New York Mets to interview former Brewers GM Doug Melvin

It looks like Doug Melvin may be getting the itch to be a general manager again.

After serving the last few years as an adviser to current GM David Stearns, the man who was able to take the Brewers to the playoffs twice is reportedly being considered as a candidate for the open New York Mets GM job. The New York Post says Melvin will be the first to interview the job, meeting with the team either this week or next.

The Mets are looking to replace Sandy Alderson, who had to step away from the team due to a cancer diagnosis.

Over the weekend, Mets COO Jeff Wilpon went on to blame Alderson for his team’s failures, claiming Alderson refused to sign free agents — despite the Wilpons’ known reluctance to spend money after losing hundreds of millions of dollars in the Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme — and that it was Alderson’s fault the Mets were behind the analytics curve.

If you weren’t aware, Alderson is a mentor of Billy Beane and generally regarded as one of the forefathers of sabermetrics. That’s the kind of asinine statement Mets fans have come to expect from their ownership.

With that in mind, it’s safe to say that despite the bigger market, the Mets GM job isn’t exactly one that could be considered good by most people across baseball. There’s some talent on the current roster, but the minor league system is such that Tim Tebow was legitimately one of their better outfield prospects before he got hurt, it’s clear the money won’t be there to sign big-name free agents, and when things fall apart, ownership will always blame the GM instead of the lack of resources they provided.

So, in a way, maybe it makes sense that Melvin — who made a habit of cobbling together contending teams from scrapheap pieces — would be one of their top (or, at least, first) targets. If there was one criticism of Melvin’s time in Milwaukee (and actually Texas, too), it was that he struggled to develop starting pitching. That wouldn’t be much of a problem in Queens, with Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Zack Wheeler (who Melvin tried to trade for) and Steven Matz already on the roster.

The Mets say they want a GM in place before the general manager meetings in November, meaning they’ll likely want to move fast. While most of the league seems to be moving toward younger, analytic-minded front offices, it would not be a surprise to see the Mets go in the opposite direction and hire someone like the 66-year-old Melvin.