David Stearns is a Smart Man

[Centerfield]

Which makes it crazy how bad a run he’s on. It’s early, but it’s hard to comprehend how bad his moves have been. 
 

Bichette was his biggest acquisition. He’s been terrible. Jorge Polanco was his other big offensive move. Just as bad and now he’s injured. He gambled Semien over Nimmo, which looks terrible 23 games in. And Robert, who started off hot has cooled off badly during the past few weeks. His .737 OPS is by far the best of the crew. It’s looking more and more like Carson Benge was rushed. 
 

Devin Williams is a disaster. Luke Weaver has a 6+ ERA. Luis Garcia is already cut. Only Freddy Peralta and Tobias Myers have been positive additions. 
 

That’s two good moves out of 10. 
 

Stearns is a smart guy with a track record of some success. How is he this bad?

[Centerfield]

And this is coming off of 2025. One of the worst years a Mets executive has ever had. 
 

maybe David Stearns sucks?

[metirish]

 

 

 

[Radar]

Sucks? Could be but overrated I think. Question would be was he the only one who put his past club together or did he just get all the credit. Who knows but he's been bad here to this point.

[bmfc1]

Stearns went to Japan to scout Munetaka Murakami. Murakami plays 1B. Stearns chose not to sign him. The Mets have had 4 different 1B this year and have hit a total of 19 HRs. Murakami has 11.

[metsmarathon]

That don’t look so good does it. 
 

but there wasn’t a whole lot of interest in him overall. Big worries about his swing and miss. Otherwise he’d be somewhere other than the south side. 

[Centerfield]

It seems to me that Stearns is so averse to bad long term contracts that he’s ended up with worse ones. 
 

He hated the Nimmo contract. Ended up with Semien. And also paying $6M to Nimmo. 
 

Didn’t want to hand out a long term contract to older starting pitchers. Ended up with Frankie Montas and Sean Manaea. 
 

Didn’t want to hand out a long contract to a big bat. Ended up with Bichette and Polanco. Neither look likely to give you the return he was hoping for. 

Didn’t want McNeil.  Ate nearly $6M.

Took a flyer on Luis Robert that he’d hit better than the last two years.  He hasn’t.  And the defense hasn’t been as advertised.

It is truly astonishing how crappy this roster is given the payroll.  And if this season is going to be saved, it’s going to come down to the kids stepping up for the underperforming highly paid veterans.

 

 

[Gwreck]

You have to put Bichette, Soto, and Lindor in a separate bucket.  Those 3 guys would have been in the opening day starting lineup for all 30 teams.  That they’re bad, hurt, or both is not Stearns’s fault.  That’s bad luck, not bad roster construction.

The roster after those 3 guys was always the problem because it was counting on too much from the unproven/inconsistent (Baty, Alvarez, Vientos, Benge) or hoping for bouncebacks (Robert, Semien).

[Centerfield]

Of course.  Lindor and Soto are no brainers, and the type of players a big market team should be signing.  Of all the moves Stearns made this offseason, Bichette was the best of them (or the least worst of them), but even that had issues.

He gave a 1 year opt out to a player attached to a QO.  The AAV was insane, and once you factor in the opt-out bonus, he costs us $47M this year.  Keep in mind this was exactly the structure Cohen had a problem with in the Alonso negotiations a year ago.  To now just grant that, and lose the QO compensation is evidence of panic.  I agree that the issue with the lineup was the hitters behind our top 3, but part of the reason we are left with that is because Stearns paid elite level money to a good, not elite player.

The much bigger issue, of course, is Polanco.  Paying to bring in an over 30, oft-injured player, coming off an outlier year and asking him to repeat that outlier year is how you end up in trouble.  And relying on Bichette and Polanco, not to improve the team, but to make up for lost production from two very good, reliable hitters, is why were in this mess.

