Mets’ Front-Office Personnel for Future in Place

In his cumbersomely titled role as the Mets’ chief operating officer, senior executive vice president and general manager, Frank Cashen is among the last of a once-powerful species. He is a baseball executive fully responsible for everything his club does in all phases of the game. His specialty is diversity, making him a dinosaur, a creature from the period of dial telephones, manual typewriters, the reserve clause and Sunday doubleheaders. It is an identification Cashen proudly embraces, one he intends to bequeath to first lieutenant Al Harazin in the next two years and one that Harazin values.

Tyrannosaurus Rex Harazin, we can call him. “No, Rex means king,” Harazin said. “I don’t want to be king.” Just the man in charge of everything. “I don’t want to run part of something,” Harazin said. “Frank and I have had a number of conversations over the years. And I’ve told him that’s what I aspire to be. I want to be a dinosaur, too.” And he will be.

The Mets took another step in that evolution Wednesday, promoting Harazin from senior vice president to executive vice president and changing part of Cashen’s title from executive vice president to senior executive vice president. The changes, though not particularly profound or unexpected, have impact nonetheless.

Before the 1993 season begins, Cashen will remove himself from the daily operation of the club and begin to serve in the capacity of consultant. Harazin will assume the title -- chief operating officer -- and responsibilities Cashen has held since Feb. 21, 1980. Gerry Hunsicker, the newest member of the club’s hierarchy, will be the organization’s “point man” in baseball matters. And the Mets will attack the business of baseball with a three-man weave somewhat different from what they anticipated six months ago.

Then, the plan was for Cashen, 64, to reduce his duties by the end of 1990, for Harazin, 48, to assume additional responsibilities, and for Joe McIlvaine to continue in the role that was perceived publicly as the Mets’ “baseball guy.” Since then, McIlvaine has departed to run the baseball operations in San Diego, Cashen has signed a five-year contract that outlines the reduction of his role, Harazin has signed a four-year contract and Hunsicker, 40 and a man with some dinosaur genes too, has been elevated and, as Cashen says, put on the fast track.

Cashen has had to alter his personal plans and his plans for the organization. He temporarily has replaced McIlvaine as the point man in dealing with other clubs while leaning on Harazin, Hunsicker and a somewhat revamped scouting department. The Mets’ decision to pursue free agent Vince Coleman was an organizational matter with input from scouts, Manager Bud Harrelson, Hunsicker, Harazin, Cashen and McIlvaine before he departed. Cashen and Harazin headed the pursuit, and that might have been the case if McIlvaine remained.

But he didn’t, causing problems the Mets hadn’t anticipated. “We’ve made the necessary adjustments,” Cashen said. “And I’m pleased.

“If we had gone outside the organization (to replace McIlvaine), it would have been different,” Cashen said. “But we promoted from within because we had a good man (Hunsicker) who understood the flow and who could swim a little harder to make the transition easy.”

For this year at least, Hunsicker’s primary responsibility is overseeing scouting and player development, although he is involved in discussions and decisions involving the major-league club.

Hunsicker also has inherited 17 contract signings -- almost exclusively the younger members of the club’s 40-player roster -- and will have greater responsibilities in that area next year if and when Harazin becomes involved in other, broader projects. Cashen and Harazin say they see Hunsicker fully assuming the role McIlvaine left and perhaps doing so earlier in his Mets tenure than McIlvaine did.

“Joe had 10 years of experience in the field with us before he left,” Cashen said. “But we spoke from the beginning of putting Gerry on the fast track.”

What Cashen, Harazin and even Hunsicker cannot know for certain yet is whether Hunsicker has the gift that distinguished McIlvaine from others in his field: the ability to look at an 18-year-old high school player and accurately project how he will develop, what he will be at age 23. The Mets consider their best drafts the years when McIlvaine was doing the legwork. Wilpon, who has similar instincts in business and real estate, marveled at McIlvaine’s abilities and called him “my meat picker.”

Cashen said he employed a similar instinct when he hired Harazin away from the Baltimore Orioles in 1980. “I told my owners then that I had hired the guy who could be groomed to replace me in 10 years. I’ve never thought anything different of him since then. ... Yes, he can be a dinosaur. He can run the operation. He’s the most qualified young executive in the game. ... I guess I don’t have to limit it to ‘young’ anymore. He has a grasp of baseball, marketing, radio and TV, concessions, stadium operations, a very eclectic group of things. He’s ready for the responsibility.”

There is a gnawing perception that Harazin is not a “baseball guy,” partially because McIlvaine had such a high profile in that area and partially because Harazin never played the game professionally, as McIlvaine did. “I think it’s too late now,” Harazin joked. “I’ve lost my fastball.”

Cashen said, “Al’s been given a lot of the ‘hatchet man’ jobs here, so people aren’t aware of all he can do. None of the people I trained through the years -- Lou Gorman, Harry Daulton, John Schuerholz -- played the game. It’s not necessarily a prerequisite.”

Beyond that, Harazin said that when the evolution is complete -- when he is in command with Hunsicker as his primary baseball man -- the operation will run as it has since Cashen’s takeover. Not as a dictatorship, but with discussion and shared opinion.

“In my brief time here, I’ve seen that Frank often went along with his lieutenants,” Hunsicker said, “even on some occasions when he might not have been 100 percent in agreement. That’s the way all this works.”

Said Harazin: “Frank has always said, ‘Surround yourself with good people and listen to what they tell you.’ Frank has always listened. It’s made me feel confident. I don’t care much about titles, but I do feel good about my job.”