If I had been an image-conscious billionaire with a disappointing baseball workforce on my books and limitless monetary assets, David Stearns is likely one of the first folks I’d name to run it. The Mets gained 101 video games in 2022, and whereas 2023 represents a monumental step again for the franchise, this workforce nonetheless has tons of expertise each within the majors and excessive minors. It’s additionally better-funded than some other workforce within the league.
So with Stearns resulting from be a part of the Mets as president of baseball operations, we get a gifted, wealthy workforce being run by one of many prime executives within the sport. I don’t know if it would work, as a result of nothing with the Mets is easy, however I see no apparent higher thought.
The Mets had reportedly been excited by Stearns way back to 2020, and when the Manhattan native stepped down final 12 months, it was extensively assumed that he’d take the Mets job when his contract expired on the finish of 2023. Now that the worst-kept secret in baseball is out within the open (severely, I really feel a bit foolish for not having this prewritten years upfront like a New York Times obituary), let’s see precisely what Stearns can do for the Mets.
Baseball management has been the Mets’ weak spot beneath Steve Cohen’s tenure as proprietor. Team president Sandy Alderson led a scandal-plagued operation that noticed one GM fired and suspended for sexually harassing a reporter and his substitute dismissed after being arrested for DWI. (He was later acquitted of the cost.) The incumbent GM, Billy Eppler, has spent Cohen’s cash competently and even masterminded a artistic and productive fireplace sale this commerce deadline, when it turned out that the Mets had introduced in a pair of Hall of Fame pitchers (Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander) who’d began to show purple on the grocery store shelf. They did precisely what a workforce ought to do in that state of affairs: eat wage to herald higher prospects. Never thoughts that it’s not an incredible signal the Mets had been in that place to start with.
(Free recommendation to anybody with a little bit of free time and entrepreneurial spirit: Start an organization that makes voodoo dolls and effigies that resemble Drew Gilbert and open storefronts in Philadelphia and Atlanta. In 5 years you’ll be wealthy sufficient to purchase an MLB workforce your self.)
But whereas Eppler’s entrance workplace has been good at spending Cohen’s cash, it has struggled within the much less flashy however extra important areas that make up the inspiration of a profitable baseball group: scouting and participant improvement. The Mets appear to have conceded as a lot after they fired 4 of Eppler’s prime assistants in these areas two weeks in the past.
All that is to say that I attempted to put out a one- or two-sentence apart about how the Mets have been sort of dysfunctional on the prime of the baseball ops pyramid, and even that fundamental overview stretched out to 2 paragraphs, plus yet one more for the joke about Drew Gilbert.
In brief, this can be a workforce in dire want of a gentle hand on the tiller. And trying again on a number of the bizarre entrance workplace management the Mets have had up to now 25 years (the aforementioned GMs, Brodie Van Wagenen, the Triumvirate, Omar Minaya), poaching the extremely regarded architect of a profitable mid-payroll workforce would possibly depend as unorthodox for this franchise.
At age 38, Stearns has already racked up a formidable CV. After working for the league workplace and a wide range of groups in his early-to-mid-20s, he got here to prominence because the assistant GM of the Astros from late 2012 to ’15. That’s the proper time-frame, from a résumé-building standpoint: He helped pull the Astros out of the their nadir and construct them right into a playoff workforce however left earlier than the sign-stealing scandal.
In late 2015, Stearns left the Astros to change into GM of the 94-loss Brewers. Within two seasons, they had been again above .500. In Year Three, they had been the highest seed within the NL playoff bracket, took the Dodgers to seven video games within the NLCS, and kicked off a run of 4 consecutive postseason appearances. Stearns turned the membership over to his prime assistant, Matt Arnold, final winter, however the machine has continued to chug alongside in 2023.
Under Stearns, the Brewers have been excellent builders of pitching expertise: Corbin Burnes is a Cy Young winner, and Brandon Woodruff and Freddy Peralta turned All-Stars. They took Drew Rasmussen, a participant the Rays wouldn’t signal after spending a first-round decide on him, and turned him right into a participant the Rays would commerce Willy Adames for. (Loads of that has to do with damage historical past, however the Brewers nonetheless deserve credit score.) Stearns additionally offered excessive on Jonathan Lucroy, buying and selling him to Texas for a bundle headlined by Lewis Brinson; 17 months later, he used Brinson because the centerpiece of a commerce that allowed him to purchase low on Christian Yelich.