I think we ended up 9th in runs scored last year.  Everyone agreed we needed to get better.  Our plan to get better was:

1. FIrst, get worse, by losing Alonso/Nimmo/McNeil.

2. Sign Polanco and Bichette to make up for Alonso/Nimmo/McNeil and hope that you've covered the difference.

3. Rely on the upside of Luis Robert

4.  Rely on the upside of Baty/Vientos/Alvarez.

5.  Rely on the upside of Carson Benge.

6.  Hope that all of this was enough to make up for the inevitable offensive downgrade Marcus Semien was going to provide.

In hindsight, I think it's pretty clear to me that David Stearns felt that he was going to get Kyle Tucker, and if he didn't get Tucker, the market would be soft enough that he could cobble together some Polanco-type moves.  I think he never thought the FA markets would stay hot all through the off-season.  A huge miscalculation on his part.

 

[Cowtipper]

The problem is he's not as smart as he thinks he is. He thinks he knows more than the system and has some magic eye that allows him to see eventual success that is never there to begin with. 

[Radar]

8 hours ago, Cowtipper said:

The problem is he's not as smart as he thinks he is. He thinks he knows more than the system and has some magic eye that allows him to see eventual success that is never there to begin with. 

Think you hit the nail on the head. It's about time the media stops about Mendoza on or not on a hot seat and puts the focus on Mr. Genuis and even the owner where the responsibility for this mess really lies. This doesn't give the manager a pass but he's not THE problem.

[Edgy MD]

The media are not a monolith.  You and I posting here are the media, too.

And plenty criticize management.
 

[MFS62]

There's an old sports adage that says, "defense wins games, offense puts fannies in the seats".

If that is true, people are going to be staying away in droves. It will make Grants Tomb look like Grand Central Station (the other one)

And ownership will take action.

Later

[Radar]

9 hours ago, Edgy MD said:

The media are not a monolith.  You and I posting here are the media, too.

And plenty criticize management.
 

You and I are fans. When I think of media I mean writers, sports hosts ect. Unfortunately many are financially tied to teams (not just here) and I find are hesitant to aim criticism at who essentially pays them.

[Edgy MD]

Newsday: David Lennon: David Stearns' makeover of the Mets is a big swing and miss early on - Newsday

The Daily News: Mets disaster of a season are a result of David Stearns’s decisions (some terrible subject-verb agreement there)

The New York Post: How Ste­arns, front office mis­cal­cu­lated — badly

[Marshmallowmilkshake]

David Stearns is a very smart man with a long track record of success before coming to the Mets. 

I don't know if any of the players we parted with are lighting things up. Nimmo has cooled off. Pete is below the Mendoza line. Diaz is hurt. Jet Williams isn't hitting at Triple-A. Sproat has been in the Milwaukee bullpen. Acuna is hitting .186. 

I don't think any of the guys we went hard after are doing well. Kyle Tucker is hitting .239 with three homers. Bregman is off to a slow start. 

He's building the system from the bottom up. It's going to take some time.

It's not his fault Lindor has been hurt since spring training or that Beltran has been a little gimpy -- though there could be some hard questions for the trainers about why guys are getting similar types of soft tissue injuries.

Polanco has been hurt, as he often is. I don't know if there was a great first-base solution out there. Everyone seemed to think Baty had finally turned the corner. Benge probably would have started at Syracuse had Tochman been healthy. 

I'm not saying things have been great because clearly they have been awful. It's not like the Mets are the only supposed good team stumbling out of the game. Look at the Blue Jays, Red Sox, Phillies, Royals, Mariners, Tigers, Royals.

We've had enough turnover. We need some stability. 

 

[MFS62]

Building the system from the ground up may have hit a snag.

The Binghamton AA team, where the organization displays its most promising prospects, has been no- hit twice in the last week. And it has been suffering in the same offensive doldrums as the big club.

Just sayin'.

Later

[Edgy MD]

Binghamton had one of the best minor-league seasons in the organization's history last year.

Talent concentrates at different levels from year to year.

