If New York Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns wants to fill his club’s general manager vacancy this offseason, a major candidate just emerged.
The Miami Marlins announced on Monday that GM Kim Ng will not be returning to the team in 2024 after she declined the mutual option in her contract.
Ng, 54, became Major League Baseball’s first-ever female general manager three years ago when former team owner Derek Jeter brought her on to help lead the rebuilding NL East side’s front office. While Miami went 220-266 in those three years with Ng at the helm, it made the playoffs in a full season for the first time since 2003 (the Marlins made the playoffs in the COVID-shortened 2020 season). They lost in the Wild Card Series to the Philadelphia Phillies.
The team’s 84 wins were also the most in a regular season in 20 years when they went 91-71 and won the 2003 World Series.
Ng worked her way up the MLB ranks in a career that has spanned over 30 years. She worked as an assistant director of baseball operations with the Chicago White Sox from 1990-1996 before serving as an assistant general manager with the Yankees (1998-2001) where she won three World Series crowns and Los Angeles Dodgers (2002-2011).
During her time with Miami, Ng made key moves to make the usual basement dwellers into a playoff contender. She acquired star closer Dylan Floro from the Los Angeles Dodgers in her first trade as GM in 2021. She flipped Starling Marte and Yimi Garcia for key starting pitcher Jesus Luzardo and a fixture in the middle of the Marlins lineup, Bryan De La Cruz.
Last winter, she sent Pablo Lopez to the Minnesota Twins for batting champion Luis Arraez, who took the NL batting crow this year with a .354 average.
At the trade deadline this season, she attempted to bolster the bullpen by picking up veteran reliever David Robertson from the Mets while getting two big bats in Jake Burger from the Chicago White Sox and Josh Bell from the Cleveland Guardians — both of whom played major roles in clinching a playoff berth.
It remains to be seen just how aggressive the Mets will be on the GM market after Billy Eppler surprisingly resigned earlier this month after just two seasons at the position. The decision came three days after Stearns was introduced as the team’s first-ever president of baseball operations.
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