Cashen a Top 10 GM

[G-Fafif]

Frank Cashen cracks the Top Ten in an upcoming book, Pursuit of Pennants, that aims to rank the best general managers ever. The Bowtie is No. 10.

Sandy Alderson, for reasons mostly unrelated to his Mets tenure to date, is slated at No. 12.

[Edgy MD]

So, amazingly, with Sandy Alderson at #12, Frank Cashen at #10, and likely Bing Devine and George Weiss ahead of them, the Mets will have had four of the top 12 GMs of all time, but mostly at the less-than-ideal stage of their respective careers. I don't know if Herzog will make the list, but obviously they had him at the wrong time also.

[G-Fafif]

George Weiss indeed checked in at No. 5, but with only one spot remaining -- presumably Branch Rickey's -- there's no slot for Devine. Bob Howsam, in the four-hole, seems to have sucked up his '60s Cardinal glory (Devine mentioned as the guy Howsam replaced midway through 1964), and while Weiss's work in assembling a front office that conjured an eventual Miracle is cited in his otherwise MFY-centric profile, there's nothing about Bing's role in putting together the '69 champs.

Rickey was present at the creation before the creation, Continental League-ally speaking, but hard to make him a Met GM for these purposes.