Alderson diagnosed with treatable cancer
Mets GM to miss Winter Meetings next week in Nashville
NEW YORK -- Mets general manager Sandy Alderson is battling a treatable form of cancer, the team announced Friday. Doctors confirmed the diagnosis last month and Alderson will begin an eight-to-12-week course of chemotherapy this week.
"The doctors believe and have told Sandy that the cancer is very treatable and are optimistic about a full recovery," Mets chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon said in a prepared statement.
Alderson, 68, will miss next week's Winter Meetings in Nashville, but he has been and will remain active in baseball operations matters. As recently as Wednesday, Alderson spent an entire day with his staff as they brought free agent Ben Zobrist for a visit to the tri-state area. In Alderson's forthcoming absence, assistant general manager John Ricco, special assistant to the GM J.P. Ricciardi and vice president of amateur scouting and player development Paul DePodesta will lead the baseball operations team.
"We'll have plenty of access to Sandy," Ricco said, acting as the staff's spokesman Friday in Alderson's stead. "We talk to him all the time. He was with us the whole day with Zobrist the other day. So I don't envision that being an issue. He's a phone call away.
"The nature of our business is we're all moving around a lot all the time. It's not like your typical everybody shows up at nine o'clock in the morning, meets and then goes through their day. A lot of it is done by phone. A lot of it is done already that way. J.P. and Paul are out scouting. So that's not going to be that big of an adjustment."
The Mets hired Alderson following the 2010 season. Prior to that, he served as GM of the A's, worked for Major League Baseball and was chief executive officer of the Padres.
Thanks in large part to aggressive deals both before and after this summer's non-waiver Trade Deadline, Alderson guided the Mets to a 90-72 record, their first NL East title since 2006 and their first pennant since 2000.
He collapsed during a news conference at Citi Field days after the season, then missed the GM Meetings a week later to undergo a medical procedure. It was during that procedure that doctors confirmed a cancer diagnosis. The Mets offered no information beyond their COO's prepared statement.