The latest mailbag from Tim Britton and Will Sammon had this:
Please speak about the differences in job duties (not just title) between the job that David Stearns occupies, compared to the job of a “General Manager.” — Anonymous
TB: For teams that employ a president of baseball operations, that person essentially performs the role we all grew up calling “general manager.” And if that team has a GM under a president of baseball operations, that GM is essentially serving as an assistant general manager. It’s all the result of title inflation intended to prevent teams (like the Mets) from poaching their execs.
For instance, in the offseason, the PBO would handle the major decisions while a GM would remain on top of negotiations for, say, minor-league free agents and filling out the organizational depth chart.
Source: The Athletic
Here’s what I said most recently, in a comment on Charlie’s article:
And it doesn’t mean that I believe Stearns has nothing to give the Mets. At the end of the day, we’re discussing semantics here.
Essentially, they will hire Stearns to replace Eppler as GM and Eppler replaces Bryn Alderson as the third assistant GM. But Eppler gets to keep his title and Stearns is hired at a title where he can get more money. Woo-hoo, I guess.
What would a Steve Cohen – David Stearns relationship look like?
Back in 2021, I used the same exact phrase – “title inflation,” that Britton used in his response:
For all things holy, if you must insert a third person into the two-person manager/GM roles, hire a PR professional to talk to the press before and after the games. Sure, we’re not operating under a Wilpon budget anymore, but it’s got to be less expensive and more efficient to hire someone from 5W Public Relations to speak to the press before and after the games than to pay Epstein, Beane or Stearns to be a GM with a job title inflation to work above someone with the actual GM title.
I was called a Neanderthal for my views on a PoBO. Does that mean Britton is a Neanderthal, too?
I’d hazard a guess with pretty much 100% certainty that Britton has not been in on a single conversation between Stearns and Cohen. Thus his statement carries virtually no value in “reality” currency. What exactly will Stearn’s portfolio be? Im betting money we here in bloviating land will never know. What we do know is that from day 1, Cohen, who owns the team, very much wanted someone whose responsibilities exceeded what GMs do. I dont have a clue what why our how that entails, but that was clear. Whether you or I or Tim Britton likes it or not is 100% irrelevant as we are not stakeholders in this structure.
I’ll add one other thing from the good ol days. As recently as 20 years ago, the Mets were worth approximately 500 M$ as a franchise. Today that has risen 600% to near 3 B$. It only gets to be greater every year earlier. When that kind of money is at stake, when the enterprise is voluminously larger, when every decision matters terrifically, its hardly a surprise that the owner would want to have whatever management structure they deem necessary to manage such an investment.
Hindsight is always 20/20. Eppler made his decisions and some if them were bad. To me the most obvious was building 40% of what you really needed for the bullpen and then one injury to Diaz left it a complete mess. I agree with the sell off and I think Eppler did a decent job with that.
Stearns has his hands full on the biggest stage. There are many moves to be made on the roster. I always like change unless it is a Dykstra and McDowell deal for Juan Samuel. There is no guarantee for success as a GM, ugh I mean PoBO. If I were a Brewers fan, I would have choked for what they got for Hader. That was a big mistake.
Stearns is a New York boy and this is his dream job. I am, for better or worse, looking forward to what he creates. I do expect to see improvement in the roster and improvement on the field.
Let’s see how it shakes out.
I don’t recall the use of neanderthal, but why should we fans care about the title inflation and/or task breakdown? At the end of the day, there is an owner, a top dog suit regardless of title, and suits below the top dog suit. If it’s Stearns-Eppler, Stearns-Ng, Stearns-fill in the blank, it’s Stearns-. The owner figured Stearns>Eppler. Does anyone think Eppler left over IL violations?
The party line was that Eppler was willing to work under Stearns.
It’s fair to ask if after realizing he wasn’t going to be some quasi co-GM with Stearns having final say but rather an assistant GM that Eppler took advantage of this IL kerfuffle to bow out.
No one was beating down Eppler’s door to hire him after his Angels tenure. Did his reputation recover enough with the Mets’ 101-win season to merit another GM gig? Maybe he’s gambling that big year, combined with his ability to get star Japanese players to sign, means that another team will hand him the keys to run things again.
It’s all speculation at this point. I wish Eppler well. And it will be curious to see what type of urgency the Mets will have to fill his spot, regardless of which phrase we use to describe it. My opinion is that the urgency/quickness that they fill the role will give an indication of how important it is. If they bring someone in before the Winter Meetings, it will mean one thing. If they wait until 2024, well that likely means something else.
One thing that occurred to me is that the Mets quickly gave Ben Zauzmer a promotion to assistant GM because they were worried that some other team was going to poach him. Do they feel like Zauzmer needs another promotion?
Eppler would have come in handy as the Mets will try to sign Japanese players this Winter. Way too much turnover in the front office over the last 5 years – Brody-Sandy-Jared-Zach-Billy- now David.
Sandy Alderson had different GMs and I always viewed Alderson the way we talk about Stearns – he’s the one in charge. Not sure why Eppler could not stay and wonder how relevant the IL manipulation issue would have hurt him or the team. If every GM made good trades all the time, then there would not be a half dozen GMs looking for work who will soon be hired in the same capacity by a team that just dumped theirs. Can’t wait for the off-season and the October 31 expiration of who I think will end up being the next manager – or do we have to first wait for a new GM – or did we decide that position is just an over-titled admin person?