After hiring Andy Green away from the Cubs for a senior player development role, the Mets are adding another name to their front office today. Per Joe Doyle of FSS Plus, the club has hired Astros scouting director Kris Gross to oversee their amateur scouting department. While Gross’s title with the Mets is not yet confirmed, Will Sammon and Chandler Rome of The Athletic suggest that he will be a vice president in New York, with Doyle suggesting his title is “believed” to be VP of Amateur Scouting.
Gross, 42, was a pitcher in the Cubs’ minor league system from 2003 to 2005. After retiring from his playing career, Gross began his scouting career with the Cardinals in 2009 before joining the Astros as a crosschecker in 2012. Gross was promoted to his most recent role of scouting director following the 2018 season. Right-hander Hunter Brown, catcher Korey Lee, and top outfield prospect Drew Gilbert are among the more notable names the Astros drafted under Gross’s watch, which coincided with the club’s loss of first- and second-round draft picks in 2020 and 2021 due to the club’s electronic sign stealing scandal. Brown has a career 4.60 ERA and 4.10 FIP with a 26.8% strikeout rate across 176 big league innings the past two seasons with Houston, while Lee and Gilbert were utilized at the trade deadline earlier this year to land right-handers Kendall Graveman and Justin Verlander, respectively.
Rome and Sammon note that although Gross was the person in charge of Houston’s 2023 draft, GM Dana Brown had more direct influence over the process than former GMs James Click or Jeff Luhnow did in the past. Brown’s involvement in the draft process was hardly a surprise given his background as VP of scouting with the Braves, and the pair note that Brown and Gross enjoyed a strong working relationship in 2023. Still, it’s possible that Brown’s hands-on approach to the draft could leave the Astros in better position to absorb the loss of Gross than may otherwise be expected.
In departing Houston, Gross heads to New York to join new Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns, whom Gross overlapped with in Houston during Stearns’s years as assistant GM of the Astros. Sammon and Rome also point out that one of Stearns’s perceived weaknesses during his tenure in the top job with the Brewers was the club’s record in the draft, a flaw that the addition of Gross could help to assuage. After a difficult 2023 season that leaves the Mets’ plans for 2024 and beyond murkier than expected, Gross is set to join a Mets organization that has made clear their intention to prioritize bolstering the club’s farm system.
To this point, the club has gotten a solid head start on that goal and currently ranks seventh in the majors per Fangraphs. That being said, the Mets also watched top talents such as Brett Baty, Mark Vientos, and Ronny Mauricio struggle in their first tastes of big league action in 2023 even as young catcher Francisco Alvarez held his own while stepping into an everyday role with the club. The struggles from Baty, who was a consensus top-3o prospect entering the 2023 campaign but slashed just .212/.275/.323 in 108 games with the Mets this year, and others underscore the work still left to do for Gross and the rest of the front office.
At first glance, I thought the title meant they were sending him overseas for amateur scouting.
That’s Gross?
This dude and Robbie Grossman… never heard the end of how gross they were in elementary school, middle school, high school, college if they elected debt over freedom, and now you hemlock have stalked them like the stalking butler into there professional careers and there wondering “will we ever hear the end of it” cue John “Cougar” Mellencamp wondering if his name was cool enough to sell without the cougar? Like Ratts Way Cool Jr.? Or Ricky Bobby learning to drive fast without the Cougar in the car? Columbian Bam Bam and the fuzz is always the last ditch effort
I’m not the hemlock who has ghosted anything into my professional career. You obviously have me confused with a different hemlock.
“Scouting Director” would have been too complicated.
hes not being hired for scouting director, the legend Tommy Tanous isn’t leaving, Kris will be a VP for amateur scouting and take some load off Tanous who was managing both amateur and international scouting departments.
I just can’t keep up with the titles these days. Hard to know or remember if a team has a GM or a POBO or both or whatever. “Director of Amateur Scouting” seems a more succinct title.
Wouldn’t keeping Tommy Tanous be David Stearns decision? Did Stearns make a statement about keeping Tanous? Maybe I missed it.
There was a big shakeup a couple days ago in scouting, Stearns fired 4 scouts. If he was going to fire Tommy he would have then with everyone else. The fact that he didn’t and he hired another scouting director for a lesser role kinda proves he’s keeping Tommy, at least for the time being. Maybe they made a deal where he works 2 more years and then retires and Gross takes over idk no statement was ever made but its clear Tanous is staying for now or Gross would have been hired to replace him instead of assist him.
Probably their most significant hire since Cohen bought the team. The Jeff Luhnow front office tree is pretty fruitful.
I should clarify. David Stearns is the most significant hire. But in terms of building out a front office under the POBO, this is the next most significant hire.
Anyone else see Kris Kross at first? “The Mack dad’a make ya… Jump Jump…”
Hahaha… was just about to post this.
“How high? Real high, ’cause I’m just so fly
A young lovable, hugable type of guy”
I thought Kris Kross sang “Ride Like the Wind”
Great guitar at the end.
JUMP JUMP!!!!!
I’m hoping this is as strong a move for the mets as i think it is.
I’m here for the fan overreaction!
Boys in Bronx need to do this. Team in flux needs to reshape itself
Why not Jason McLeod Look at the job he did with both the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs and his current role with Arizona Diamondbacks
So many irrelevant and juvenile comments. Let’s give it time to bear fruit. LFGM!
Worthy of a double-jump?
So.. you’re new here, aren’t you?
Looking forward to a drastic overhaul of the minor league system.
That the Mets couldn’t teach any one of Baty, Vientos, or Mauricio to field 3B competently despite having them for a collective 18 years shouts the idiocy of the organization. Nor could they settle on one position for any of this defensively challenged collection that they’d be likely to play at the major league level. And meanwhile, the Mets deal JD Davis, whom they couldn’t teach to play 3B either, and Davis goes to the Giants and promptly turns into a top 10% 3Bman by fielding and OAA.
You’d think that would have suggested something to this dysfunctional rathouse of an org.
They even continued to play Mauricio at SS well into 2023. Did they figure he’d learn to play “wherever” at the MLB level? Who was running this fiasco? Dodgers East my arse.
Sell, Cohen. Sell. This isn’t for you.
Tanous drafted a red-flag Kumar Rocker
“…and currently ranks seventh in the majors per Fangraphs.”
—–Eh… they’re just one Ronny Mauricio away from a virtual tie for 14th place with Detroit.
“That being said, the Mets also watched top talents such as Brett Baty, Mark Vientos, and Ronny Mauricio struggle in their first tastes of big league action in 2023 even as young catcher Francisco Alvarez held his own while stepping into an everyday role with the club.”
—–Eh^2. What was Alvarez’s OPS fr July 20th to the end of the season: ..157/.254/.302/.556.
His BA from May 28 to Oct 1 was .187. No one’s THAT tired.