If Carlos Beltran had to go for stealing signs outside of last season, then Jared Porter has to go now if the facts in the ESPN story are true and the new 2016 Mets GM sent an unsolicited text message with naughty tones.
Beltran committed a baseball crime and never reached the first day of opening as a manager. This would be a crime against decency, power dynamics and common sense by someone who would exercise much more organizational power than Beltran would.
The bomb that turned the good momentum of the Steve Cohen administration into a free fall Wilpon-esque came late Monday night. The ESPN story, which protected the foreign correspondent’s anonymity, detailed a period when Porter was the Cubs director of professional research in 2016, in which he unleashed a barrage of texts on the reporter, who was new to both the United States and in MLB. . The flow of texts that lasted for months included attempts to meet away from the stadium and pictures of a man wearing pants with a swelling in the groin area and also an empty, erect penis.
ESPN presented screenshots of some of the texts and images 60 times that had a relentless tone for them. Porter did not respond to a request from The Post for comment. In the ESPN story, he initially said that he never sent pictures, but when he was told that there were selfies, he told ESPN: “The most explicit ones are not mine. These are like jokes. ”
In part of his statement, Mets team president Sandy Alderson said: “I spoke directly with Jared Porter about the events that took place in 2016 and about which we were informed tonight for the first time. Jared acknowledged my serious misconduct, took responsibility for his behavior, expressed remorse and apologized for his actions.
Alderson concluded, “We will follow up as we analyze the facts of this serious matter.”
But there really can’t be much to do here. If Porter told Alderson that these are indeed his texts and images, then he can no longer be the general manager of the Mets.
Beltran was fired as a manager almost exactly a year ago, a few days after he was the only player named in the commissioner’s report on the illegal theft of Astros signs. The Mets decided it was impossible to continue with a manager they assumed would be overwhelmed all year with questions about, among other things, his integrity.
So how can the Mets move on with Porter if these allegations turn out to be true? Not during this time. Not for this organization. Not if you read text messages.
You can say that this is a new regime, not the one that was in charge last year during the Beltran disaster.
But this new regime is led by Cohen, who faced his own “I too” accusations at his company Point72 Asset Management; accusations that were part of some owners ‘concern about Cohen’s approval of the Mets’ purchase, which eventually passed.
Cohen hired Alderson, in part because of Alderson’s sterling reputation for fairness. He was going to be the guy who helped clean up Cohen’s image. Except for the moment, Alderson’s first major hiring made it feel like the owner had changed, but the Mets didn’t. They couldn’t find anyone to serve as president of baseball operations, despite the promise of all of Cohen’s dollars to change the franchise’s tenor. So the Mets pivoted to hire just one GM, and after a search, Alderson landed Porter, 41, on Dec. 13.
We have to assume that the Mets asked Porter if there was anything in his past that could cause trouble or embarrassment. Alderson said in his statement that the Mets found out about these alleged violations on Monday. Thus, we can assume that Porter told the Mets that nothing is wrong. But Porter knew that his behavior with the woman (who left journalism) was wrong because the texts show attempts to apologize.
Should the Mets have known about this by examining Porter? This is difficult to fix on them. Porter left the Cubs after the 2016 championship to become assistant general manager of Diamondbacks and this did not come there. Porter had interviewed for a multitude of GM positions, finishing as the second job for the Angels before finally landing with the Mets. He had a good reputation in this sport, being friendly, hardworking and fanatical when it came to gathering information about players.
But the Mets know what they have in front of them now. If Porter told them, yes, these are my texts and, yes, I sent those pictures, then how does an organization that wants to shout that it’s a new day remember it?
Cohen insisted that integrity will be key to the Mets business he owns. These can’t just be words designed now to clean up an image. He is facing the first crisis of a property that has been floating benevolently for almost three months for Cohen’s willingness to spend money on players and participate in light-hearted fights via Twitter.
But this issue cannot be spent or rejected with a wise tweet. No, if these statements detailed in the ESPN story are true, then Cohen and Alderson have only one choice.