Sandy Alderson believes perception of Mets is better
Mets team president Sandy Alderson speaks to reporters before a game against the Marlins at Citi Field on Sept. 29, 2021. Credit: Jim McIsaac
When Sandy Alderson stepped down as Mets general manager in 2018, the franchise was mired in dysfunction.
It hadn’t lived up to the promise of 2015, Mickey Callaway was proving to be a failed experiment, and social media had taken to chronicling all of the club’s many foibles under the hashtag #lolmets.
To be a Met was to be subject to misfortune both mundane and bizarre, and Alderson, the serious military man with the Ivy League degree, bristled at the perception. So he came back in 2020, this time under new owner Steve Cohen, intent on making the Mets more than a punchline.
It’s been two years since then, and as Alderson prepares to leave his role as team president, he said he is pleased with the strides the franchise has made.
“What I hope we would accomplish as an organization is a transformation of the perception of the Mets as we go forward under new ownership, and I think that’s largely been accomplished,” Alderson said Friday, a day after the announcement. “It doesn’t mean that it’ll be sustained, but I do believe the image of the Mets is different today than it was roughly two years ago. I think we’re all very proud of that. But the challenge is to continue in that direction and sustain it over a period of time, and I’m confident that will happen.”
Alderson’s time as team president always had a deadline, and Thursday’s announcement wasn’t a surprise. He’ll remain in the position as the Mets search for a new president, he said, something that could take “six weeks or six months,” and added he is confident that they will have someone in place by next season.
Alderson, 74, who will stay on as an adviser to Cohen, will be involved in the search for his successor until then, he said, though not until the latter stages of the process. The new team president won’t necessarily have a greater hand in team operations, Alderson said, something that now falls under general manager Billy Eppler’s purview.
Alderson also indicated that this will mark his transition out of baseball.
“My time is running a little short professionally,” he said. “I haven’t been on summer vacation in 40 years. I’ve never been to Yosemite [while] living in California for 25 years. It’s somewhat telling. Not that I have a strong desire to go to Yosemite.”
He said Cohen and the Mets will look for a candidate who will continue the work of changing the culture within the organization — one that often languished under the Wilpons.
For Alderson, who worked more on the business side of the operation, that meant fostering things like Old-Timers’ Day, which the Mets held this year for the first time since 1994. They’ve also been more proactive about retiring numbers and introduced the Tom Seaver statue in front of Citi Field.
For some, these changes have little to do with whether a team is successful on the field, but it’s clear Alderson and Cohen believe they’re pivotal in shaping how things are run.
“I think they see a team that has stepped up in a variety of ways in terms of investment, both in the product on the field as well as the organization itself and how it relates to the fans,” Alderson said of the outside perception now. “Look, it’s not perfect by any means, but I do think there’s this point in time at which the Mets are far more respected than they have been in recent years.”
It helps that they’ve barely left first place this season. But they’ve also cut down on the number of off-the-field gaffes (there have been zero instances of Mr. Met directing an obscene gesture toward fans this year, as he did in 2017).
“We’ve limited the forced errors,” Alderson said, adding that he was reminded of what he once said when he was the baseball executive in charge of umpires.
There are two ways the outside world perceives mistakes, he recalled telling them then. “One is that you always screw up. You’re terrible. This is always what happens. This is because you’re not any good,” he said.
“Or alternatively, the perception is that wow, they’re the best in the world and everybody makes a mistake . . .
“So in a sense, for the Mets, we’re going to have those [mistakes] that occur, but we want the response to be in the broader context of excellence.”
It’s still a work in progress, but in Alderson’s eyes, they’ve gotten close enough for him to finally hang it up.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