And the Brewers’ success isn’t simply the results of intelligent trades and nice scouting. With Stearns in cost, workforce proprietor Mark Attanasio has run payrolls within the backside half of the league. Some of the spendier years coincided with intervals during which the remainder of the league was on a capital strike throughout free company; Stearns and the Brewers pounced, signing Lorenzo Cain and Yasmani Grandal as free brokers.
In brief, Stearns has overseen a entrance workplace that has accomplished all of the issues the Mets have failed to perform, even in the course of the workforce’s extra profitable years. He looks as if the proper peg for this opening.
Which is to not say that Stearns has been excellent. His Brewers golf equipment have continuously hobbled distinctive pitching with a disturbing lack of thump within the lineup. He’s a frequent commerce companion of San Diego GM A.J. Preller, no less than comparatively talking. If you’re vaguely conscious of baseball, Preller has traded with you no less than twice up to now 5 seasons; he and Stearns commerce lots even by these requirements. Each has taken chunks out of the opposite in that point. And I’d argue that one of many largest issues Stearns did to assist the Brewers was a commerce he was concerned in simply earlier than he left Houston: Carlos Gómez and Mike Fiers for Josh Hader, Adrian Houser, and Brett Phillips.
I carry all this up to not be contrarian, or to indicate that I don’t assume extremely of Stearns as a constructor of profitable ballclubs, as a result of I do. I carry this up as a result of, within the spirit of the plain alternative being the right one, this rent is getting in comparison with Andrew Friedman leaving the Rays for the Dodgers in 2014. Friedman was then, as Stearns is now, the extremely regarded mastermind of a workforce that gained persistently regardless of operating low payrolls in an retro market. He was handed the keys to a gifted however continuously aimless workforce with more cash to spend than some other workforce within the league — once more, very like Stearns a decade later.
Friedman has run the Dodgers for 9 years. They’re about to wrap up their eighth division title in that span; the one time they did not win the NL West beneath Friedman, they gained 106 video games, completed a recreation out of first place, and beat the Giants within the NLDS. Along the best way, they’ve additionally gained three pennants and a World Series. In addition to growing Corey Seager, Will Smith, Cody Bellinger, and Walker Buehler; they traded for Scherzer, Yu Darvish, Trea Turner, Manny Machado, and Mookie Betts; signed Freddie Freeman as a free agent; and, lastly and most significantly, conjured All-Star performances from Max Muncy, Chris Taylor, and Tony Gonsolin. (Apologies if I’ve forgotten anybody; the Dodgers have had so many profitable gamers up to now 9 seasons it’s powerful to recollect all of them.)
The Dodgers aren’t simply wealthy; they’re additionally good at all the things. They win yearly, with out exception. That goes to be the expectation for the Mets beneath Stearns, and God assist him in the event that they fall brief.
It gained’t matter that Stearns will face just a few obstacles that Friedman didn’t when he first took over the Dodgers. These are in no way insurmountable, and if Stearns can carry residence the piece of steel they’ll solely make the victory sweeter. Namely: the Dodgers are owned by a anonymous conglomerate of funding bankers that I think about dwelling in a tank and barely sustaining human kind, like if the navigators from Dune solely communicated by way of Magic Johnson. Cohen, in contrast, may be very actual, and really corporeal, and is extra of a hands-on proprietor, for good or ailing.
Second, the NL West has often not been as aggressive because the NL East is now. The Braves are the perfect workforce in baseball in the meanwhile, and their complete core is locked up by way of the Rapture. The Phillies can be the insurmountable big-market bully in both Central division and aren’t going away anytime quickly both. Let’s put it this fashion: If Stearns builds a Mets workforce that wins eight division titles in 9 years, they need to construct a brand new Hall of Fame only for him.
Everyone within the Mets’ orbit most likely understands, on an mental stage, that this can be a more durable job than the mixture of prime payroll and elite head of entrance workplace would make it seem like. There’s each probability that it’ll take Stearns time to get his participant improvement and scouting workers in place, to say nothing of a supervisor, which is an actual concern given the wobbliness of Buck Showalter’s chair in the meanwhile.
I’ve little question that Stearns can construct the Mets right into a perennial World Series contender, if Cohen offers him the money and time to take action. There’s a purpose this has been such a sizzling rumor for thus lengthy: It’s the plain answer. The Mets, of all groups, don’t must overcomplicate issues.
Content Source: blogs.fangraphs.com