Facing the Music: David Stearns Urges the Mets to “Find Their Identity Through Adversity”

The Mets are riding an eight-game losing streak heading into Chicago to face the Cubs. Sitting at 7-12, whispers have started in the media about the status of Carlos Mendoza’s job. Today, the Mets began to shuffle up their lineup, moving Carson Benge to the leadoff spot and Francisco Lindor batting third. 

Today, David Sterns, the team's President of Baseball Operations, met the media in Chicago, talking about the state of their team. “ We haven't played good baseball for the last week for sure.” He said. “Had a tough time scoring runs. A combination of, we're not hitting great. We also ran into some good pitching, and we need to play better.”

The Mets' collective slump in their lineup began when Juan Soto was pulled from the game on April 4th in San Francisco with a calf injury. Since then, the Mets' offense has fallen apart. Since April 5th, the team's first game without Soto, the Mets' lineup has a 36.07% out-of-zone swing percentage, according to FanGraphs. In that timeframe, it leads Major League Baseball.

“I think we're trying to score runs, and sometimes, you got to let the pitcher come to you.” Said Sterns on the inflated chase rate. “And that's really easy for me to say, and it's really easy for me to watch a game and think that it's a heck of a lot tougher when you're in the box, and you want to make something happen. 

“We talked about urgency, and I know you guys have asked about urgency. Urgency is not the problem here. Like, there's plenty of urgency, there's plenty of want, and sometimes that can lead to things like chase rate, unfortunately, but I think that ends with one basis clearing double. We've all seen that time and again throughout our careers in baseball. And I think once we get that, it will, it'll normalize.”

The good news for the Mets is that Soto is expected to return during their next homestand, a nine-game stand. Adding Soto’s prolific bat back into the lineup should help relieve some of the pressure on the rest of the lineup to come through in big spots.

Amid all the losing and noise about Mendoza’s job, Sterns publicly confirms that Mendoza is not the problem. “I think Mendy's doing a very good job. I think Mendy is putting players in positions to succeed.”

The issue with the Mets could also be a familiar one to teams with a lot of new pieces, and that is an adjustment period for everyone to get used to each other. Sterns believes there could be some truth to that with this ballclub.

“I think there are adjustment periods. I think that's natural. I think specifically in New York, there are adjustment periods. We've seen that time and again.” He said. “My sense and you guys are around the team on a daily basis, can sense it, probably, and talking to our players, but my sense is our team has jelled pretty well. I think it was a focus in spring training.

“I think guys spent a lot of time together in spring training, part of, part of being a good team over six, seven month stretch, is finding your identity through adversity. And we're facing adversity right now. It's really an earlier stage that any of any of us expected or wanted, but this has an opportunity to be part of our story, help us find our identity, come through this, and understand we have the ability to do that and and based on the guys we have and the quality of work and the quality of people, I believe we will be able to do that.”

The bottom line is the Mets need to turn this around, and it starts this weekend against the Cubs. We might be 20 games into the season, but the saying goes that you can’t win a division in April, but you can certainly lose one, and the Mets are already in the basement looking up at the rest of the NL East before facing any of those teams.