The Mets announced Tuesday evening that senior vice president of baseball operations/assistant general manager John Ricco will be changing roles and now holds the newly created title of senior vice president and senior strategy officer. The North Jersey Bergen Record’s Matt Ehalt first reported that Ricco was taking on a new role within the organization (Twitter links).
“John has been invaluable to this organization for many years,” Wilpon said in the press release announcing the change. “I’m extremely grateful that he’s remaining with us. He brings a wealth of knowledge on a variety of topics and we know he will have a lot of success in his new role.”
It’s a hybrid role for Ricco, who’ll continue to have a hand in baseball operations matters but will also report directly to chief operating officer Fred Wilpon and play a larger role in some key financial prospects for the club (e.g. construction projects at the team’s Spring Training and minor league facilities). On the baseball side of the coin, the Mets’ release specifies that Ricco will continue to work with general manager Brodie Van Wagenen in “salary arbitration and oversight of the Baseball Operations budget and Major League payroll.”
This past summer, Ricco was one of three veteran executives tasked with overseeing the baseball operations department after Sandy Alderson stepped down from the position due to a recurrence of the cancer he’d battled for several years. (Alderson, for those who missed it, accepted a role as a senior advisor in the Athletics front office earlier today.) Ricco, J.P. Ricciardi and Omar Minaya split Alderson’s duties among them, but Ricciardi is no longer in the organization and it seems now that Ricco will have a more limited role in baseball operations after it was long believed that he was being groomed as a possible successor to Alderson.
Ok
Tragedy Officer!
As Senior Strategy Officer, Ricco will be solely responsible for programming and activities for all of the Mets’ Senior citizens. His qualifications make Ricco perfectly suited as he has been playing board games with Mutt for years. As a Senior officer of the company he will also develop programs for those like Sol and “TC” who have shown that they need some guidance as well. Ricco has already planned a renovation at Chitifield that will be officially announced on Opening Day; the grand opening of “Coney Island Boardwalk” which will be in the parking lot and feature shuffleboard games.
In his secondary role, Ricco will dole out the play money for Wagon Wheel’s ATM card. He commented, “It’s a learning experience to stick roles from trying to grab as much of the owners’ money to trying to spread it around. So I will be giving the spending card account small regular amounts so that he doesn’t piss it away so quickly.”
Who is the Yankee Senior Strategy Officer?
mikeyank55
Very good reply!
Wow. You boys play together so nicely. Your lunch has been prepared to match your personality:
Peanut butter and jelly on wonder bread. No crying—the crust has been cut off.
Really?
Yes FC-look in the mlbtraderumors FAQ and you will see it in Chapter 86;
What to do with Whining Mets fans.”
What does it say about annoying Yankees fans?
I just got a promotion too! I was Vice President of recliner operations but now I’m Senior Vice President of Sofa operations with control over all remote capabilities.
Congratulations!
Wasn’t Johnny Rico the main character in Starship Troopers?
Welcome to Rico’s Roughnecks
You wanna live forever?
He’s more deserving than Tony Bernazard think his name was, who was trying to fight people.
Gotta appreciate his passion though.
“… and Ricco, now, it seems will have a more limited role… ”
Better written as:
“…and Ricco it seems will now have a more limited role…”
#StopCommaAbuse
I prefer “… and it seems now that Ricco will …”
Fixed it for Steve ;)
How many FA are still out there waiting to sign? Anyone know?
MLBTR knows…
If only there was some kind of database for free agents
If I was a Mets’ fan, I’d probably want a better brand name.
Ricco who? Suave
You are one of those guys always walking around wearing a baseball cap, Yankees jacket, sweat pants and discount white sneakers, right?
Why pay to much for sneakers? They, are, all, made, by, the, same, exploited, workers…..
You fight the power brother
Stop not. You are still wearing the Mets T-shirt, “you gotta believe”. It’s time for a new one, “you gotta give up after getting kicked in the teeth for 40 years”.
Tug McGraw has authorized his photo on the short as long as the headline appears as written.
A T-shirt can simply be taken off, unfortunately the reek of smugness emanating (“originating from” I thought I would save you from having to google it) you simply can’t be washed off
How about you start by letting us have our team name back here in Syracuse, Johnny.
I wish the league could be more transparent about their employees and players. Riccos been with the Mets for the majority of my lifetime and I don’t know what makes him valuable. And I actively pay attention to these things. I want to be equipped with the knowledge to analyze even the personnel changes, but the teams opporate in this weirdly almost pre-emptively guilty way. As if they’re not sharing all of the information as a way of hiding something. I’m not sure that’s the case, but until the teams are more transparent all fans and reporters can do is speculate.
I think most large corporations operate that way. CEO of xyz steps down and the board chairman puts out a fluff piece thanking said CEO and how he will be missed, yada yada… then you find out on the rumor mill that he was forced out. No company is transparent with big exec shuffling…
Absolutely. You’re right. I would go as far as to say that that’s a standard. My argument is that teams ought not to opporate this way. Transparency is the way to go. Especially because people don’t care about companies the way they care about sports institutions. I think people who are deeply investing time and money into a team would be more satisfied with more feedback from the team
There are legal reasons why you can’t be totally transparent. If a new prospective employer calls your previous employer, all your previous employer can do is confirm that you worked there from when to when. The previous employer will not provide any additional information on the circumstances. That’s the reason why people leaving often get “future endeavored.”
I think they can
say they are
eligible for
rehire. Or not.
Hey jiggley-Ricco is Sol’s son-in-law. That makes him Mutts great nephew and Jeff’s hairpiece designer. He also pitches in for “TC” during office hours and gets everyone coffee.
It sure seems like Omar Minaya is head of baseball operations with Brodie being the GM or in today’s game the face the answers the media questions about Omar’s decisions that everyone thinks are Brodie’s and ok’d and approved by Jeff Wilpon
Official WIG approved decision.
This is great news , this move will probably make the Mets the favorites to win the World Series.
Hey Chass—that’s your old post from
1986.
New title, same salary…bc…Mets.
The Mets have a strategy ?
The strategy is and always will be to keep payroll as low as possible while keeping butts in the seats. Whatever will be will be beyond that.
Worst owners is sports
Maybe they should save the executive salary and higher a couple more people in the analytics dept?
Hey Dummy—
Hire is what you do when you add employees.
You do have a good point though. The Mets front office is bloated payroll that includes Mutts brother in law Sol as well as
team clown “TC”. Between their families and neighbors this group parades around Chitifield like they were winners at Caesars.
They don’t have a real analytics department, instead having a couple of Brooklyn Dodgers’ fans who feed the Wilpon’s wishful thinking.