Former Mets acting GM Zack Scott sets up as consultant
Former acting general manager of the Mets Zack Scott is seen at Citi Field during his tenure with the club. Credit: Jim McIsaac
PHOENIX — Years before joining the Mets was even a thought, Zack Scott began to wonder what was next, having spent the better part of two decades with the Red Sox and ascending from intern to assistant general manager while the franchise rattled off four World Series championships. He aspired to be a GM, of course, but those opportunities are rare. He had yet to be considered for one. And he had developed this entrepreneurial urge.
“I always kind of had this dream in the back of my mind,” Scott said, “of starting something on my own.”
That was the seed that, this week, sprouted into Four Rings Sports Solutions, a consultant firm through which Scott is planning to work with all sorts of teams — professional or collegiate, baseball or otherwise — in this next chapter of his career, complete with a glowing testimonial from Mets president Sandy Alderson.
After serving as the Mets’ acting GM last season, Scott said he had opportunities — “and pretty good opportunities” — to join other clubs in upper-level baseball executive roles, which he hasn’t ruled out in the future. But he also learned there is interest in the industry in a company like Four Rings, named after his gaudy souvenirs from those Boston titles.
“If I was going to do something on my own, this was the time to pursue it,” he said in a phone interview Friday, a day after the public launch. “I got the feedback that these are the types of things that owners and high-level executives are looking for ways to try to accelerate what they’re trying to do, especially if it’s a new initiative. They want to reach out to someone who has some experience in starting from scratch in certain areas.”
Scott came up on an analytics track, so he expects that naturally much of the expertise he lends will be in that realm, which touches every corner of a modern baseball operations department. But he also is offering to evaluate teams’ workflows and processes, assist or lead hiring searches/talent acquisition, and review “culture design,” the sort of tone an organization sets for its employees.
Before officially announcing the new endeavor, Scott consulted with one major-league club, he said. He also has heard from football, hockey and soccer teams, and he hopes to focus much of his efforts on non-baseball sports.
“The fact that that happened without me even putting things out there is good,” he said. “Obviously, baseball is still something I love and comes easier to me, being able to speak the same language. But what I’m doing applies across sports.”
Scott’s run with the Mets was a whirlwind 11 months. After being a finalist for the GM job, he instead joined in December 2020 as an assistant GM with a focus on analytics and player development. Weeks later, when Jared Porter was fired, Scott became the acting GM. In September, they put him on administrative leave following his arrest on a drunken driving charge, and in November they fired him before his case was resolved. He was found not guilty in January.
In his recommendation on Four Rings’ website, Alderson said that Scott “did an excellent job for us.” Former Red Sox and Cubs boss Theo Epstein, current Boston chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom and others also offered endorsements.
“He modernized our baseball operation through a large-scale expansion of [research and development] and an infusion of innovative thinkers into various departments,” Alderson wrote. “He hired talented leaders and created a collaborative culture, empowering people to voice their opinions and participate in healthy debate. He welcomed traditional and novel perspectives, genuinely listened to them, and then distilled the vast information into good decisions.”
Scott said: “It means a lot coming from him. I really enjoyed working with Sandy, have a lot of respect for him and felt like we worked well together.”
He characterized his Mets tenure as “a very rich growing experience” — one that brought his family to Westchester, where they happily remain.
“In some sense, there’s only so much you can accomplish [in less than a year], but I felt like in that time we accomplished a lot,” he said, citing the hiring of analytics head Ben Zauzmer and player development leader Kevin Howard. “I was very happy with a lot of the new people we brought in, a lot of the programs and systems we put in place. Obviously, it was still a work in progress when I left, but I thought we did do a lot to get the Mets on the right path under the hood. So I’m proud of that.”
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
