Almost immediately, potential candidates began gossiping about whether they wanted that type of pressure. Let’s say you are an assistant GM with a stable organization. Your salary is lower than it would be as Mets GM, but you’ll probably be able to collect it for many more years.

Your kids are in school. Your house is bigger than it would be in New Jersey or Connecticut. Your owner isn’t talking about World Series timelines, and you’ll keep your job if the team finishes in third place for the next half-decade.

It’s hard to judge anyone’s personal decision without knowing all factors. It’s hard to say that Chris Young should have taken the job with the venerable Alderson rather than the Texas Rangers, even though the Mets job seems more promising. We weren’t in Young’s house when he had the conversation weighing the pros and cons with his wife and kids.

But the others who might have declined to interview or who made clear through back channels that it wasn’t worth inquiring? Not one of you has just wanted to say screw it, I’ll take a leap?

As you might know if you listen to bad radio or read bad websites, I reported on this reluctance last week on Baseball Night in New York. A moment of our discussion was clipped and tweeted, capturing slightly inelegant phrasing that left the impression that I agreed with this overly cautious outlook (I do not, but my opinion isn’t relevant to this reporting anyway).

Winning the World Series is of course the end result of an intelligent process, but it’s not how most front offices frame their goals. That’s just a fact.

But the focus on process, on an institutional level, can easily become a ruse by which executives sell mediocrity to owners and fan bases. Sure, the big league team is unwatchable (not that ticket prices or concessions are any cheaper), but have you seen the arms we have in Double-A?

MLB executives can coast for years on this type of nonsense. Cohen and Alderson are looking for someone better. Someone who accepts that he or she might bring a championship to Queens for the first time since 1986 -- and also might fail and be out of a job, because that’s the way it goes sometimes. Someone who bets on themselves and deals with the fallout later.

There are plenty of strong candidates still in the mix for the Mets’ gig. Perhaps a young exec from the Arizona Diamondbacks, like Amiel Sawdaye or Jared Porter, will impress Alderson and then want to take the leap. Or maybe Alderson hits it off with a respected mid-career veteran like Josh Byrnes. Can you imagine having the opportunity to grow under Alderson and then potentially inherit the Mets in a few years? That’s what he’s offering.

Whoever ends up taking the job will need guts and drive. He or she will be expected to achieve what many organizations consider irrational.

It’s Cohen’s right as a boss to set that goal, and it’s any executive's right to take a pass on it. It won’t always be fun to live under the weight of these expectations.

But as Cohen himself tweeted in response to our initial report on this, “Who wants them if we’re not setting high goals.”

Saddle up, MLB execs. One of you must want to take this ride and see where it goes. Why not shake up the industry a bit? You only live once.

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