place by the end of the World Series, but that depending on circumstances it’s flexible.
So far they have met with former Kansas City Royals GM Allard Baird on Monday, Chicago White Sox assistant GM Rick Hahn on Tuesday and former Arizona Diamondbacks GM Josh Byrnes on Wednesday. Tomorrow they will meet with Sandy Alderson, and Logan White will be interviewed on Friday.
One thing was made very clear by Jeff during the call is that despite the rumors that some candidates were being interviewed for positions other than GM, “it’s not true”.
Another myth that was dispelled was that they may hire someone to be team president in addition to hiring a GM, also not true.
“My uncle Saul Katz would be unhappy giving up his title.”
Wilpon has called the interviews productive and is extremely happy with what he has seen.
Finally, the 200 or so tweets, rumors and the like about which managers they are leaning towards, pay no attention to them. Both Wilpon and Ricco stated that they “have not even discussed any managers and will not until they have a GM in place first”.
“Once we hire the new GM, then we’ll turn our attention to the new manager,” Ricco said. “But to this point we have not reached out to any managerial candidates.”
Lot’s of good information from Jeff and John and it was nice to see them get on the phone and clear some things up.
