🏅 Kim Ng made history—could it have been with the Mets?

Good morning fellow Mets fans! Welcome to today’s edition of Almost A Met.

Hey, the Mets won some games finally. Our national nightmare is over.

I was at the game on Tuesday and thought they were going to end their losing streak then. They did not.

But for today’s newsletter, we’re starting something new! Almost A Met (GM) Edition.

I took a look into how there has been a lot of suggestions that the Mets hire Kim Ng over the years (including me, all the way back in 2010).

Lets get into it.

Andrew Wyrich

Kim Ng would eventually become a historic member of Major League Baseball.

In November 2020, Ng was hired by the Miami Marlins, becoming the first woman to lead baseball operations for a major sports league in the U.S. She then led the Marlins to a playoff berth in the COVID-shortened 2020 season, and her first full-season playoff berth in 2023, cementing herself as one of the best baseball minds in the game.

But did you know she could have done it for the Mets?

Ng and the Mets have been connected several times. After the 2018 season, the Mets were looking for a new general manager following long-time GM Sandy Alderson’s decision to step down from the role. Alderson, who has been leading the team’s baseball operations since 2010, steered the franchise in a new direction during the Bernie Madoff scandal. The team’s success culminated in back-to-back playoff berths in 2015 and 2016, with one of those being a magical run to the World Series.

But Alderson announced his “leave of absence” in June 2018, which left a three-headed monster of John Ricco, the team’s longtime assistant general manager, Special Assistant J.P. Ricciardi, a former GM himself, and Omar Minaya, the team’s former GM, to run the baseball operations of the team.

While the search for a GM didn’t begin in earnest until the offseason, there was a clear name many in the Mets community wanted the Mets to consider to take over the team’s decision making.

Matthew Cerrone, of MetsBlog (and a Mets community GOAT), floated the idea of the Mets hiring Ng in a July 2018 editorial. Ng, who served as the senior vice president of baseball operations for MLB at the time and grew up in New Jersey, was highly regarded as someone who should be making decisions for a major league team.

“There have yet to be reports about Ng or anyone else who will be considered by Mets ownership, but she should be based on her background, upbringing and experience in baseball,” Cerrone wrote.

(Side note, I advocated for the Mets to hire Ng way back in 2010 amid another GM search, saying “In a perfect world, Ng would be the next Mets GM.” I wrote about it in my “Meet The Mess” Mets column for my college’s newspaper “The New Paltz Oracle.”)

Ng’s credentials in 2018 were clear. Besides working for MLB, she was an Assistant General Manager for the Yankees, Vice President and Assistant GM for the Dodgers, and had interviewed to be the GM of the Arizona Diamondbacks, Minnesota Twins, Seattle Mariners, San Diego Padres, Milwaukee Brewers, and Los Angeles Angels, as Cerrone noted at the time.

The Mets search for a GM in 2018 was, characteristically, a mess.

With Owner Fred Wilpon “not a big belive[r] in analytics” some candidates like Toronto Blue Jays Vice President of Baseball Operations Ben Cherington bowed out, according to NorthJersey.com’s Matt Ehalt.

The New York Post reported that many around the league felt that Mets COO Jeff Wilpon “is too involved in baseball operations,” making it less desirable to take the role.

Here’s how Ken Rosenthal, of the Athletic, described the Mets GM search at the time:

“The Mets’ job should be one of the most attractive in the game, drawing widespread, heavy interest. But executives throughout the sport believe the Wilpons exert greater day-to-day influence than many owners, and the team has yet to make a strong commitment to analytics even as other clubs continue to ramp up their research and development staffs.”

Luckily, the Mets brass had the brains to include Ng among the numerous executives they interviewed to take over the team. Other names that got early consideration were Milwaukee Brewers adviser Doug Melvin, St. Louis Cardinals Director of Player Development Gary LaRocque, Player Agent Brodie Van Wagenen, Rays Senior Vice President of Baseball Operations Chaim Bloom, Cleveland’s baseball team GM Mike Chernoff.