[The Hot Corner]

4 hours ago, Marshmallowmilkshake said:

David Stearns is a very smart man with a long track record of success before coming to the Mets. 

I don't know if any of the players we parted with are lighting things up. Nimmo has cooled off. Pete is below the Mendoza line. Diaz is hurt. Jet Williams isn't hitting at Triple-A. Sproat has been in the Milwaukee bullpen. Acuna is hitting .186. 

I don't think any of the guys we went hard after are doing well. Kyle Tucker is hitting .239 with three homers. Bregman is off to a slow start. 

He's building the system from the bottom up. It's going to take some time.

It's not his fault Lindor has been hurt since spring training or that Beltran has been a little gimpy -- though there could be some hard questions for the trainers about why guys are getting similar types of soft tissue injuries.

Polanco has been hurt, as he often is. I don't know if there was a great first-base solution out there. Everyone seemed to think Baty had finally turned the corner. Benge probably would have started at Syracuse had Tochman been healthy. 

I'm not saying things have been great because clearly they have been awful. It's not like the Mets are the only supposed good team stumbling out of the game. Look at the Blue Jays, Red Sox, Phillies, Royals, Mariners, Tigers, Royals.

We've had enough turnover. We need some stability. 

 

Nimmo may have cooled off of late, but he would still be the Mets best hitter for the season (BA .287, OBP .358, SLG .459, & OPS .817) not named Soto.  Definitely, much better than what we are getting from Semien.  You forgot to mention McNeil. (BA .276, OBP .354, SLG .368, & OPS .721)  whom Stearns practically gave away, would also be a vast improvement over most of the Mets line up.  At least our defense improved (10th in DRS 2026 vs 15th in DRS in 2025).  Unfortunately, the drop offensively is far greater that the improvement in defense.

I don't give Stearns credit for his failure to sign someone (Tucker) that is currently struggling.  It is not as if Stearns changed his mind because he thought Tucker wasn't good enough.  I will not be surprised if by the end of the season, Tucker is fine and would have been a tremendous asset to the Mets offense. 

With each passing season, the solid 3 year stretch (2021-2023) the Robert Jr. put together in his early years appears to be a distant anomaly, rather than realistic norms to expect moving forward.  Then you have to factor in his significant history of injuries, that can not be expected to improve with age.  

The Peralta trade was a good move and the signing of Bichette (though a desperate move to land a "big name" after missing on Tucker) was a good, though he is likely just a high priced one year rental.

He also counted too heavily on Benge being ready even though he only had 103 ABs in AAA Syracuse and hit .178/.272/.311/.583.  His numbers with the Mets closely mirror his numbers in Syracuse, which shows (at least to me) he needed to prove he could hit at the AAA level, before becoming a mainstay for the Mets.

It shouldn't be a surprise that Beltran is a little gimpy since he is 49 years old. 😄  Soto and Lindor being hurt is bad luck, but virtually every team has to deal with injuries.  Even if they both were healthy, the Mets line up with the current assemblage of players would still be a mid-level offense at best.

Stearns established a deserved reputation as a savvy GM during his time in Milwaukee, but he did not, in my opinion, have a great off-season leading when building this team.

[Marshmallowmilkshake]

I wasn't saying Sterns gets "credit" for not signing Tucker. Anyone would sign him in a heartbeat. Was noting that just about all of the big names from the last free agent class are struggling at the start of this season. As you said, Tucker will likely be fine in a bit. But so should Bichette.

Benge would probably have been at Syracuse had Tochman not been hurt. 

McNeil didn't have a position. Did Stearns "practically give him away," or is that the best he could have gotten for him? 

With Soto -- and others -- I wonder if the WBC played a role in the injuries. 

