He served as the executive vice president and general manager of the New York Mets of Major League Baseball (MLB) from December 13, 2020, to January 19, 2021.
Porter was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, before settling with his family in Wayzata, Minnesota, where he lived from age 4–15.
Porter was hired by the Red Sox as an intern in Player Development and Florida Operations in January 2004 and won his first World Series title as an executive on October 27, 2004.
During this time, the Red Sox had one of the top farm systems in MLB with future MLB stars such as Daniel Bard, Clay Buchholz, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jon Lester, Justin Masterson, Brandon Moss, David Murphy (baseball), Dustin Pedroia, Josh Reddick, and Anthony Rizzo playing in it.
[10][11] Porter won his third World Series title as an executive on October 30, 2013[12] serving as a key voice and the director of professional scouting for general manager Ben Cherington during the 2012-13 off-season that saw the Red Sox add new players Mike Carp, Ryan Dempster, Stephen Drew, Jonny Gomes, Joel Hanrahan, Brock Holt, Mike Napoli, David Ross, Koji Uehara, and Shane Victorino.
Cherington said that Porter was “the person that was behind a lot of the signings we made after that 2012 season.” [13] Porter was hired[14] by his former Red Sox boss Theo Epstein to work for the Chicago Cubs as Director of Professional Scouting & Special Assistant in September 2015, where, in addition to Epstein, he joined former Red Sox counterparts Jed Hoyer, Jason McLeod, Shiraz Rehman, Matt Dorey, and Kyle Evans in helping to put the Chicago Cubs 2016 World Series Championship team together.
He's (Porter) really great at making things happen as well as the final call in evaluations.”[16] Porter was hired[17] by Mike Hazen to work for the Arizona Diamondbacks as senior vice president and assistant general manager in November 2016 shortly after the Cubs 2016 World Series Championship, where, in addition to Hazen, he joined former Red Sox counterparts Amiel Sawdaye and Torey Lovullo.
On January 18, 2021, ESPN writers Mina Kimes and Jeff Passan published an article alleging a personal relationship that Porter had with a foreign female reporter in 2016 while working for the Chicago Cubs.