Where do Mets turn after striking out on their top three candidates?

Things aren't exactly looking great for the Mets during the early portion of their offseason.

And that is because the organization has officially struck out on the top three candidates they were targeting for their president of baseball operations vacancy in David Stearns, Billy Beane and Theo Epstein. 

First, the Mets were denied permission to speak with Milwaukee's David Stearns, as reported by Joel Sherman of The New York Post on Monday morning.

But this was expected as Brewers owner Mark Attanasio did not want to let Stearns leave with one-year left on his contract. The Mets were also denied permission to interview Stearns for this vacancy last year as well.

However, things took a turn for the worst later this afternoon, as Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic then reported that Oakland's vice president Billy Beane has withdrawn his name from consideration.

Beane was initially looked at as a realistic option due to his strong relationship with Mets president Sandy Alderson. But with Beane still under contract with the Athletics, it appears as though he was not interested in re-locating his family to the East Coast to run a big market team.

Now, the Mets must expand their list of candidates, as the only two names remaining who they've been linked to are Los Angeles Dodgers vice president of baseball operations Josh Byrnes and their assistant general manager Brandon Gomes.

But the word is the Dodgers intend to promote Gomes to the role of GM in order to prevent him from departing for another organization. 

This leaves Byrnes who has been with the Dodgers since 2014 and has vast experience working in the front offices of the Boston Red Sox as assistant GM to Theo Epstein, the Arizona Diamondbacks, San Diego Padres and now Los Angeles.

The Dodgers are currently behind 2-0 to the Atlanta Braves in the NLCS. If and when they wind up getting eliminated in this series, the Mets would then proceed to request permission to speak with Brynes. 

At this point, Byrnes appears to be the favorite for the POBO role with the Mets, as long as both he and owner Steve Cohen see him as a fit for this opportuniuty.

Regardless, we should be hearing additional names emerge in the coming weeks with the top three big guns out of the mix.

It is up to Cohen and Alderson to find the right candidate to run the baseball department next season, which is an area they failed in last year. They cannot go into 2022 with Alderson running things again.