Mets owner Steve Cohen remains interested in hiring a "big-name" president of baseball operations to work above the general manager position, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic.

The Mets' initial plan last offseason was to hire that president of baseball operations to work under team president Sandy Alderson and above the GM, but they had trouble locking in their top targets.

Eventually, they filled the GM role with Jared Porter -- who was later fired for sending explicit unsolicited text messages while working for the Chicago Cubs -- and replaced him with Zack Scott, who was initially hired to work under Porter and has been working all season with an interim GM tag.

Part of the trouble the Mets had attracting a top executive last offseason, according to The Athletic, had to do with the fact that lots of top execs are hesitant to relocate.

Teams also have the ability to often deny interested teams permission to interview executives who are under contract -- even if the role they would be interviewing for would be a step up.

As far as who the Mets could consider for the top executive role, the report floats the name of Theo Epstein, who led the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs to World Series titles before taking a job at the commissioner's office this offseason.

Rosenthal suggests that Epstein could theoretically be interested in a job with the Mets if he was offered an ownership stake and total control of baseball operations.

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