NEW YORK — With the swift firing of Jared Porter, the Mets appear to have their priorities straight.
Under new owner Steve Cohen, the club wasted little time in getting rid of their newly-hired GM after details surfaced about his graphic and sexual advances toward a female reporter back in 2016. Late Monday night, an ESPN report exposed Porter’s inappropriate behavior toward the woman. Porter was fired by the Mets early Tuesday morning.
He announced the termination in a tweet before team president Sandy Alderson released an official statement.
Cohen, in response to a fan wondering how Porter can professionally redeem himself, expanded on the GM’s firing.
“I have an organization of 400 employees that matter more than any one individual,” Cohen tweeted. “No action would of set a poor example to the culture I’m trying to build.”
The Mets, and particularly Cohen, have boasted about a “culture shift” within the organization ever since the Wilpons sold the team and he took over as sole majority owner in November. Cohen evidently did not want to waste time and effort by keeping Porter employed by the Mets.
Porter was hired by the Mets in December. The club intended to keep Porter within the organization for many years with the idea that he would be eventually groomed to be president of baseball operations. But Porter — who helped with the blockbuster trade that landed the Mets superstar shortstop Francisco Lindor earlier this month — lasted just 37 days on the job before he was dismissed for his inappropriate conduct with a female reporter.
She was a foreign correspondent before moving back to her home country and leaving journalism in part because of Porter’s sexual aggressions, which included sending her an unsolicited photo of an erect penis.
But even as Cohen talks about making a culture change within the Mets — and did right with the Porter firing — his hedge-fund firm Point72 Asset Management is dealing with a pair of discrimination claims from female staff members. Two women filed grievances with the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities in 2020.
