One Door Closes...Another One Opens Up In Mets GM Search(?)

As we scribed here yesterday, my first choice for Mets GM, Kevin Towers, was hired by the Arizona Diamondbacks. As I stated:

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"Towers would have been a good fit for the Mets, but what does it say
about this organization? Towers goes to a team 31 games under .500.
He apparently sees that as a better employment opportunity than a
team that is 3 games under .500. Has Jeff's incompetence run so
rampant throughout Major League Baseball that no one wants to work
here?"

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With Towers signing a two year deal with options, the interim GM for Arizona, former Met player Jerry DiPoto, has decided he won't return to Arizona. This might be a blessing in disguise.

Dipoto, who is only 42, is highly regarded as a person who is a true student of the game and a solid talent evaluator.

Even when he was a player, a pitcher no less, he would talk to players about situations, hitting, and playing. As reported by NY Baseball Digest, former Met 1B Rico Brogna said:


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“We’d go back to the hotel after games, and he’d break down my at-bats,” said Rico Brogna, a Diamondbacks scout who was a teammate of Dipoto’s with the New York Mets in the mid-1990s.

“There were no other relief pitchers doing that in the bullpen. It’s not a love or passion; it’s beyond that. He can’t get enough of it.”

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Dipoto cut his teeth with the Red Sox, and was a part of the building of the teams that won the World Series in 2004 and 2007.

As Matt Pignataro so adequately states, the signings of good ballplayers like: Troy Tulowitzki, Max Scherzer, and Jarrod Parker have been attributed to Dipoto while he was with Colorado and Arizona.

Although the Mets will probably look for more experienced people for the GM job, it might benefit them to consider someone so respected like Dipoto.

As Thomas Harding MLB.com quoted Dipoto back in 2005:

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"I've followed the game passionately since I was a kid. One of the things I
did was watch trends. What makes a team great? What creates
long-term success? The Twins in the early '90s. The Braves in the late '80s
and early '90s. The Mets of the mid-to-late '90s. What they had in
common was a very high-level minor league system and a sound process,
a right way to do things."

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This just might be the type of dedication and passion the Mets need to head up this rebuilding process that we will probably be faced with for the next few years. Whether Dipoto is the right man for the job or not, I don't know. What I do know is that he has certainly earned the right to be considered.