[The Hot Corner]

I expect Bichette to be fine when all is said and done.  What I took too many words to say in my initial post, is that I believe the Mets offense (and likely their record) would be better at present  with McNeil at second base and NImmo in the outfield than they are with Semien at second and  Benge in the outfield.  Once Stearns traded Nimmo for Semien, he virtually had to sign an everyday outfielder.  Tauchman is a good 4th OF and would be a valuable player had he not got hurt.  His injury likely forced the Mets to go with Benge.  I believe Benge will be a solid player, but he needed to prove his readiness by being successful at AAA Syracuse first. 

[Cowtipper]

With Bichette, it's not even May yet. Since his nadir of .071 on March 29, he's hitting .260. He'll get there. 

[The Hot Corner]

2 hours ago, Cowtipper said:

With Bichette, it's not even May yet. Since his nadir of .071 on May 29, he's hitting .260. He'll get there. 

Agreed.  As i said in this thread and numerous others, I am not overly worried about Bichette.   

Unfortunately, Soto, Bichette, and the injured Lindor are the only hitters with a proven record of success.  I keep waiting & hoping for Alvarez and Baty to put it together.  They both have periods of success, but neither of them have been able to maintain momentum for prolonged stretches.  Vientos had a wonderful 2024 season, but the pitchers have figured out how to exploit his lack of plate discipline.  Unless he can make adjustments, the free swinging hitter with good power that strikes out far too often (roughly 30%) and draws few walks (7-8%).  

[seawolf17]

If you told me in mid-March that MJ Melendez would our #3 hitter and Carl Edwards Jr. would be the best pitcher on our team, I'd have said "I bet we are pretty solidly in last place."

[Centerfield]

It’s shocking to be relying on those guys with this huge payroll. David Stearns is going to set a record for contracts eaten. 
 

I mean, we are already paying for Nimmo and McNeil to play for other teams. We are paying  Frankie Montas to not play at all. Manaea is certainly an “eat the contract” candidate. As is Senga. Semien’s contract is the worst of them. It will be a test of how long we can tolerate the pain before cutting losses. Polanco’s contract looks bad. So does Devin Williams. Minter has been a waste of money. 
 

Luis Robert looks bad.  We’ll need to buy him out at $2M next year.  Bichette also gets an opt out bonus  $5M.  

All of this while wasting a year of Juan Soto’s prime. Inexcusable. 

[Gwreck]

25 minutes ago, Centerfield said:

It’s shocking to be relying on those guys with this huge payroll. David Stearns is going to set a record for contracts eaten. 
 

I mean, we are already paying for Nimmo and McNeil to play for other teams. We are paying  Frankie Montas to not play at all. Manaea is certainly an “eat the contract” candidate. As is Senga. Semien’s contract is the worst of them. It will be a test of how long we can tolerate the pain before cutting losses. Polanco’s contract looks bad. So does Devin Williams. Minter has been a waste of money. 
 

Luis Robert looks bad.  We’ll need to buy him out at $2M next year.  Bichette also gets an opt out bonus  $5M.  

All of this while wasting a year of Juan Soto’s prime. Inexcusable. 

I’m on board with criticism of Stearns for making ill-advised moves but this one doesn’t make sense.

-The Mets aren’t paying Nimmo to play for another team; the whole point of that deal was to lower overall financial exposure.  Maybe (and it sure looks that way) it was a bad trade because the Mets weren’t getting enough on-field value in return but for cash purposes it was a reduction of money.

-Minter is fantastic when on the field.  Wasn’t it part of the Mets’ financial advantage to sign him to that deal knowing that they aren’t hamstrung spending the money if it doesn’t work out?  Should Stearns have spent even more money for a different reliever?

-Polanco was a (likely?) a bad move because he doesn’t really have a position.  The alternative was…what, exactly?  Spend more on whom?

The point is that the issue isn’t the money, it’s the choice of players.  And maybe also the manager.

 

[Edgy MD]

Is it not true that a lot of folks advocate for their team to eat costs?

When a contract that is enticing over the short-term but carries a long-term risk is available to be signed or acquired, do not advocates for a more extravagant team call for their management to embrace that risk on the argument that they can eat those contracts if and when they turn bad?