Mike Chernoff to formally interview for Mets front office job

Cleveland Indians general manager is set to formally interview for the Mets president of baseball vacancy, according to JP Morosi.

This comes after a week of whispers that the longtime Indians front office member was the front runner to work under new Mets owner Steve Cohen.

It’s worth noting that Cohen did quickly deny the rumor on Twitter, but that doesn’t rule out it’s happening. It’s not like he’s going to publicly acknowledge who the Mets are hiring or interviewing.

If it is happening, it would not be the first time the Mets have been interested in Chernoff. Just two years ago they requested to interview him, but he declined. The Mets went with Brodie Van Wagenen instead, who promptly traded their top prospect for a rapidly aging and PED using Robinson Canó and wild reliever Edwin Díaz.

Chernoff also turned down an opportunity to interview for the Padres GM job in 2014.

The biggest difference here is that he’s interviewing for a step above general manager, president of baseball operations, that is likely blocked by Chris Antonetti in Cleveland for the foreseeable future.

Since Chernoff took over as Indians general manager after the 2015 season, the Tribe have engineered trades for Andrew Miller, Brad Hand, Yasiel Puig, Logan Allen, Carlos Santana, Franmil Reyes, Emmanuel Clase, Cal Quantrill, Josh Nelson, and others. They also drafted an incredible class of pitchers in 2016 (Aaron Civale, Shane Bieber, Zach Plesac), and they have a stable of position players starting to bubble up to the higher levels of the minors.