Jared Porter acknowledged what shipment and inappropriate text message to one reporter while he was an executive of the Chicago Cubs in 2016which led to the New York Mets lo they fired as General manager in 2021 after only 38 days.
Porter made his first public comments about his firing during an episode of the “Baseball Isn’t Boring” podcast released Friday.
Porter was hired by the Mets from the Arizona Diamondbacks on December 13, 2020, and fired on January 19, 2021, approximately nine hours after an ESPN report detailing that he sent unsolicited, sexually explicit text messages and images to a reporter
“It was an inappropriate relationship for many reasons, you know, both for me personally and also, of course, with the reporter,” Porter said. “I want to be very responsible for that as I talk about it. But, yeah, when the article first came out, you know, it was crazy, an enormous amount of fear, you know, shame. You know, there are some people who that I approached.
“Obviously, I talked to my wife, my family, you know, and my co-workers at the time at the Mets about the situation, but, yeah, obviously it was a very difficult time, but, you know, I, like I said, how to be responsible, how I put myself in that situation. You know, I made the decision to send the text that I sent, and I certainly shouldn’t have done that.”
Porter said that because his hiring came during the coronavirus pandemic, he never met with Mets owner Steve Cohen and never visited his office at Citi Field.
Porter understood why Cohen and team president Sandy Alderson fired him.
“Look, I was really enjoying my time with the Mets, working with Sandy and Steve and the group they had put together. You know, they gave me the opportunity to be general manager, which was an incredible opportunity,” he said.
“And look, they had to make the best decision for the New York Mets when the article came out, and I knew they would. You know, I don’t hold any ill will towards them. I think they made the best decision for the Mets. It’s unfortunate that I put and put them in that situation.
Porter said he received a text message from Diamondbacks general managing partner Ken Kendrick that led him to the director of the team’s employee assistance program. That person directed Porter to The Meadows, a center in Arizona for the treatment of addiction and emotional trauma. Porter spent about a week there.
“I literally went from, you know, having negotiated for Francisco Lindor a few weeks earlier to being in an inpatient mental health institute where I wasn’t allowed to have shoelaces on my shoes until it was determined that I wasn’t a suicide threat,” Porter said. “So it was… it was real. “It was affecting me a lot.”
Porter then underwent outpatient treatment at The Meadows facility in Scottsdale for five days a week for eight or nine weeks.
“I had huge emotional walls. I think I was missing some boundaries,” he said.
Porter, who turned 45 on Tuesday, was suspended by Major League Baseball until the 2022 season. Porter said he helped found a company called Blend that works with youth, college and professional athletes on mental health skills.
