Mets GM Jared Porter harassed, sent lewd photos to reporter, per report

Mets GM Jared Porter, who was hired by new owner Steve Cohen and president Sandy Alderson last month, relentlessly harassed a foreign female reporter via text message and sent her explicit photos while working in the Cubs’ front office in 2016, per an explosive investigative report by ESPN’s Jeff Passan and Mina Kimes that was released late Monday night:

Porter, 41, rose through the major-league front office ranks in the Red Sox organization before joining the Cubs prior to the 2015 season. He joined the Diamondbacks organization as an assistant general manager prior to the 2017 campaign and remained there until being hired by the Mets in December. The Mets planned for him to work under Alderson, a veteran executive with 40 years of front-office experience, and eventually rise to become the club’s president of baseball operations, though that plan now seems to be in major doubt following Monday night’s revelations.

Among the most explosive details from Passan and Kimes’ report:

• ESPN has been in possession of the text records between Porter and the woman, who moved to the US to report on Major League Baseball and did not speak English as her primary language, in 2017. She initially resisted participating in a story but decided to come forward — with her identity concealed — after leaving the US and sports media. Her experiences with Porter reportedly influenced her decision to transition to a career in finance.
• Porter met the woman in an elevator at Yankee Stadium in June 2016, and the two exchanged business cards during a discussion about international prospects. He asked her three times to meet within the first day they met, asking her if she had a boyfriend. He soon began sending selfies.
• For a brief period, the reporter was somewhat responsive to Porter’s advances, discussing meeting him and exchanging selfies. But she told ESPN that she initially pursued a meeting because she believed he was willing to act as a source and that she exchanged selfies with him because it is common for platonic male and female friends to do so in her country. As Porter’s selfies gradually became more sexual in nature, she stopped responding.
• Porter then sent the woman 62 texts — all of which went unanswered — over the next three weeks. On August 11, he sent her 17 images, including a nude photo. After she finally replied, telling Porter that the texts and images were inappropriate after being advised by a player from her home country and an interpreter, Porter sent a series of texts over three days apologizing for his behavior.

For what it’s worth, Porter initially denied sending photos to the woman, though when told that the text records showed otherwise, he amended his statement and claimed that the most offensive photos were “joke stock images.” While Porter remains employed by the team as of early Tuesday morning, Alderson said in a statement Monday night that the Mets “certainly do not condone” the behavior described in the ESPN report and that the team would do a further investigation into the series of incidents. It seemingly would be a major black mark on the Mets, and baseball as a whole, if the first-year GM doesn’t face serious discipline in light of this news.