“What everyone saw at the winter meetings is what we see on a day-to-day basis,” said Adam Fisher, the Mets’ director of baseball operations, who has worked with Ricco for a dozen years. “He’s calm, cool and collected in pressure situations, and he can handle himself fine as a leader. He’s been in the middle of every single one of our big acquisitions for the last 12 years.”

Ricco’s path to the Mets’ front office began in a newsroom. Growing up in Cresskill, N.J., Ricco was a Yankees fan — an allegiance that has long since fizzled. He wanted a career in sports but was not sure in exactly what capacity.

He worked at the student newspaper at Villanova, where he earned a degree in communications, and by his second semester he was the sports editor. He secured an internship at the ABC affiliate in Philadelphia and did some freelance work for television production companies.

After he graduated in 1990, Ricco sent his résumé to every television network and baseball team and received no interest. Disappointed, he cast a wider net to public relations firms, and through a chance connection he landed an interview with Jeff Idelson, then the Yankees’ director of media relations. Ricco spent 1991 as an intern in the Yankees’ media relations department.

“I was open to anything in sports, and this is kind of what happened,” he said.

That internship led to another, this time in the American League media relations office, back when each league had its own office. That led to a full-time job, and then an offer to run the league’s waiver wire. He administered all of the A.L. teams’ transactions, learning the nuances of baseball’s rules.

“I was 23 years old doing that, and that was kind of my ticket into where I am today,” Ricco said. “I started working with the G.M.s and assistant G.M.s on a daily basis and advising them on different rules.”