Zack Scott deserves promotion to Mets GM

It was typical Metsian luck, the way the team made well-reasoned choices for manager and general manager, only to see their promising hires chased from the game by personal scandals.

But in an unusually fortunate twist for the franchise, the emergency replacements for Carlos Beltran and Jared Porter have quickly come into their own.

Luis Rojas’ emergence as a potential star and leading candidate to win National League manager of the year is well-documented and obvious. But it’s also time to give acting GM Zack Scott his due, and to urge Sandy Alderson and Steve Cohen to remove the qualifier and make him the Mets’ permanent general manager.

According to two high-level sources, the team’s leadership is yet to make any decisions about Scott, Rojas or the front office structure beyond this season. This will actually be an interesting space to watch after this year, but according to one low-level opinion (mine!), both have already earned more security.

We’ll focus today on Scott. Alderson initially passed on him to run baseball operations in part because of Porter’s reputation as an executive who valued old-school scouting as much as analytics. 

More than anyone else in the game, Alderson is responsible for the proliferation of data and analysis in front offices, but in returning to the Mets, he felt the need for recalibration and balance. Porter offered that human edge, whereas Scott was known as an analytics whiz.

Scott’s reputation was probably reductive. No less an authority than Boston manager Alex Cora, who merges data and feel as well as any manager, had long been a huge fan of Scott, believing him easy to relate to and in no way an office geek. The two formed a close relationship while working together for the Red Sox.

Some Sox scouts felt otherwise over the years, and when Scott took over the Mets after Porter’s resignation, the team was curious about his ability to relate to people.

The early reviews on that front have been overwhelmingly positive. Many players find Scott both personable and accessible, while retaining the confidence to stand up for what he believes. Scott’s working relationship with Rojas has quickly become strong.

Perhaps even more importantly, Scott has proven himself an essential complement to Alderson’s pace and style. He is better than Alderson at making quick roster moves, scouting waiver wires, and acquiring, evaluating, and even releasing players in a hurry.

As general manager, Alderson operated at a deliberate speed. This enabled rational behavior and strong process, but could also cost him opportunities to improve the fringes of a roster.

Surrounded by Paul DePodesta, J.P. Ricciardi and other executives from an earlier generation, he also lacked strong personal ties with the group of execs in their thirties and forties now running the game.

Porter was hired as the connector between Alderson and that generation, but could not hold the job due to revelations of inappropriate conduct. Scott is now thriving in that role, as evidenced by the roster churn that kept the Mets in first place when it seemed the entire team was injured.

Since the beginning of the season, his internal profile has grown. Alderson personally handled negotiations with free agents George Springer, Trevor Bauer, Jackie Bradley Jr., Brad Hand and others. He and Cohen ran the Francisco Lindor extension talks together.

After that, Alderson took a half-step back, as he’d planned to do when Porter took over. Now he entrusts Scott to run much more of the baseball operations.

That includes overseeing an on-the-fly overhaul and expansion of the team’s internal evaluation processes. With a rolling process of analytics, research and development hires, the Mets have more information than ever on their own players. This helps to determine when to stick with a slumping player and when to cut bait.

After taking over in an emergency, Scott has calmly steered the decimated Mets into first place with the All-Star break approaching. A promotion does not appear imminent -- but from where we sit, it should be.