NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — The sale of the New York Mets to hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen closed Friday afternoon and he wasted no time stamping his mark on the team.
Less than an hour after Cohen completed the purchase of the franchise, it was announced the Brodie Van Wagenen was out as general manager, along with several other key members of the Mets front office, including his top lieutenants — Allard Baird and Adam Guttridge, and Jared Banner, who was in charge of player development.
The announcement by the team also revealed former Mets general manager Sandy Alderson has taken over as team president.
Meanwhile, the departure of Omar Minaya, special Assistant to the general manager, seemed to come as a bit of a surprise.
"We knew that Omar was close to the Wilpon family, but we also learned that Omar was pretty tight with the new owner, Steve Cohen, as well," Mets radio play-by-play announcer Wayne Randazzo told WCBS 880's Michael Wallace. "So a little bit surprising to see Omar leaving but Sandy Alderson has the reigns and wants the people that he wants in there to head baseball operation."
As to who that might be remains to be seen.
Randazzo notes with Alderson now in charge of running the whole organization, including the business side of things, he'll need a general manager and likely a president of baseball operations.
The Mets radio broadcaster said he wouldn't be surprised if Alderson has a long list of people that he has his eyes on given that he's been around the game for decades.
"A name that comes to mind is David Stearns, who's been the GM of the Milwaukee Brewers. You know, Mike Chernoff is a name that might end up being a part of this. He's been in Cleveland for a long time working under Mark Shapiro and what's been a successful organization there," Randazzo said. "A couple of other names that fans might not be as aware of including a guy named Bobby Heck who's been involved with both the Astros and the Rays. So there are some names that have started to swirl around and I'm sure Sandy won't waste too much more time in terms of finding the right fit for those jobs because free agency has technically already started and things are going to move soon."
As for manager Luis Rojas, it's still unclear what his future holds. During his years managing the Mets minor league system Rojas developed a relationship with Alderson, who was general manager of the Mets.
But will that connection be enough to keep him on?
"It was in Luis' best interest that Sandy Alderson got the job as the team president... and I think it was really the best thing for Luis as far as being to keep his job as manager to have Sandy come back. Doesn't mean he's going to," Randazzo said. "If Sandy thinks there's a better fit to manage the team, then it might be just one and done for Luis. But it's really hard to judge Luis Rojas as a major league manager after one very unusual season at the helm and only 60 games. So even though the Mets kind of had a rough year, it remains to be seen if Luis is really fit for that job or not."
Another question on the minds of many fans is will the arrival of Cohen mean more spending? To that, Randazzo said it should.
"You're talking about the richest owner in baseball, really, three times over. He's richer than the next three richest owners in the sport combined," Randazzo said. "This is a lifelong Mets fan, a guy who grew up on Long Island, who really cares about the team and cares about winning, but winning doesn't always translate in terms of spending money. You have to spend it the right way."
And Alderson could help with that.
"It seems like Sandy, maybe the one thing he lacked as Mets GM before was an open bank book, and now that he'll have some of that you'd think that this is all going to move in the right direction for the Mets," Randazzo said. "I would think Steve Cohen's number one goal coming in is to not only win a World Series but win one as quickly as possible. And with the rest of baseball kind of pinching pennies and holding their coins closer than usual because of the fallout of the pandemic, this would be a good time for a guy to come in with more money than anybody to begin with and throw some dollars around and try to rebuild an organization that is really close to winning anyway. This is a team that has a lot of talent to begin with and if they can shore some things up and quickly put a winner on the field, I don't think it's out of line to say at all that the Mets could very seriously contend in 2021."