Mets hire Elizabeth Benn as director of major-league operations
A general view of the national anthem before Opening Day between the Mets and the Washington Nationals at Citi Field on April 4, 2019. Credit: Jim McIsaac
The Mets have hired Elizabeth Benn as director of major-league operations, making her the highest-ranking female baseball operations employee in franchise history, sources said Sunday.
That is the first major front-office addition for general manager Billy Eppler, who since being hired in November has left the inner circle of executives intact, which is what team president Sandy Alderson had hoped for during the elongated GM search early in the offseason.
Benn comes to the Mets from Major League Baseball, for which she had been the senior coordinator of baseball operations the past two years. She previously worked in departments such as labor relations, diversity and inclusion, and youth programs.
As the director of major-league operations, Benn will focus on areas including roster, payroll, transactions and rules/compliance, a source said. Teams routinely have an executive in this role.
In addition to working for MLB, Benn has served as an adjunct lecturer for Lehman College — teaching a variety of philosophy classes — and plays in a men’s baseball league in New York City. She studied philosophy at the University of Toronto until graduating in 2015, then earned a Master’s in philosophy from Columbia in 2017, according to her LinkedIn page.
Benn joins Gretchen Aucoin, recently chosen as a Port St. Lucie-based minor-league development coach, as history-making Mets hires. Aucoin is the first female on-field coach for the club.
Both hires came about a year after the Mets dealt with a series of controversies involving the inappropriate behavior of male employees, raising questions about their workplace culture and leading to owner Steve Cohen paying a law firm to investigate it.
Then-GM Jared Porter and then-hitting coordinator Ryan Ellis were fired last offseason after the Mets learned of their lewd actions. The Mets also were criticized when the behavior of former manager Mickey Callaway came to light.
Eppler’s inner circle includes assistant GMs Bryn Alderson, Ian Levin and Ben Zauzmer, plus director of player development Kevin Howard and vice president of amateur and international scouting Tommy Tanous.
