Mets president Sandy Alderson has been active on Wednesday and Thursday requesting permission on a new batch of potential general manager candidates, according to multiple league officials in touch with Alderson.
Once those meetings are scheduled, owner Steve Cohen typically conducts a brief introductory interview, and if the parties want to proceed, Alderson would then interview the candidate as well.
Alderson and Cohen are in close contact during this process, speaking by phone as often as four or five times per day.
By all accounts, the two are in agreement on a strong belief their baseball operations department has made significant strides this year, and can handle an offseason on its own if the right fit fails to immediately materialize. It’s not impossible that the Mets could wait a year or two for a David Stearns or Brian Cashman to become available.
Cohen and Alderson have been particularly impressed internally by Ben Zauzmer, an analytics hire from the Los Angeles Dodgers; Tommy Tanous, the longtime amateur scouting director; and Zack Scott, the acting GM who is on administrative leave and in legal and job limbo because of an arrest on suspicion of DUI.
Still, Alderson continues to actively seek a new general manager or, if title inflation is necessary to obtain permission to interview a rival GM, a president of baseball operations.
The more well-known names bandied about -- a group that includes Brian Sabean, Jeff Luhnow and Michael Hill -- are not currently under consideration, according to sources. The requests that Alderson is making as we speak are generally of other front offices’ second or third in command.
On the one hand, Alderson would like to recommend a hire to Cohen because he has no interest in running baseball operations. Before Scott’s arrest, Alderson stepped aside and delegated to Scott.
