Mets GM Sandy Alderson to undergo medical procedure, miss GM meetings

BOCA RATON, Fla. -- New York Mets general manager Sandy Alderson will undergo an unspecified medical procedure this week and will not attend the general manager meetings that run through Thursday at the Boca Raton Resort & Club, assistant GM John Ricco said Monday.

Alderson requested that the specifics of the procedure remain private for now, according to Ricco.

"He had a medical procedure that was scheduled for after the season ended," Ricco said. "Because of the playoff run, it got pushed back, and kept getting pushed and pushed -- obviously for good reason. And so he was going to have it done this week."

Alderson, 67, fainted on Wednesday at Citi Field while speaking with reporters. Ricco said he was not permitted to say whether last week's incident was related to the need for the surgery.

Deputies J.P. Ricciardi, Paul DePodesta and Ricco will handle Mets business matters at the annual meetings and keep in communication with Alderson.

"I'm just going to keep it to that -- just respect Sandy's privacy on this one," Ricco said. "... He asked me to just kind of keep it at that. At some point we'll have more to say. I don't want to portray that there's something extremely urgent about it. He feels comfortable we're down here. We're a pretty veteran group. We're capable of handling it."

Ricco said meetings with agents and other teams would take place this week even without Alderson present.

"I'll be in communication with him," Ricco said. "We do most of our work over the phone and remotely anyway. We don't have to all be in the same room. We can certainly do whatever we need to do."