In early October 2018, the Mets conducted a first round of interviews, with a second round expected to happen the week after. The team wanted to have a GM in place ahead of the GM Meetings in early November.

Ahead of that second round it was reported by MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo that Ng was among four people who remained in “realistic contention” for the position. Despite this, it didn’t appear likely the Mets would hire her.

The New York Post reported at the time that Melvin and Van Wagenen were “the favorites” for the role, while Ng and Bloom were “in the mix.”

Ultimately, it came down to three candidates: Melvin, Bloom, and Van Wagenen.

The Mets went outside-the-box (sigh) and hired Van Wagenen in late October 2018. Bloom was reportedly the other finalist.

While Brodie did inject some life into a franchise that needed some hope, his era in charge of the Mets was… all over the place, and mostly bad.

Yes, he brought in solid contributors like C Wilson Ramos and INF J.D. Davis, but he also made the wild 2B Robinson Cano and RP Edwin Diaz trade, and signed INF Jed Lowrie to a deal that may be among the worst in Mets history.

The team also faced numerous off-the-field LOLMets moments like when Van Wagenen was caught on hot mic criticizing Commissioner Rob Manfred, or when the Wilpons responded to that by misspelling their GM’s name in a press release. Or when he bad-mouthed SP Zack Wheeler after he signed with the Philadelphia Phillies (and subsequently was amazing, of course). The list goes on and on.

After Steve Cohen bought the Mets in 2020, Van Wagenen was swiftly fired.

As for Ng, she went on to be hired by the Marlins in 2020. As I mentioned, they had a surprise playoff appearance in 2020’s shortened season, but the team also finished 84-78 in her last year running the team—and lost in the Wild Card round.

However, despite her success, the Marlins apparently wanted to hire someone above her. Following her playoff berth season in 2023, they began looking for a president of baseball operations. Ng, understandably, was “not completely aligned” with Marlins Owner Bruce Sherman’s baseball operations plan and a mutual option for 2024 was declined.

But there was another time the Mets and Ng had a connection.

In October 2023, shortly after Ng did not pick up her mutual option with the Marlins, there was a push in the New York media for the Mets to hire Ng to replace GM Billy Eppler.

Eppler abruptly resigned shortly after the Mets hired President of Baseball Operations David Sterns, with an anonymous letter accusing Eppler of manipulating the injured list (something every single baseball team does, but I digress).

With the Mets looking for a new GM, everyone seemed to want Ng to take the role.

“Having run a baseball operations department, Ng might not want to have a title (GM), but not the lead authority, which is vested in Stearns. But Steve Cohen has made it clear he would like to fill his front office with as much brain power as possible and he has demonstrated he will pay what is necessary to get what he craves—we can assume being No. 2 for these Mets would pay more than being the lead person for the Marlins,” The New York Post’s Joel Sherman wrote in a column, later adding: “But Ng was not on the radar before Monday. She is now. The Mets have to—at minimum—investigate whether she is interested and if the fit would work.”

Other outlets also made the same obvious connection. Although Andy Martino of SNY had a source that said: “I doubt she has any interest in the Mets.”

Ng was named the commissioner of the Athletes Unlimited Softball League in April 2025.

Given her track record in Miami, it’s incredibly likely she would have been a better option for the Mets than Van Wagenen in 2018.

Would you have hired Kim Ng instead of Brodie Van Wagenen?

Next newsletter we’ll share the results of the poll! So stay tuned.

Last newsletter’s results: 80% of Almost A Met readers said they wouldn’t have traded for Kluber in 2018, while 20% said they would have.

🔵 Checking in on Scott, Tong and Wenninger in Syracuse (Jorge Eckardt / MetsMerizedOnline)

🟠 They finally won … now what? (The Shea Hello Newsletter / Substack)

🔵 Don’t blame Carlos Mendoza for the Mets’ losing streak (David Korn / Mayday)

🟠 Francisco Lindor’s injury should lead to big chance for the still-tantalizing Ronny Mauricio (Danny Abriano / SNY)

🔵 How do you properly value Clay Holmes? (Brian Joura / Mets360)